Start in science. Korney Chukovsky - alive as life Detailed summary in your own words, alive as life

Russian language is one of the most difficult. And this is connected not only with vocabulary and syntax, but also with its history itself. Even for us, native speakers, much in the Russian language is still unclear and mysterious. Linguists have repeatedly noted the acrophonic principle of constructing the Old Russian alphabet and even saw in it a hidden “message to the Slavs.” Each of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet has its own name, and if you read these names in alphabetical order, you get: “Az buki veda. The verb good is natural. Live well, earth, and, like people, think about our peace. Rtsy the word is firmly - uk "Fuck it. Tsy, worm, shta ra yus yati." One of the options for translating this text is as follows: “I know the letters: writing is a property. Work hard, earthlings, as befits intelligent people - comprehend the universe! Carry the word with conviction: knowledge is the gift of God! Dare, delve in order to comprehend the existing light!”

Which language is closer to the Slavic “ancestor”?

There has long been a debate among patriotic residents of Slavic countries: which language is closer to the original Slavic? Where did the differences between the dialects on the territory of Eastern Rus' (i.e., present-day central Russia), Southern (modern Ukraine) and Western (now Belarus) come from? The fact is that different elements participated in the genesis of the national languages ​​of these countries. In addition to the Slavs, Finno-Ugric tribes and Balts lived in Rus'. Nomads from the southern steppes often visited here. The Tatar-Mongol conquerors not only plundered and ravaged Rus', but also left behind many linguistic borrowings.

The Swedes, Germans, Poles - European neighbors, also enriched the Russian language with new words. The fact that a significant part of present-day Belarus was historically under the rule of Poland, and Southern Rus' was constantly subject to raids by nomads, could not but be reflected in the local languages. As they say, whoever you play with.
But which language is closer to its Proto-Slavic “ancestor”? We are forced to admit that the Russian language has moved very far from the Slavic language. Modern Ukrainian is much closer to it. If you don’t believe me, try reading liturgical books written in Church Slavonic.

It will be much easier for Ukrainians to understand them; Ukrainian to this day uses vocabulary that has long been considered archaic in our country.
But don't get too upset. The fact that our language today is so far from its progenitor is not an accident or the result of a Masonic conspiracy. This is the result of the painstaking work of many talented people who created the Russian literary language in the form in which it exists now. If it were not for the reforms inspired by them, we would not have the poetry of Pushkin, the prose of Tolstoy, or the drama of Chekhov. Who created the language we speak today?

The first "dismissal of letters"

In the 18th century, Peter I came to power. He began transformations in all spheres of life, and did not ignore the Russian language. But his reforms concern only the external side, they do not penetrate into the very essence of the language, its syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. Peter I simplifies the spelling by getting rid of the Greek letters psi, xi and omega. These letters did not represent any sounds in the Russian language, and their loss did not impoverish the language at all. Peter tried to get rid of a number of letters of the Russian alphabet: “Earth”, “Izhitsa”, “Fert”, and also removed the superscripts, but under pressure from the clergy these letters had to be returned.

The alphabetic reform made life easier not only for schoolchildren of Peter the Great’s time (they had to learn fewer letters), but also for printing houses, which no longer had to print extra characters that were not pronounced when reading.
Lomonosov responded about this as follows: “Under Peter the Great, not only the boyars and boyars, but also the letters, threw off their wide fur coats and dressed up in summer clothes.”

Why was the reform needed?

But the real reform is taking place through the efforts of writers and poets of the 18th century: Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Karamzin. They create the Russian literary language and “consolidate success” with their works. Before that, the Russian language, due to constant contacts with Western Europe, was in a chaotic state. In it, colloquial forms coexisted with book ones, borrowings from German, French, and Latin were used along with Russian analogues. Trediakovsky changes the very principle of Russian versification, adopting and adapting the European syllabic-tonic system - based on the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Lomonosov divides all words of the Russian language into three groups: the first included those rarely used, especially in colloquial speech, but understandable to literate people: “I open”, “I call”; to the second - words common to the Russian and Church Slavonic languages: “hand”, “now”, “I honor”; and to the third group he included words that have no analogues in church books, that is, Russian words, not originally Slavic: “I speak,” “stream,” “only.”

Thus, Lomonosov distinguishes three “calms”, each of which was used in certain literary genres: the high calm was suitable for odes and heroic poems, the middle calm was used to write dramatic works, prose - in general, all works where it is necessary to depict living speech. Low calm was used in comedies, satire, and epigrams.
Finally, Karamzin enriches the Russian language with neologisms, he abandons Church Slavonic vocabulary, and the syntax of the language in his works approaches the “lighter” French. It is to Karamzin that we owe, for example, the appearance of the words “falling in love” or “sidewalk.”

Difficult letter "Y"

Karamzin was one of the ardent “fans” of the letter “e”, but he was not its inventor at all. In 1783, one of the first meetings of the Academy of Russian Literature took place. Its founder was Ekaterina Dashkova. Together with the most famous writers of her time: Derzhavin and Fonvizin, the princess discussed the project of the Slavic-Russian dictionary. For convenience, Ekaterina Romanovna suggested replacing the sound designation “io” with one letter “e”. The innovation was approved by the general meeting of the academy, Dashkova’s innovative idea was supported by Derzhavin, who began to use “ё” in his works. It was he who was the first to use the new letter in correspondence, and was also the first to type a surname with an “е”: Potemkin. At the same time, Ivan Dmitriev published the book “And My Trinkets”, imprinting all the necessary points in it. And finally, it became widely used after it appeared in Karamzin’s poetry collection.

The new letter also had its opponents. Minister of Education Alexander Shishkov is said to have furiously leafed through the numerous volumes of his library and with his own hand crossed out two dots above the letter. There were also many conservatives among the writers. Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, fundamentally wrote the word “devil” with an “o”, and Andrei Bely, for the same reasons, “zsolty”.

Printing houses also don’t like the letter, because it causes them to waste extra paint. In pre-revolutionary primers, it was banished to the very end of the alphabet, in the same company as the dying “Izhitsa” and “fita”. And these days its place is in the very corner of the keyboard. But not everywhere the letter “е” is treated with such disdain - in Ulyanovsk there is even a monument to it.

The secret of "Izhitsa"
In Lunacharsky's famous 1918 decree on changes in the Russian language, there is no mention of the letter; (“Izhitsa”), which was the last letter in the pre-revolutionary alphabet. By the time of the reform, it was extremely rare, and could be found mainly only in church texts.

In the civilian language, “Izhitsa” was actually used only in the word “miro”. In the silent refusal of the Bolsheviks from “izhitsi”, many saw a sign: the Soviet government seemed to be abandoning one of the seven sacraments - confirmation, through which the Orthodox are given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, designed to strengthen him in spiritual life.

It is curious that the undocumented removal of “Izhitsa,” the last letter in the alphabet, and the official elimination of the penultimate one, “fits,” were made the final alphabetic letter, “ya.” The intelligentsia saw in this another malicious intent of the new authorities, who deliberately sacrificed two letters in order to put at the end the letter expressing the human personality, individuality.

The secret of Russian swearing

Almost the entire 20th century was dominated by the version that the words that we call obscene came into the Russian language from the Mongol-Tatars. However, this is a misconception. Swearing is already found in Novgorod birch bark documents dating back to the 11th century: that is, long before the birth of Genghis Khan. The very concept of “checkmate” is quite late. From time immemorial in Rus' it was called “barking obscene”. Initially, obscene language exclusively included the use of the word “mother” in a vulgar, sexual context. The words denoting the genital organs, which we today refer to swearing, did not refer to “swearing.”

There are a dozen versions of the checkmate function. Some scientists suggest that swearing appeared at the turn of society’s transition from matriarchy to patriarchy and initially meant the authoritative assertion of a man who, having undergone the ritual of copulation with the “mother” of the clan, publicly announced this to his fellow tribesmen. There is also a hypothesis according to which “swearing” had a magical, protective function and was called “dog tongue.” In the Slavic (and Indo-European in general) tradition, dogs were considered animals of the “afterlife” and served the goddess of death Morena.

There is one more word that is unfairly classified today as swearing. For the purposes of self-censorship, let’s call it the “B” word. This lexeme quietly existed in the elements of the Russian language (it can even be found in church texts and official state documents), having the meanings “fornication”, “deception”, “delusion”, “heresy”, “error”. People often used this word to refer to dissolute women. Perhaps during the time of Anna Ioannovna this word began to be used with greater frequency and, probably, in the latter context, because it was this empress who banned it.

Alive as life

2nd edition, corrected and expanded.

“Alive as Life” is Chukovsky’s main book, dedicated to the Russian language, its history and modern life, the laws of its development. The author’s undisguised and passionate interest in the word as the beginning of everything, combined with an objective scientific analysis of speech, is a distinctive feature of Chukovsky’s book, which made it so popular and readable in our country.

In the book you will find a huge number of examples of living Russian speech, you will learn what “clericalism” is and how to deal with it, “umslopogasy” and “foreign words” and much, much more...

Chapter first

Old and new

You marvel at the preciousness of our language: every sound is a gift; everything is grainy, large, like the pearl itself, and really, another name is even more precious than the thing itself.

Anatoly Fedorovich Koni, honorary academician, famous lawyer, was, as you know, a man of great kindness. He willingly forgave those around him for all sorts of mistakes and weaknesses.

But woe to those who, while talking with him, distorted or mutilated the Russian language. Kony attacked him with passionate hatred.

His passion delighted me. And yet, in his struggle for the purity of language, he often went overboard.

For example, he demanded that the word Necessarily only meant kindly, obligingly.

But this meaning of the word has already died. Now in living speech and in literature the word Necessarily came to mean certainly. This is what outraged Academician Koni.

Imagine,” he said, clutching his heart, “I’m walking along Spasskaya today and hear: “He Necessarily will punch you in the face!” How do you like it? A man tells another that someone will kindly beat him up!

But the word Necessarily no longer means kindly,- I tried to object, but Anatoly Fedorovich stood his ground.

Meanwhile, today in the entire Soviet Union you will not find a person for whom Necessarily would mean kindly. Nowadays, not everyone will understand what Aksakov meant when he spoke about one provincial doctor:

“In relation to us, he acted without fail.”

But no one seems strange anymore, for example, Isakovsky’s couplet:

And where do you want
You'll definitely get there.

Much can be explained by the fact that Koni was old at that time. He acted like most old people: he defended the norms of Russian speech that existed during his childhood and youth. Old people almost always imagined (and still imagine) that their children and grandchildren (especially grandchildren) were deforming correct Russian speech.

I can easily imagine that gray-haired old man who, in 1803 or 1805, angrily pounded the table with his fist when his grandchildren began to talk among themselves about the development of mind and character.

Where did you get this obnoxious thing? development of the mind? Must speak vegetation.

As soon as, for example, a young man said in a conversation that now he needed to go, well, at least to the shoemaker, the old men would angrily shout at him:

Not necessary, A necessary! Why are you distorting the Russian language?

And when Karamzin expressed in “Letters of a Russian Traveler” that under such and such conditions we become more humane, Admiral Shishkov attacked him with mockery.

“Is it typical for us,” he wrote, “from the name Human make an equalization degree more humane? Therefore can I say: my horse horse-like yours, my cow cow yours?

But no amount of ridicule could drive such precious words from our speech as more humane, humanity(in the sense of more humane, humanity).

A new era has arrived. The former youths became fathers and grandfathers. And it was their turn to be indignant at these words that the youth introduced into everyday use:

gifted,

distinct,

public,

asshole.

Now it seems to us that these words have existed in Rus' since time immemorial and that we could never do without them, but meanwhile in the 30-40s of the 19th century these were new words with which the then zealots of the purity of language could not come to terms for a long time .

Now it’s even hard to believe what words seemed base and street-smart at that time, for example, to Prince Vyazemsky. These words: mediocrity And talented.

“Mediocrity, talented,” Prince Vyazemsky was indignant, “new areal expressions in our literary language. Dmitriev said the truth when he said that “our new writers are learning the language from the labazniks.”

If the youth of that time happened to use in conversation such words unknown to previous generations as:

fact,

result,

nonsense,

solidarity,

Representatives of these past generations stated that Russian speech suffers considerable damage from such an influx of vulgar words.

"Where did this come from? fact? - Thaddeus Bulgarin, for example, was indignant in 1847. - What is this word? Distorted."

Yakov Grot already at the end of the 60s declared the newly appeared word ugly inspire.

Even a word like scientific, and that had to overcome great resistance from the Old Testament purists before entering our speech as a full-fledged word.

Let us remember how Gogol was struck by this word in 1851. Until then, he had never heard of him. The old people demanded that instead scientific they only talked scientist: scientist book, scientist treatise. Word scientific seemed to them unacceptable vulgarity.

However, there was a time when even the word vulgar they were ready to consider it illegal. Pushkin, not foreseeing that it would become Russified, preserved its foreign form in Onegin. Let's remember the famous poems about Tatyana:

No one could make her beautiful
Name; but from head to toe
No one could find it in it
That autocratic fashion
In high London circle
It's called vulgar. (I can not...

I love this word very much
But I can’t translate;
It’s still new to us,
And it is unlikely that he will be honored.
It would be suitable for an epigram...)

(Chapter VIII)

There was no need to translate this word into Russian, because it itself became Russian.

Of course, the old people were wrong. Now the word necessary, and the word nonsense, and the word fact, and the word vote, and the word scientific, and the word creation, and the word Necessarily(in the sense of certainly) are felt by everyone, both young and old, as the most legitimate, root words of Russian speech, and who can do without these words!

Now it seems strange to everyone that Nekrasov, having written in one of his stories nonsense, should have explained in a note: “The lackey word, equivalent to the word - rubbish", and the “Literary Gazette” of those years, talking about someone’s virtuoso soul, felt compelled to immediately add that masterly- “a newfangled word.”

According to Academician V.V. Vinogradov, only by the half of the 19th century did we receive citizenship rights in the following words: agitate, maximum, publicly available, indisputable, event, individual, identify etc.

There is no doubt that at one time they also offended old people born in the 18th century.

As a child, I also found old people (albeit rather decrepit) who said: at the ball, Alexandrinsky Theater, genvar, blush, whitewash, furniture(plural) and were angry at those who said otherwise.

In general, old people are extremely picky and intolerant people in this regard. Even Pushkin was pestered in print by an old man about one line in Onegin with such reproaches:

“Is this how we, who learned from ancient grammars, express ourselves? Is it possible to distort the Russian language like that?”

But the years passed, and I, in turn, became an old man. Now, at my age, I am supposed to hate the words that are introduced into our speech by young people and cry out about the corruption of the language.

Moreover, like any of my contemporaries, more new concepts and words flooded into me at once in two or three years than my grandfathers and great-grandfathers over the past two and a half centuries.

Among them there were many wonderful ones, and there were also those that at first seemed to me illegal, harmful, spoiling Russian speech, subject to eradication and oblivion.

I remember how terribly indignant I was when the young people, as if in agreement with each other, began to instead Goodbye talk for some reason Bye.

Or this form: I went instead of I'm leaving. The man is still sitting at the table, he is just about to leave, but he portrays his future action as already completed.

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Introduction

Where did the expression "Alive as life" come from? This is the name of the book by Korney Chukovsky. He dedicated it to the history of the development of the Russian language, the culture of speech, and “imaginary and real” diseases of words. This book was first published in 1961 and has become a classic, a seminal work. Preparing for the presentation, I re-read several books on the same topic and found out that they are largely based on the experience of K. Chukovsky. Therefore, this book was taken by me as a basis.

Relevance of the problem

Language is a living organism, just like a person. Language development is, for example, the enrichment of vocabulary, the transition from one part of speech to another, the obsolescence of words, the expansion of the meaning of a word, and much more. It's sad when a language stops developing. After all, some ancient languages ​​are now dying along with their speakers. Therefore, every nation must take care of the development of its language, know and respect it.

Goals of work:

Show that the Russian language is alive and can develop.

Find out what diseases may be present in the Russian language?

To prove that the Russian language can be treated.

Job objectives:

Study K. Chukovsky’s book “Alive as Life” and the works of other authors on this topic.

Show with examples that the Russian language is alive and developing.

Pick up aphorisms, poems, a song about the Russian language.

Find out what diseases the Russian language suffers from.

Determine which diseases are imaginary and which are genuine.

Show the main directions in the fight against diseases of the Russian language.

To prove that diseases of the Russian language can be treated on your own.

Methods used in preparing my work:

Own reasoning

Browse books on my topic

Conversations with Russian language teachers at our school

Internet using

A survey of schoolchildren in my class on the topic: “Can we say that the Russian language is alive?” and “What, in your opinion, needs to be removed from Russian speech?”

Conversations with random passers-by on the topic “Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?”

Main part

You marvel at the jewels of our language: no matter what the sound,

it’s also a gift; everything is grainy, large, like the pearl itself,

and really, another name is even more precious than the thing itself

Russian language is alive

“When you read biographies of words, you are finally confirmed in the idea that the Russian language, like any healthy and strong organism, is all in motion, in the dynamics of continuous growth” K. Chukovsky

Outlandish biography of the word "family". The word “family” first meant “a group of relatives,” then slaves and servants, and then a wife. Moreover, simultaneously with this meaning (family-wife), the main meaning (family-relatives) was also preserved. Subsequently, the first of these meanings was discarded and forgotten. They say it is living out its life in some places on the Don and in the Volga region.

The word has an interesting "pedigree" "a mess." At first, this was the name of a very refined dish of the 17th century, beloved by the boyars. Then they began to call a mess a sharp pain in the stomach caused by a bad talk (soldiers' cooks threw uncleaned fish in the sand, onions, crackers, sauerkraut and everything that was at hand into the cauldron). And only then did “cavardak” acquire the familiar meaning of “confusion, disorder.”

“These transformations are natural, language grows and develops, and it is impossible and even stupid to resist this” K. Chukovsky. The former semantic meanings of words disappear without a trace, the language moves forward without looking back - depending on changes in the social system, on the achievements of science and technology and on various other reasons.

If you look in a modern dictionary, you will read that scrupulous- this is “strictly principled in relations with someone.” Meanwhile, in Pushkin’s time it meant “a haberdasher, selling haberdashery goods: ties, gloves, ribbons, combs, buttons.”

And if you take the word poster. Who doesn’t know these street, dazzlingly bright, multi-colored paintings, painted for propaganda or advertising and commercial purposes? We are so accustomed to posters, to poster painting, to poster artists that it is very difficult for us to imagine the recent time when posters were called... passports for peasants and townspeople.

But at the same time, in the life of language there is another extremely powerful tendency of a directly opposite nature, just as important, just as useful. It consists in stubborn and decisive resistance to innovation, in the creation of all kinds of dams and barriers that greatly impede the too rapid and disorderly renewal of speech.

No matter how much the storm worries

The tops of centuries-old trees,

She won't give a damn

Can't even swing

Reserved forest to the roots.

(Nekrasov, II, 461)

Even in those eras when the greatest number of new expressions and terms penetrate into the language, and dozens of old ones disappear, in its main essence it remains the same, keeping intact the golden fund of both its vocabulary and its grammatical norms developed in past centuries.

“Foreign words” are the first ailment of the Russian language

This is the name given to the Russian language’s attraction to foreign words.

Many believed that foreign words should be banished as quickly as possible. But there are examples of foreign words that have long since become Russian: algebra, alcohol, stocking, artel, meeting, rudder, rails, naive, serious... “Is it really possible to throw them out of living Russian speech?” - asks Chukovsky. At the same time, he is glad that many foreign words have not taken root in everyday life and have not supplanted the original Russian ones. For example, the once popular “freeshtik” will never come to the tongue of an ordinary person. We'll have breakfast instead."

And, of course, it is excellent that such a Russification of words is happening today, that the airplane has been replaced by an airplane, a helicopter by a helicopter, a goalkeeper by a goalkeeper, and a driver by a driver.

Many are frightened by such a dominance of “foreignness,” but Pushkin said this very correctly: “True taste does not consist in the unconscious rejection of such and such a word, such and such a turn of phrase, but in a sense of proportionality and conformity.” See Appendix 1

"Umslopogasy" - the second "imaginary disease" of the Russian language

These are the names of fashionable verbal abbreviations. “Imaginary disease” - because it is not able to spoil the Russian language. It is the abbreviations that show how important moderation is in everything. For example, such abbreviations as Moscow Art Theater, Civil Registry Office, house manager, savings bank, and workday have not spoiled Russian speech at all. But the fashion for reductions has also given rise to many “monsters”. Tverbul Pampush is indeed Tversky Boulevard, a monument to Pushkin. Names were shortened en masse - Pyotr Pavlovich turned into Pe Pa. But the worst of all were the pallindromic abbreviations Obluprpromprodtovary, Rosglavstankoinstrumentsnabsbyt, Lengorshveitrikotazhpromsoyuz, Lengormetallorempromsoyuz and others of this type. One must also conclude from this: everything comes down to a sense of style and proportionality.

In words hitherto unknown,

A great year has been sealed -

In short cycles, Councils of People's Commissars

And in the heavy word Narkomprod.

I marvel at the flowering of words,

And I would listen to everyone! And I would have watched everything!

Words lie as an eternal shadow

From changing affairs

[E. German, Poems about Moscow. 1922, pp. 23, 24.].

Along with umslopogas, other verbal forms have also penetrated into modern Russian speech, also caused by the desire to save it. Such truncated words or “stubs” as cinema, kilo, auto, etc., have firmly entered our literary language, and there is no reason to expel them from there. And who will demand that instead of the wonderful “stump” of the metro we say metro? See Appendix 2

“Vulgarisms” - the third disease is as imaginary as the first two

This is the name for clogging speech with obscene rudeness.

Such jargons as “bullshit”, “shendyapilsya” (instead of “fell in love”), “chuvikha”, “kadrishka” (instead of “girl”), “lobuda”, “shikara” and so on desecrate not only the Russian language, but also the concepts which young people denote by them. “The dude who stuck himself in the frame” experiences far from those sublime feelings of love that are described in the poems of Alexander Blok.

Here is an example of a literary conversation that three schoolchildren had in the library, choosing an interesting book:

- Take this: a valuable thing. There's one there that produces soot!

- Don't take this one! Labuda! Millet.

- This is a terribly powerful book

An interesting example is also given by M. Krongauz in his book “The Russian Language on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”: “During the session, two students who had not received the test came to me and said: “We really prepared.” “Then I won’t bet,” I answered, succumbing to emotions. I love my students, but some of their words annoy me. Here’s a short list: damn, in shock, wow, life-like, well, it’s very real, naturally. Dear students, be careful, do not use them during the session.” This incident tells us that all incorrect words and speech patterns must be eradicated. And it is spoken language that is an indicator of the growth or decline of cultures.

“Cynicism of expressions always expresses a cynical soul” Herzen

Thus, in order to achieve purity of language, one must fight for the purity of human feelings and thoughts. See Appendix 3

“I hope that anyone who carefully read the previous chapters could not but agree with me that in most cases these diseases are really imaginary. The Russian language was not significantly damaged either by foreign terms that penetrated into it, or by the so-called “umslopogasy”, or by student or school jargon.” K. Chukovsky

“Clericalism” is a real disease of Russian speech.

It was Korney Chukovsky’s book “Alive as Life” that gave the name to the only real “disease” of Russian speech - clericalism. This is the use in everyday speech of words and expressions used to write business papers. This term is used by linguists, including translator Nora Gal in the book “The Living and the Dead Word.” Chancery is the language of bureaucracy, business papers and offices. All these “the above”, “this certificate was issued”, “the specified period”, “based on this”, “and therefore”, “for lack of”, “due to absence”, “as regards” have firmly taken their place in business documentation. But the problem is that the clerk has penetrated into ordinary spoken language. Now instead of “green forest” they began to say “green area”, the usual “quarrel” became a “conflict”, and so on. Many people believe that every cultured, well-educated person should have such words in their vocabulary. To say on the radio “It rained heavily” is considered simple-minded and uncultured. Instead it sounds like “Heavy precipitation occurred.”

Unfortunately, the problem of clericalism has not disappeared even today. Today, this disease has strengthened its position even more. No scientist can defend a dissertation written in simple, understandable language. In everyday life, we constantly insert clerical phrases without noticing it ourselves. This is how lively, strong, sparkling Russian colloquial speech turns into gray and dry. And this is the only disease of the tongue that needs to be fought.

Here is how K. Chukovsky speaks about this disease: “The name of the disease is clerical disease (modeled on colitis, diphtheria, meningitis) ... Remember that the forms of speech recommended here should be used exclusively in official papers. And in all other cases - in letters to family and friends, in conversations with comrades, in oral answers at the blackboard - it is forbidden to speak this language. This is not why our people, together with the geniuses of the Russian word - from Pushkin to Chekhov and Gorky - created for us and for our descendants a rich, free and strong language, amazing with its sophisticated, flexible, infinitely varied forms, this is not why this was left to us as a gift the greatest treasure of our national culture, so that we, discarding it with contempt, reduce our speech to a few dozen cliched phrases"

An example by K. Chukovsky: a letter that one eight-year-old schoolgirl wrote to her own father:

“Dear Dad! I congratulate you on your birthday, I wish you new achievements in your work, success in your work and personal life. Your daughter Olya.”

The father was upset and annoyed:

- It’s as if I received a telegram from the local committee, honestly.

Of course, it is impossible to consider the patterns of human speech always, in all cases of life, as evidence of its emptiness. We always say such stencils as “hello”, “farewell”, “welcome”, “you are welcome”, “sleeping like a log”, etc. out of inertia, without thinking about their true meaning. But there are such everyday cases when verbal stencils are unthinkable.

A young man, passing by the garden, saw a five-year-old girl standing and crying at the gate. He leaned over her tenderly and said:

— Why are you crying?

His feelings were the most tender, but there were no human words to express tenderness. A person seems to be speaking from the heart, but cold verbal dust is scattering around him. See Appendix 4

The main problem is that clerical speech, by its poisonous nature, tends to poison and destroy the most living words. No matter how elegant, poetic and expressive a word is, as soon as it becomes part of this speech, it completely loses its original human meaning and turns into a boring template.

School literature

The point is that schoolchildren’s essays are more like a stencil and represent a repetition of the same words and concepts. For example, "M. Sholokhov showed us perfectly... He showed us how... The writer perfectly showed us the class struggle... He showed us a face-to-face confrontation... M. Sholokhov showed us especially well the Cossacks who... The author with the help This image indicates that... The book showed us how, overcoming all obstacles...”, etc.” He showed and revealed, and showed again, and again, and again. It’s as if the entire Russian language with its magnificent wealth of diverse words disappeared, was forgotten, and only two or three dozen standard words and phrases survived, which are combined by schoolchildren. See Appendix 5

Thus, true literacy is not only about the correct spelling and pronunciation of words. “When we succeed in completely destroying the bureaucratic relations of people, the office will disappear by itself. Ennoble the morals of young people, and you will not have to eradicate rude and shameless jargon from their everyday life. So it will be, I’m sure” K. Chukovsky

Speech deformities

“We can conclude from Otsedov”, “- Lie down!”, “- Now I’ll shave and go out!”, “- Don’t take off your coat!”

“In our country,” Pavel Nilin rightly said, “where the doors of schools, both daytime and evening, are wide open, no one can find an excuse for their illiteracy” [New World, 1958, No. 4]. Therefore, it is impossible to allow Russian people to continue to retain in their everyday life such ugly verbal forms as “bulgakhter, likes, rush, want, worse, obnakovenny, wants, kalidor.” See Appendix 7

Linguistic nonsense: absurdity or quirks of Russian speech?

Well-known expressions: “dim music”, “flashy colors”, “terribly fun”, “terribly beautiful” sound somewhat strange due to the incompatibility of words, sometimes denoting opposite things. But is the living Russian language determined solely by logic?

For example, the usual words “great-grandson, great-granddaughter.” After all, “great” means great antiquity, and great-grandson, on the contrary, is the youngest descendant. Or “ink,” that is, a black (blackening) liquid. Why do we say: blue or red ink? All this indicates that language is not mathematics and in every living language there are many “absurdities” rooted in them, which have long been legitimized by time.

It is impossible to eradicate in our speech other formulas “shame and disgrace”, “entirely and completely”, “neither light nor dawn”, “life-being”, “around the bush”. Although it is clear to everyone that “shame” is the same as “disgrace,” and “completely” means “entirely.” The formation of speech is determined not only by the laws of logic, but also by the requirements of musicality, beauty and artistry.

Living languages ​​can “forget” the original meaning of some words. But in order for this word to harmoniously merge into the modern Russian language, one thing is necessary: ​​for oblivion to be massive, nationwide. This is, for example, the word to goof up. “I’ve lost my hair,” a village woman said about herself, taking off the traditional scarf from her head. But now this meaning has been completely forgotten, and no one notices that this word contains hair. Therefore, now even a bald man can say about himself: “I lost my hair!” After all, now “making a fool” means making a mistake, being left in the cold, making a mistake.

But there are fresh, so to speak, young nonsense in our speech, such that cannot be justified by the prescription. We have no right to put up with them. It is one thing to forget the original meaning of expressions and words as a normal historical process, and another thing is to disregard this meaning, inspired by cynicism and sloppiness. For example, a price list is an absurd form, because preis means price in German. Equally unacceptable are the expressions memorial monument, timekeeping, memorable souvenirs, industrial industry, folklore - because memorial means memory; chronos means time, souvenir means a memorable gift, industry means industry; folk means people, and folklore means folk art. See Appendix 6

But as the famous linguist Maxim Krongauz said in his book “The Russian Language is on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”, where the author explores the state of the modern Russian language, oversaturated with new words dependent on the Internet, youth, fashion: “The most noticeable of the changes taking place in the language - this is the appearance of new words and - a little less striking - the emergence of new meanings... For example, the names of animals - mouse, dog - acquired new, “computer” meanings, and in completely different ways.” Well, everything is clear with the mouse, this meaning is well known to everyone: “a special device that allows you to control the cursor and enter various kinds of commands.” At first, the computer mouse really looked like a regular one, both in shape, in the tail-wire, and in the way it ran across the mousepad.

But the dog as a name for @, the email icon, was invented by the Russian language itself (more precisely, by an unknown author, or, as they say in such cases, the people). Again, I picked up something similar and invented a new metaphor, although, I must say, the resemblance to a dog is very doubtful. Foreigners are perplexed at first, but then doomedly accept the strange Russian metaphor

Thus, 1) there is excellent confirmation of the creative nature of the Russian language as a whole, and 2) it is clear that the Russian language has very powerful protective resources, which do not consist in rejecting borrowings, but in their rapid development.

Research results and discussion

Video a survey of teachers at our school on the topic: “Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?”

Results of a survey of teachers at our school

What in the modern Russian language worries you?

Speech deformities (incorrect stress, distortion of words))

Profanity

Mixing styles (using business words in everyday speech, etc.)

Poor vocabulary (use of SMS messages, Internet communication)

Questioning of schoolchildren

A survey was conducted among schoolchildren in grades 7 “B” and 8 “A” at our school.

51 students took part in the survey.

Questionnaire for schoolchildren, see Appendix 8

Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language? See diagram appendix 9

Would you like to communicate with each other competently?? See diagram appendix 10

What words do you use most often? See diagram appendix 11

“In short” immediately makes the interlocutor wonder whether further information will be interesting, otherwise why shorten it?

See diagram appendix 13

Video a survey of random passers-by on the topic: “Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?”

Comparison of the answers of adults and schoolchildren to the question “Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?” See diagram appendix 14

See diagram appendix 15

Why don't people correct others? Most common answers:

They still won't understand

What if they answer rudely?

Inconvenient

I think this is tactless

A cultured person will not correct...

I can only correct people close to me

But if not us, then who? See Appendix 16

"Total dictation"

Goal: to awaken interest in improving literacy.

Large-scale event. In 2017, 866 cities in Russia and the world took part in the event. Annual educational event. It has been in existence for 14 years.

The “Total Dictation” event in Svetlogorsk took place on April 16, 2016. My family took part in this event. See Appendix 17

Conclusion

1) We saw that K.I. Chukovsky in his book “Alive as Life” analyzes the state of the Russian language and cites seven main problems of the Russian language: foreign language, vulgarisms, contamination with dialects and, conversely, expulsion of them from one’s speech, sanctimonious tastes, but the main thing is clericalism and compound words.

2) Analyzing the state of the Russian language and our speech together we come to disappointing conclusions: we ourselves are distorting and mutilating our great and powerful language.

The Russian language is beautiful, rich, polysemantic and capable of modification. This statement is accepted without objection. But can we consider that its potential is inexhaustible? Love the Russian language and protect it from distortion, remember that this powerful language was given to a great people.

“Speak Russian, for God’s sake! Bring this novelty into fashion.” (A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov.)

Print lists of incorrect and correct words on the covers of school notebooks

Indicate words that cripple our language on postcards and envelopes.

While watching movies, show the film magazine “Why do we say that?” or “Learn to speak correctly.”

How not to talk should be printed on stickers on matchboxes, candy and cookie boxes.

Mass press organs can make a significant contribution if they establish a permanent department on “How not to speak and write.”

Perhaps the creation of a special public organization advocating for the purity of the language. For example, to establish the “All-Russian Society of Russian Language Lovers.” The society must have branches and primary organizations at all institutions, enterprises, educational institutions without exception, and must also be a mass organization, and access to members of the society is unlimited.

An organizing committee or initiative group is needed to fight for speech culture in every region of Russia. Hundreds of thousands of active fighters for high speech culture will join such an organization.

Make the annual holiday (May 24 in Russia the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture) a day off and coincide with it mandatory events that will help cleanse the Russian language.

Organize a network of literacy corners, which should become centers for instilling the culture of the native language in institutions, enterprises, educational institutions, including kindergartens.

Disseminate the experience of “fighting illiteracy” to everyone at their place of work or study. For example, compile and distribute in your school a list of words that are most often distorted when written and pronounced.

See Appendix 18

But even if all these measures are implemented, they will still not be enough. “After all, the culture of speech is inseparable from general culture. To improve the quality of your language, you need to improve the quality of your intellect. Some people write and speak without mistakes, but what a poor vocabulary he has, what tired phrases!” - K. Chukovsky tells us. Here we need other, longer, broader methods. We need to raise the general culture, and thereby improve the culture of our language. And everyone should participate in this hot struggle for our verbal culture!

Dictionary

Conclusions:

I confirmed the fact that the Russian language is alive, like life.

I found out that the Russian language has diseases: imaginary and real.

I proved that the Russian language can be treated. You just have to want it!

4) I am pleased that most people are concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language.

4) I believe that it is still necessary to correct others if they make mistakes in speech.

“I love my native language:

It is clear to everyone

He is melodious

He, like the Russian people, has many faces,

Like our power, mighty!” (A. Yashin).

Song about the Russian language “We speak Russian.” See Appendix 19

Music: Grigory Vasilievich Gladkov, Lyrics: Olga Anatolyevna Alexandrova

Russian words are a deep current

Gives strength to the song line.

Oh, what a pleasure this is -

Speak Russian!

List of used literature

K.I. Chukovsky “Alive as Life”, M., 1982

N. Gal “The Living and the Dead Word”, M., 2001

M. Krongauz “The Russian language is on the verge of breakdown”, M., 2009

Internet sites

“Electronic Library” http://modernlib.ru/books/chukovskiy_korney_ivanovich/zhivoy_kak_zhizn

Official page of Nora Gal: http://www.vavilon.ru/noragal

Annex 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Appendix 6

Appendix 7

Appendix 8

Questionnaire for schoolchildren

1) Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?

2) Would you like to communicate with each other competently?

a) yes, b) rather yes, c) rather no, d) no, e) I don’t know

3) Do I need to apply the rules of the Russian language to communicate on the Internet?

a) yes, b) rather yes, c) rather no, d) no, e) I don’t know

4) What words do you use most often? (emphasize)

like, in short, cool, damn, well, that's it

5) Do you correct others if they make mistakes in their speech?

a) yes, b) rather yes, c) rather no, d) no, e) I don’t know

Appendix 9

Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?

Conclusion: most schoolchildren are concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language.

Appendix 10

Would you like to communicate with each other competently?

Conclusion: most schoolchildren would like to communicate with each other competently.

Appendix 11

What words do you use most often?

Appendix 12

Appendix 13

Do you correct others when they make mistakes in their speech?

Conclusion: more than half of schoolchildren notice, but do not correct others when they make mistakes in speech

Appendix 14

Comparison of the answers of adults and schoolchildren to the question “Are you concerned about the problem of clogging the Russian language?”

Conclusion: as expected, for adults the problem of Russian language obstruction is more pressing.

Appendix 15

Do you correct others when they make mistakes in their speech?

Conclusion: but adults only sometimes correct others when they make mistakes in speech.

Appendix 16

Appendix 17

Appendix 18

why the Russian language is alive like life and received the best answer

Answer from Yatyan Klimov[guru]
tk. language always lives. it is constantly being modified, enriched with new lexical resources, and unnecessary lexical units are constantly disappearing from the language. language develops following and along with a person’s life, it is modified, transformed, adapted to a person, because it serves a person (although they serve each other)
as a last resort - it reflects life, lives with life and moves life further

Answer from Alex4536747u5[guru]
because they speak it, so he’s alive

Answer from Mishka[expert]
Because it (the language) comes in very handy when you give (try to create) a new life :))

Answer from Anton Gvozdetsky[newbie]
zhl ekrek ekr ekyr ker ekr!

Answer from Ella Kuznetsova[guru]
As soon as you read the book by Korney Chukovsky, which is called that, this will become absolutely clear to you:

Answer from Marina Bedina[newbie]
The Russian language is “Live like life” because it is born, develops and dies like life. Each word in Russian has its own life. Some words disappear forever from our speech due, for example, to the disappearance of the concept that was denoted by one word or another, while others replace outdated words and denote modern objects or actions. Language, like life, develops, and words develop along with it. They change.
Now we don’t say “madam”, “master”, “young lady”, or “comrade”, for example, but “woman”, “girl”, “man”, “young man”, “young man”, etc.
Also, the word “this” in the meaning of “this” is used more and more often: “What does this mean?”
New foreign words also began to appear: “image” - “image”, “teenager” - “teenager”, “market” - “shop”.

Answer from 3 answers[guru]

"Alive as Life"

You marvel at the jewels of our language:

every sound is a gift;

everything is grainy, coarse like the pearl itself

N.V.Gogol

The language of the people is the best, never fading and ever again blossoming flower of their entire spiritual life, the language of brotherhood and justice, friendship and peace, sounds proudly and boldly in different parts of the Earth.

The Russian language belongs to the Slavic group of languages, related to it are the living East Slavic languages ​​- Ukrainian and Belarusian; Western Slavic - Polish, Koshubian, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, South Slavic - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian; dead - Old Church Slavonic (South Slavic), Palabian and Pomeranian (West Slavic). Long before our era, in the territory between the Dnieper and the Vistula, tribes of Slavs became isolated and developed a common Slavic language. TOV- VIcenturies among the Slavs, by that time three groups had separated: southern, western and eastern. The isolation of groups of Slavic tribes was accompanied by the collapse of the common Slavic language into independent languages.

From the 7th to the 9th centuries. took shape, and from the 9th to the beginning of the 12th centuries there was an East Slavic (Old Russian) state - Kievan Rus. The population of Kievan Rus spoke closely related dialects of the East Slavic (Old Russian) language.

In the 12th-13th centuries, Kievan Rus was divided into separate East Slavic (Old Russian) principalities; the language gave rise to three languages ​​- Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

On the northeastern outskirts of Kievan Rus XIVV. The state of Muscovite Rus' began to be created, the population of which spoke the emerging Russian language. During the era of the Moscow State and in subsequent eras, the Russian language was the language of only one of the three East Slavic nationalities.

Original Russian words are divided into 1) common Slavic, 2) East Slavic (Old Russian words) and 3) Russian proper

The Russian language inherited common Slavic (beard, eyebrow, thigh, lip, etc.) and East Slavic (Old Russian) words (hook, blackberry, rope, etc.) from the Common Slavic and East Slavic languages.

Since the 14th century. Russian words proper began to appear in the Russian language (gazebo, stoker, etc.). Russian words themselves were created on the basis of common Slavic, East Slavic (Old Russian) words and borrowed words.

Scientists, determining the origin of native Russian words, compare in all Slavic languages ​​the meaning and pronunciation of words denoting the same objects, phenomena, signs, actions. Common Slavic words will be those that appear in all or most Slavic languages, and among these languages ​​there must necessarily be, if not all, then at least a part of each of all three groups of Slavic languages ​​(Eastern, Southern and Western). If it turns out that words exist, for example, only in Bulgarian, then these are South Slavic words; if in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, then these are East Slavic words. if words are found in only one of the languages, then they are already the own formations of one or another Slavic language, for example, Russian.

In K.I. Chukovsky’s book “Alive as Life,” the Russian language is described as a living organism that successfully grows and develops from year to year. New words are created and old ones disappear. because life moves forward. Some objects and concepts are born, others die. Some words remain in the language, although the concepts they denoted have long disappeared from life. they continue to live, maintaining a figurative meaning.

According to the testimony of contemporaries, Pushkin, shortly before his death, heard from the famous collector of Russian words Vladimir Dahl that the skin that a snake sheds annually is popularly called “crawl.” He fell in love with this figurative word: after all, the snake, indeed, seems to be crawling out of an old skin. They remember that soon the poet came to Dahl in a new frock coat. “What a crawl,” he said…. Well, I won’t crawl out of this crawl anytime soon. In this crawl space I will write this...” But fate decreed otherwise. A few days later, wearing this frock coat, Pushkin was mortally wounded. Just before his death, having given Dahl his ring, which he considered a talisman, he managed to say: “Take the creeper for yourself too.” This coat with a bullet hole in the right field was kept by Dahl for a long time.

A.S. Pushkin not only made a huge, invaluable contribution to the development of Russian literature. He is rightly called the founder of the modern Russian literary language. “There is no doubt,” Turgenev wrote, “that he created our poetic, our literary language and that we and our descendants can only follow the path paved by his genius.” Lomonosov prepared the ground for the creation of a unified literary language, while Pushkin, according to Belinsky, “made a miracle out of the Russian language.” He managed to throw off the stylistic shackles of previous literary schools and movements and freed himself from conventional genre canons. It was he who brought the poetic “language of the gods” closer to living Russian speech.

Pushkin has long been called the people's poet. And not only because from the wilderness of the village the poet greedily absorbed folk words, listened to and wrote down fairy tales, proverbs and sayings. This element was close to his heart. “Something familiar is heard in the coachman’s long songs...” Pushkin called folk speech “a living and boiling source.” His advice is known: “Fellow writers, read folk tales.”

Pushkin's language is unusually rich. In terms of the number of different words he used, he surpasses such geniuses of world literature as Shakespeare and Cervantes.

But language changes continuously, and we will not find some words known to us in Pushkin. Pushkin did the most important thing: he united different stylistic layers of the Russian language, crossed book and folk speech into artistic creations unsurpassed in their perfection and originality.

I believe that language is the greatest value of a people. Language reflects our thinking, mental development and is an indicator of our culture.