Interesting facts about the Russian language. Unusual and interesting facts about the Russian language

Do you know that in Russian the words “bull” and “bee” have the same root?

Contrary to popular belief, the Russian language does not have one word with three “e”s in a row, but two. And there are as many as 74 words starting with the letter “th” in our language. And the Guinness Book of Records records a word with a length of 35 letters.

Most words with the letter “F” in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” there was only one word with the letter “f” - fleet.

There are only 74 words in the Russian language that begin with the letter “Y”. But most of us remember only “yod, yogi” and the city “Yoshkar-Ola”.

There are words in the Russian language that start with “Y”. These are the names Russian cities and rivers: Ygyatta, Yllymakh, Ynakhsyt, Ynykchansky, Ytyk-kyyol.

The only words in the Russian language with three letters “e” in a row are long-necked (and others with -neck, for example, crooked-, short-) and “snake-eater”.

In the Russian language there is a word with a unique prefix for the language - ko-zakoulok.

The only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is take out. It is believed that this word contains the so-called zero root, which alternates with the root -im- (take out-im-at). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like take out, and it had a material root, the same as in remove, embrace, understand (cf. remove, embrace, understand), but later the root -nya- was reinterpreted as the suffix - well- (as in stick, blow).

The only one-syllable adjective in the Russian language is “evil”.

In the Russian language there are words with prefixes unique to the language and -, - total and total and a- - maybe (obsolete a vos “and vos will not be lucky”), formed from the conjunctions “and” and “a”.

The words “bull” and “bee” have the same root. In works ancient Russian literature the word "bee" was written as "bchela". The alternation of vowels ъ / ы is explained by the origin of both sounds from one Indo-European sound U. If we recall the dialect verb to rumble, which has the meaning of “roar, hum, buzz” and is etymologically related to the words bee, bug and bull, then it becomes clear what it was like general meaning of these words.

Dahl suggested replacing foreign word“atmosphere” in Russian “kolozemitsa” or “mirokolitsa”.

Until the 14th century in Rus', all indecent words were called “absurd verbs.”

In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, the longest word in the Russian language was named “X-ray electrocardiographic”, in the 2003 edition “excessively considerate”.

In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language A.A. Zaliznyak edition 2003 is the longest (in letters) common noun lexeme in dictionary form- this is the adjective “private entrepreneurial”. Consists of 25 letters.

The longest verbs are “to re-examine”, “to substantiate” and “to internationalize” (all - 24 letters; word forms -uyuschimi and -hivsya 25 letters each).

The longest nouns are “misanthropy” and “excellency” (24 letters each; word forms -ami - 26 letters each, however, “misanthropy” is practically not used in the plural).

The longest animate nouns are “eleventh-grader” and “clerk” (21 letters each, word forms -ami - 23 letters each).

The longest adverb recorded by the dictionary is “unsatisfactory” (19 letters). However, it is necessary to take into account that the overwhelming majority of qualitative adjectives in -y / -iy form adverbs in -o / -e, which are not always recorded in the dictionary.

The longest interjection included in the Grammar Dictionary is “physical education-hello” (15 or 14 letters depending on the status of the hyphen).

“accordingly” is the longest preposition and the longest conjunction at the same time. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle “exclusively” is a letter shorter.

In Russian there are so-called insufficient verbs. Sometimes a verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example: “win”. He will win, you will win, I... will win? Shall I run? will I win? Philologists suggest using the replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner.” Since the first person form singular missing, the verb is insufficient.

To successfully master the difficult phrase “I love you,” the British use the mnemonic “Yellow-blue bus”

The Russian language at school can, perhaps, be considered one of the most important subjects, ignorance of which can leave a serious imprint on later life person. But how to increase children's interest in it? How to make it easier to understand such difficult and confusing rules at first glance? A regular issue dedicated to the Russian language will help with this. Interesting Facts, funny stories the origin of words, “blunders” from essays - all this will come to the rescue and make Russian a truly native language for students.

What can a wall newspaper tell you about?

A school wall newspaper dedicated to the Russian language should become not just a statement of facts, but also a way of communication. Let students ask questions, leaving them in a special pocket, bring their notes (you can introduce some kind of encouragement for such activity) and participate in competitions.

  • Did you know that in the Russian language there are animate neuter nouns: “child”, “animal” and “monster”?
  • The only thing full adjective in Russian, having one syllable is the word “evil”.
  • The verb “take out” is the only word in our language that does not have a root. It is believed that it is zero here and alternates with -it (take out - take out).

“Any foreigner who claims to know the Russian language perfectly can be tested. Invite him to translate the following sentence (I wonder if you yourself will understand what it is about?): “Mowed with a scythe.” And if a foreigner ends up saying something like: “A man with a crooked tool cut the grass,” then he can truly be considered an expert on the “great and mighty.”

But at the end of these notes, do not forget to ask: “Do you know such fun facts? This will stimulate children's interest in reading and create the beginning of communication.

Information that a wall newspaper can tell about

The school wall newspaper can become a meeting amazing facts. Like these, for example:

  • all obscene words before the 14th century. in Rus' they were called “absurd verbs”;
  • in the Russian language there is a word consisting of 46 letters - “thousand-nine-hundred-eighty-nine-millimeter”, and the longest preposition and at the same time the longest conjunction is the word “respectively” consisting of 14 letters;
  • and the word “darkness” used to be a numeral denoting the largest known quantity - 10 thousand.

No less interesting will be the information for the “Entertaining Russian Language” section about nouns with “dropping out” vowels. If you decline words such as louse, day, lion, forehead, lie, stump, ditch, rye, sleep, seam, etc., then not a single vowel will remain in their roots. And since not all words are listed, you can invite readers to add to this list.

Amazing letter "Ъ"

The history of the 28th letter of the Russian alphabet “ъ” is complex and confusing and may also become the topic of one of the newspaper issues.

In the old days, it meant something very short about which linguists are still arguing. Later, from about the middle of the 12th century, it was used to break words into syllables and a line into individual words, until the widespread transition to the use of spaces (to God's chosen king) took place.

But even after spaces appeared between the words, the rule remained in Church Slavonic writing: “ъ” is the letter indicating the end of the word. That is, every word in the Russian language could previously end only with a vowel, й, ь or ъ (pawnshop, address, grocery store). Imagine, writing this absolutely unnecessary sign took up to 4% of the text!

Now, as a result of the Russian spelling reform carried out in 1917-1918, a new rule has appeared: the unpronounceable “ъ” is a letter that is used only as separator mark between a consonant and a vowel. It can be found at the junction of a prefix and a root (congress, embrace, corrosive, etc.) or to indicate the iotized pronunciation of vowels in (injection, adjutant, etc.).

But, of course, this is not all that can be said about the solid sign.

Let's talk about suppletives

It is not necessary to collect interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper “from the world.” After all, even a completely scientific phenomenon from the field of linguistics can turn out to be surprising and entertaining for the average reader. For example, suppletives.

Each of the native speakers can easily form from any:

  • write - wrote,
  • read - read,
  • do - did,
  • sing - sang,
  • go - ... walked.

This “strange” discrepancy between the root of the initial and derivative form is called suppletive. The same phenomena occur during the formation comparative degree some adjectives:

  • funny - funnier,
  • smart - smarter,
  • warm - warmer,
  • good - ... better or bad - ... worse.

The same can be found in nouns, for example, in the word “man” (his plural- “people”, formed from a different root), the pronoun “I” (its indirect cases “me”, “me”, etc. also have a different root).

How a hooligan appeared in Russia

A school wall newspaper on the topic: “Russian language and its history” can successfully post Interesting Facts and about the origin of some words. Here is an example of a short note about how the word “hooligan” appeared in the Russian language.

It's no secret that a hooligan is a person who indulges in excesses and does not respect the law, but the fact that given word Previously it was an English surname, probably few people know it.

Yes, yes, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. In England, in the city of Southwark, there lived a most unpleasant family engaged in banditry and robbery. They all bore the same surname - Khaligan. And soon they became sadly famous throughout England. And about the head of this robber clan, Patrick Haligan, there was even a mocking song composed, which over time became popular throughout Europe. Caricatures were drawn of the Khaligans, parodies were written, and their surname gradually became a household name, not only in England, but also in Russia, where, however, it was somewhat modified.

Contradictions in the same word

Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper can be selected in huge quantities. Schoolchildren will probably be curious to know about this amazing phenomenon development of our language as enantiosemy - polarization of the meaning of one word. That is, in one lexical unit meanings can contradict and be opposed to each other. Judge for yourself - the well-known word “priceless” contains two concepts at once:

1) something that has no price;

2) something that has a very high price.

What does a person mean when he says, “I listened to the lecture”? That he listened carefully to her or, conversely, that he never heard anything? The verb “listen”, as you can see, is its own antonym.

How did enantiosemy arise?

Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper may include the history of this phenomenon.

Linguists explain it by using the word in different areas, for example in and in book language. Something similar happened with the word “dashing.” If in ancient Russian manuscripts it had only one meaning: “bad, nasty” (dashing person), then in common parlance “dashing” also became “brave, daring” (dashing warrior).

The thing is that in ancient times they most often spoke of robbers as dashing people, capable, as everyone knows, of bold, risky and reckless actions. This is where the new, opposite meaning of the ancient word originated.

The Russian language is rich in examples of enantiosemy of words. You can remember the following: borrow (borrow - lend) or probably (certainly, definitely - maybe not exactly).

The wall newspaper can present facts about how the great Russian language developed both in the form of short notes and as popular science articles.

The newspaper discussed in the article should become both exciting and thought-provoking reading for children of different ages. Interesting facts about the Russian language for a wall newspaper can be found in large quantities found in the media, especially now, when interest in the native language has risen to a higher level.

But once again I would like to remind you that such a newspaper is not just an informative publication, but also a place for communication. Only in this way will interest turn from purely contemplative into something more real, leading to a passion for the subject, and perhaps even to the discovery of the talent of a writer, poet or artist. Good luck!

The Russian language is one of the most complex and rich languages ​​in the world. It has a long history of development. However, like Russia itself.

Language is not a random collection of letters and words. It represents a system. We see the richness of the Russian language at all its levels, starting with sounds and ending complex sentences and entire texts. For example, in Russian, one of the few languages, there is a division of verbs into persons. This is not found in English and many other languages ​​of the world.

The vocabulary of the Russian language contains enormous wealth. There are many words in it to denote not only feelings or actions, but even their shades.

A SELECTION OF THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Most words with the letter F in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” there was only one word with this letter - fleet.

There are only 74 words in the Russian language that begin with the letter Y. But most of us only remember iodine, yoga and Yoshkar-Ola.

There are words starting with Y in the Russian language. These are the names of Russian cities and rivers: Ygyatta, Yllymakh, Ynakhsyt, Ynykchansky, Ytyk-kyul.

The only words in the Russian language with three letters E in a row are long-necked (and others on the neck: for example, crooked-, short-).

In the Russian language there is a word with a unique prefix “ko” - nook.

The only word in the Russian language that does not have a root is take out. It is believed that this word contains the so-called zero root, which alternates with the root -im- (take out-im-at). Previously, until about the 17th century, this verb looked like take out, and it had a material root, the same as in remove, embrace, understand (cf. remove, embrace, understand), but later the root -nya- was reinterpreted as the suffix - well- (as in stick, blow).

The only one-syllable adjective in the Russian language is evil.

In the Russian language there are words with prefixes unique to the language and- (total, total) and a- (maybe; obsolete “and you won’t be lucky”), formed from the conjunctions “and” and “a”.

The words bull and bee have the same root. In the works of ancient Russian literature, the word bee was written as bchela. The alternation of vowels ъ/ы is explained by the origin of both sounds from the same Indo-European sound u. If we recall the dialect verb buchat, which has the meaning of “roar”, “buzz”, “buzz” and is etymologically related to the words bee, bug and bull, then it becomes clear what the general meaning of these words was.

Dahl proposed replacing the foreign word atmosphere with the Russian words kolozemitsa or mirokolitsa.

Until the 14th century in Rus', all indecent words were called “absurd verbs.”

In the 1993 Guinness Book of Records, the longest word in the Russian language was named X-ray electrocardiographic; in the 2003 edition, it was named “excessively considerate.”

In the Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language by A. A. Zaliznyak, 2003 edition, the longest (in letters) common noun lexeme in dictionary form is the adjective private entrepreneur. Consists of 25 letters.

The longest verbs are to re-examine, to substantiate and to internationalize (all - 24 letters; word forms - uyuschimi and - having - 25 letters each).

The longest nouns are misanthropy and eminence (24 letters each; word forms -ami - 26 letters each, however, misanthropy is practically not used in the plural).

The longest animate nouns are eleventh-grader and clerk (21 letters each, word forms -ami - 23 letters each).

The longest adverb recorded by the dictionary is unsatisfactory (19 letters). However, we must take into account that the overwhelming majority of qualitative adjectives in -й / -й are formed into adverbs in -о / -е, which are not always recorded in the dictionary.

The longest interjection included in the Grammar Dictionary is fizkult-hello (13 or 14 letters depending on the status of the hyphen).

The word is accordingly the longest preposition. It consists of 14 letters. The longest particle is exclusively one letter shorter.

In Russian there are so-called insufficient verbs. Sometimes a verb does not have any form, and this is due to the laws of euphony. For example: win. He will win, you will win, I... will win? Shall I run? will I win? Philologists suggest using replacement constructions “I will win” or “I will become a winner.” Since there is no 1st person singular form, the verb is "insufficient".

To successfully master the difficult phrase “I love you,” the British use the mnemonic “yellow-blue bus.”

And yet, yes - in the Russian language there is a word with six consonant letters in a row, and even with only one vowel - vzbzdnil.

As they say, the Russian language is great and powerful. Today, many people no longer understand what they are writing, or rather, that they are making a lot of mistakes. But in vain. Still, when you communicate with someone by correspondence or on forums, it is much more pleasant to communicate with a person who does not make mistakes than with someone who wrote “Hello. How are you? I’ll be free today at 9.” Agree that this is not a very pleasant read. But in general, we are not studying the rules of the Russian language here, but I would just like to give some very interesting and entertaining facts about words in the Russian language.

1. There are only a few words with three identical vowels in a row, namely long-necked (short-necked, tortuous) and snake-eater.

2 . The only one-syllable adjective in the Russian language is Zloy.

3. In Russian there are two different words a - Indian (indigenous)America ) and Indian (resident of India). But in almost all other languages ​​these words are written and pronounced exactly the same.

4. The word "take out" has no root.

5. There are only three original Russian words that begin with the letter “A” - these are Az, Azbuka, Avos.

6. Previously, in Rus', obscene and indecent words were called “Ridiculous verbs.”

7. Many English people remember the sentence in Russian “I love you” thanks to three English words that sound similar - “Yellow Blue Bus”.

8. The longest recorded noun in the Russian language is “high excellency” (24 letters), an adverb is the word “unsatisfactory” (19 letters), the longest preposition is “accordingly” (14 letters), a particle is “exclusively” (13 letters), and the longest verb is “to be re-examined.”

9. Many people still argue about how to correctly pronounce the verb “Win” in the first person. Will I win? Or will I win? There are no such words, but philologists suggest replacing this word with “I will become a winner.”

10. Almost all words with the letter “F” are borrowed. A.S. Pushkin was very proud that in his “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” the letter “F” appears in just one word - Fleet.

11. It is believed that there are no words starting with the letter “Y”. But that's not true. Many geographical names (cities, rivers) begin with this letter (Ygyatta, Yllymakh, Ynakhsyt).

12. Now many people do not attach importance to the letter “Ё”, but because of this trifle another word can turn out - case and case, donkey and donkey, everything and everything, sky and palate, perfect and perfect, etc.

13. There are no such words as “NO” and “THEY”.

14. The word “Umbrella” came to us from Holland initially in a diminutive form, and only later they began to use the simple word “Umbrella”.

15. The words “Dress” and “Put on” are two different words. They dress another person, but put it on themselves. To make it easier to remember, we came up with this short memo: “They put on Nadezhda, but they put on clothes.”

16. In Cyrillic, the letter “X” was pronounced “Her”, which is where the word “poherit” came from, which meant “to cross out on paper”, and only later did this word acquire its modern meaning of “Lose”.


Did you know how many interesting facts there are about the Russian language? No! Then this article is a must read for you.

Russian is one of the languages ​​of international communication, especially in the post-Soviet space.

It has been poeticized by many writers and has many fans among foreigners who want to study it only at the behest of their hearts, and not because it is necessary.

Literate people naturally know the basic rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, but few know them.

But in vain, because it really is much more exciting and interesting than cramming rules from a textbook.

“The Russian language is an interesting fact in itself”

This is exactly what my teacher of Russian language and literature said.

I have never met a teacher more passionate about his subject in my entire academic life.

She not only taught us to write and speak Russian, she literally reveled in its sound.

And her lessons were incredibly exciting and interesting, because she taught them in an original way, actively used visual aids and constantly told something interesting that you couldn’t read in a textbook.

Russian language is one of the East Slavic languages.

It is state owned Russian Federation, and also official in some countries former USSR, for example, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.

It is widespread in the world (ranks eighth in the number of people who consider it their family).

It is spoken by over 250 million people around the world.

There are powerful Russian-speaking communities not only in most republics of the former USSR, but also in countries that are geographically distant from the Russian Federation: the USA, Turkey, Israel and others.

It is also considered one of the 6 working languages ​​of the United Nations.

In general, there are plenty of reasons to have a good command of the Russian language (whether it is your native language or not is not so important).

But, alas, it is not easy for foreigners, especially those whose native language is not part of the Slavic group, to master Russian.

It has an interesting alphabet with unique letters, for example, “ъ”, words that are written and sounded completely differently, variable endings, distribution of words by gender, type and case, many rules and exceptions to these rules.

What also distinguishes the Russian language from others is that you can give many interesting facts about it.

Interesting facts about Russian letters


Well, it would seem that what is so interesting about the letters, especially in the letters of the Russian language, especially for the countries neighboring the Russian Federation, for whose residents Russian, although not their native language, is familiar and understandable.

But as it turns out, there are many interesting facts about the letters of the Russian language:

    The letter “f,” which is familiar and understandable to us today, turns out to have its own peculiarity: most of the words with it are borrowed from others.

    A.S. knew this very well. Pushkin tried to use such words less in his “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”.

    Besides the word “fleet” you will not find anything else in the “Fairy Tale”.

    How many words can you remember that begin with the letter “y”?

    Well, maybe 5-6 at most.

    But it turns out that there are over 70 such words in the Russian language.

    Do you know words that start with the letter “s”?

    Personally, I don’t.

    It turns out that there are such words, although they are all difficult to pronounce geographical names, for example, Ynykhsyt or Ytyk-kyuel.

    It seems incredible that there could be a word that contains three identical letters in a row.

    But the Russian language has distinguished itself here too, because it can boast of the word “long-necked”.

    The letters "i" and "a" can serve as prefixes.

    Want examples?

    Please: “total”, “maybe”.

Interesting facts about Russian words


“If so many interesting facts are known about letters, then there must be an immeasurable number of them about the words of this wonderful language,” I thought and turned out to be absolutely right.

Here are some interesting things about Russian words:

    Monosyllabic words are not uncommon in the Russian language, but for some reason most adjectives contain two or more syllables.

    The only exception to this rule is “evil”.

    You would never guess (at least I definitely wouldn’t guess) that two such different words as “bull” and “bee” have the same root.

    Do you know why?

    Because earlier they used to say “buchela” to a honey-bearing insect, and the sounds that both bulls and bees made were called “booming”.

  1. There are quite a lot of words in the Russian language that have between 10 and more letters, and words that have more than 20 letters will not surprise us too much.
  2. Ah, that terrible word “win”, which cannot be used in the first person.

    How many people were forced to blush, muttering inaudibly “I will win...”, “I will run...”, trying to find a way out of the bad situation into which they had driven themselves.

    By the way, this is not the only “insufficient verb” (one that cannot be used in the first person) in the Russian language.

    If someone wants to correct you that the word “coffee” is masculine, you can safely tell him:

    "Your information is out of date."

    In 2009, the Ministry of Education itself admitted that coffee is neuter.

    The pundits apologized for the mistake that had crept in: “coffee” is a derivative of “coffee,” which is actually masculine.


Are there not enough interesting facts about the Russian language for you?

So catch a few more:

  1. The alphabet of the Russian language is the Cyrillic alphabet, which was subject to civil modification (I don’t know what that means, but Wikipedia says so☺).
  2. Only God knows why, but until the 14th century, linguists, writers and other Russians trained in literacy called all words with a not very decent meaning “absurd verbs,” even if they were not verbs at all.
  3. We can be proud that in 2003 an interesting fact about the Russian language was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

    The people keeping records were amazed that we had a 35-letter word: “highly considerate.”

    In the Russian Federation they are fluent Russian language 99.4% of residents.

    True, I think no one surveyed labor migrants, of whom there are so many now, but oh well, this figure is still impressive.

    The Russian language is gradually losing its position " official language» in many former USSR republics due to the fact that it is being replaced official language these countries.

In the video below you will find 12 more interesting facts about the Russian language:

What facts about the Russian language seem interesting to foreigners?

But what facts about the Russian language seem most interesting to foreigners:

    Why are there two letters in the alphabet that do not represent sounds: “ъ” and “ь”.

    “This is some kind of absurdity,” many foreigners think.

    Well, that's how it can be that this good word, how could “to be” not exist in the present tense?

    But it feels great in the past and future.

    Well, is it really so difficult to come up with a word to address?

    “Comrade” and “citizen” went out of fashion, “Mr.” and “Madam” never caught on.

    And “man” and “woman” sound rude.

    What remains? "Hey you"?

    On the one hand, the order of words in sentences is arbitrary, but on the other hand, you cannot rearrange them as you please.

    For example, rearrange the words into short sentence“I’m going home” and you will have a new meaning every time.

    To turn affirmative sentence in an interrogative, just a question mark at the end and the appropriate intonation are enough.

    No special words or constructions.

Of course, that's not all interesting facts about the Russian language.

There are so many of them that you can’t remember them all, and it’s quite difficult to talk about everything within one article.

Which fact do you find most interesting?

Useful article? Don't miss new ones!
Enter your email and receive new articles by email