The order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on approval of the list of dictionaries containing the norms of the modern Russian language came into force on September 1. From now on, inviting people to a five-o-clock to drink “delicious coffee” is now the norm.

The approved list includes four reference books - spelling, grammar, phraseology and a dictionary of accents.

As RIA Novosti was told by the Ministry of Education and Science, the list of dictionaries can be expanded if experts approve other publications. In addition, the agency’s interlocutor emphasized, we are not talking about changing the rules of the Russian language. Dictionaries only record the norms of the “great and powerful” - they reflect what is already in the language. The publications approved by the Ministry of Education and Science will become a standard for Russian officials, since they are officially approved for the use of the state language of the Russian Federation.

Now it is not a mistake to say “black coffee” or to put the emphasis in the word “agreement” on the first syllable. Dictionaries also allow you to say “yogurt” and “yogurt”, “on Wednesdays” and “on Wednesdays”.

“Internet” can only be correctly written with a capital letter, and “Tskhinvali” can only be written with an “and” at the end. "Facsimile" is pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable.

The greatest problems when writing are often caused by borrowed words, in particular those starting with re - and ri-. New reference books come to the rescue here too. You can find the words “realtor” and “remake” in them, as well as “offshore”, “digger”, “fax modem” and “file server”.

“Fife-o-klok” is now also considered a Russian word and it is quite possible to say “I didn’t have fife-o-klok today” in the sense of “I didn’t have an afternoon snack today.”

Meanwhile, in the dictionaries it was not possible to find such recently popular words as “diversify” (there is only “diversification”) and “nightmare”.

Also, the new reference books leave unchanged the norms for pronouncing the words “cakes” (with emphasis on the first syllable), “calls” and “more beautiful” (on the second).

Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy believes that new norms must be introduced into the language extremely carefully. “Such decisions can only be made after an examination of research institutes and philological faculties,” Sadovnichy told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

According to him, it is very dangerous to “take liberties” so as not to introduce slang into the Russian language.

Sadovnichy noted that the Russian language is not a dead language, it is constantly changing and over 100 years many new words and new concepts have come into use, and there have also been changes in spelling. “But all this must be carefully studied. My opinion is that the Russian language should be greatly protected. This is the language of Pushkin, this is a very good basis for us to live,” said the agency’s interlocutor.

Literacy becomes hostage to patterns

On Russian Language Day, which is celebrated on June 6, experts once again raised the problem of popular literacy - in particular, the literacy of media representatives. They believe that their native speech is spoiled by the dogmatism of dictionary compilers, and the Unified State Exam format in the Russian language forces children to memorize endangered, outdated word forms. The future belongs to the word “calling” - with an emphasis on “O”!

New times - new words. And a new sound for old words, which is much more important - primarily for journalists. All over the world they are trying to keep their finger on the pulse - for example, the Associated Press news agency recently announced that the term “Internet” has become commonplace and will be written with a small letter. And in Russia, the last spelling dictionary of the Russian language for radio and television workers was published in 1985, edited by the famous Rosenthal... Russian specialists decided to fill the gap and published a new specialized “Dictionary of Russian Language Difficulties for Media Workers.”

One of the key ideas of the dictionary is that language is flexible and prone to evolution. But people who, by the will of their profession, work with language do not always have the necessary flexibility. The main language problem of journalism is not stupid school mistakes - as a rule, even the greenest juniors do not make them. The main problem is “excessive literacy,” which forces the use of outdated accents and inflections of words that are not used by the majority of citizens. When a journalist speaks or writes academically correctly, but not in the same way as the majority of his audience, it undermines the journalist's credibility and focuses on uncharacteristic-sounding form rather than substance, worsening the perception of information. This is what the author of the “Dictionary of Difficulties of the Russian Language for Media Workers”, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University, Mikhail Studiner, thinks:

Variation is one of the most important properties of our language. But in the media sphere, since Soviet times, it was customary to always choose one variant of pronunciation or spelling, so as not to provoke inconsistency on the air. And at one time, even at Rosenthal’s anniversary, employees of the Central Editorial Office of the radio sang humorous couplets, where, in particular, the nuances of pronunciation were played out: “... The correspondent said “KarAkas”, and the announcer said “Karakas...” That’s why I give it in the dictionary all forms of words that are correct to use. By the way, using old encyclopedias is not always the right choice for a journalist... For example, proper names, which in dictionaries are given with an emphasis that does not correspond to the Russian tradition. In encyclopedias - WASHINGTON, MARLON BrANDO, JOHAN GUTENBERG. The colloquial versions sound different - Washington, MarlOn BrandO, Gutenberg. And it is these “wrong” options that need to be used. It often happens that both the norm and the recommendation have already changed, but in the old dictionary there is still the same version, which sounds wild to the ear... Here is a typical example - all normal people, both literate and not so, talk about negative temperatures - “ minus". But not a single dictionary out of the many here even allows for variation - correctly “minus”, period! Or the word “exhaust” - in dictionaries it sounds like “exhaust”, but no one says that! In such a situation, a journalist should speak not “like a dictionary,” but in the way that most of his audience expects from him! The words “minus”, “exhaust”, “dancer”, etc. will be perceived as mistakes, undermining the journalist’s credibility. And dogmatism is often ingrained in us from school - in textbooks for preparing for the Unified State Exam, I saw, say, the word “exhaust” with an emphasis on “E”...

Literacy is often held hostage to patterns - as, for example, happens with the famous verb “to call,” says professor at the Institute of Russian Language. Vinogradov RAS Dmitry Savinov:

The odious word “rings”, which has become some kind of standard of literacy... It is believed that literate people put the emphasis on “I” - rings, and the rest - on “O” - rings. But, interestingly, in the old days, most verbs sounded with an emphasis on the ending - today we say “varit”, but before we said “varit”. Most words have changed their emphasis over time (for example, now we don’t say “loads” - but say “loads”), but “calls” has retained its emphasis. Yes, it is still believed that “ringing” is definitely correct, but too many people put the emphasis on “O”. Whether Russian language specialists want it or not, the future is clearly in the “ringing” option! Language is a living process; it is impossible to stop its evolution. But at the same time, in spelling tasks in the Russian language from the Unified State Exam, these are the words that predominate - children, in fact, are forced to memorize artificially imposed outdated forms...

At the Onezhsky cultural center, as part of a joint project of the website “Theories and Practices” and the Moscow Department of Culture “City Lecture Hall”, a lecture was held by the editor-in-chief of the portal “Gramota.ru”, candidate of philological sciences Vladimir Pakhomov. He told how spelling has changed in the history of the Russian language, why the use of the words “call” with an emphasis on the first syllable and “coffee” in the neuter gender is not an indicator of illiteracy, and why it makes no sense to ban foreign words. Lenta.ru publishes the main points of his speech.

How we hear and what we write

In the minds of most people, two different concepts are very often confused: language and spelling (spelling). Therefore, the Russian language is often perceived simply as a set of rules, once invented by someone and randomly systematized in textbooks and reference books. Many people sincerely believe that if a person has learned the rules, this means that he knows his native language.

In fact, spelling rules are not the language itself, but its shell. They can be compared to the wrapper in which a chocolate candy is wrapped (in this case it is similar to a tongue). And at school they mainly study the rules of spelling, and not the language. Writing competently does not mean having perfect command of the Russian language. Doctor of Philological Sciences Igor Miloslavsky rightly notes that “the level of proficiency in one’s native literary language is determined by a person’s ability to accurately and completely understand everything he reads or hears, as well as his ability to express absolutely clearly his own thoughts and feelings, depending on the conditions and recipient of communication.” . Let me emphasize: language and spelling are completely different things.

There is nothing specially invented by anyone in the spelling rules. Our spelling is harmonious and logical. 96 percent of spellings of Russian words are based on one single principle - the main principle of Russian spelling. This is a morphological principle, the essence of which is that each morpheme (prefix, root, suffix, ending) is written the same way despite the fact that it can be pronounced differently in different words. For example, we say du[p] and du[b]y, but we write this root the same way: oak.

How sailors changed the Russian alphabet

In the history of the Russian language there have been only two reforms of graphics and spelling. The first was carried out by Peter I in 1708-1710. To a greater extent, it concerned graphics: the writing of uppercase (large) and lowercase (small) letters was legalized, unnecessary letters were removed from the Russian alphabet and the writing of the rest was simplified. The second occurred in 1917-1918. This was already a reform of both graphics and spelling. During it, the letters Ѣ (yat), Ѳ (fita), I (“And decimal”), and the hard sign (Ъ) at the end of words were removed. In addition, some spelling rules have been changed. For example, in the genitive and accusative cases of adjectives and participles, the endings -ago, -яго were replaced by -ого, -и (for example, starago - old), in the nominative and accusative cases of the plural feminine and neuter genders -ыя, -ія - to - s, -ies (old - old).

By the way, the initiators of this reform were not the Bolsheviks at all. Changes in Russian spelling have been brewing for a long time; preparations began at the end of the 19th century. The spelling commission at the Imperial Academy of Sciences began working in 1904, and the first draft was presented in 1912. Some of the scientists' proposals were very radical: for example, at the end of words it was proposed to remove not only the hard sign (Ъ), but also the soft sign (b). If this proposal had been accepted (later linguists abandoned it), then we would now write not “night”, but “noch”.

In May 1917, the reform project was approved by the Provisional Government. It was assumed that the transition to the new spelling would take place gradually, and for some time both the old and the new spelling would be considered correct. But the Bolsheviks who seized power approached this issue in their characteristic manner. New rules were introduced immediately, and in the printing houses detachments of revolutionary sailors confiscated the “canceled” letters. This led to an incident: the hard sign (Ъ) was also selected, despite the fact that its spelling as a separating sign within words was preserved. Therefore, typesetters had to use an apostrophe (’), which is how spellings like s’ezd arose.

The adoption in 1956 of the officially still in force Russian spelling rules was not a spelling reform: the text did not contain many changes. For example, now it was necessary to write the words “shell”, “barber”, “scurvy”, “mat” with the letter “i” instead of “s”, “apparently”, “still” with a hyphen instead of the previously accepted continuous spelling , the spellings “devil”, “go”, “come” were approved - instead of “devil”, “itti”, “come”.

Hare and parachute

The next serious spelling reform in the Russian language was scheduled for 1964. Many linguists were aware of the incompleteness and some inconsistency of the 1956 rules, which were replete with a huge number of exceptions. The idea was not to simplify Russian spelling, but to make it even more coherent, more systematic and more logical, making it easier to learn at school. This was important both for teachers, who in the 1960s often complained about the low literacy of schoolchildren and the lack of hours to study the Russian language, and for the state. Why, for example, was it suggested to write “hare”? Look, we write “fighter” - “fighter”, “fighter”. In the controversial word, the vowel also disappears: “hare”, “hare”, so why not write “hare” by analogy with “fighter”? In other words, it was not a question of simplifying for the sake of simplifying, but of eliminating unjustified exceptions. Unfortunately, after Khrushchev’s removal, the country’s new leaders, who were “allergic” to the ideas of their predecessor, curtailed the already prepared reform.

The need to streamline the rules of Russian spelling was again discussed in the late 1990s. The country has changed, times have changed, and many of the rules of 1956 began to look not only outdated, but also downright ridiculous. For example, in the Soviet years, in accordance with ideological guidelines, the USSR army was required to be called exclusively the Armed Forces. At the same time, when writing the names of the armies of socialist countries, only the first word was written with a capital letter - Armed Forces, and the armies of capitalist states and NATO countries could only be called armed forces.

In addition, many new words have appeared, their first parts: media, Internet, web, business. Therefore, the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences began work on a new edition of the spelling rules, with examples relevant to modern written speech. Linguists discussed changes in the spelling of individual words (many people remember the discussion about the words “parachute”, “brochure”, “jury”, which were proposed to be written with “u”; linguists later abandoned this idea). Alas, the work of linguists was not fully covered in the media; journalists talked about supposedly impending “language reform,” etc. As a result, society reacted extremely negatively to the work of the Spelling Commission, so the draft of a new edition of the Russian spelling rules prepared by it was not approved and the 1956 code remains generally binding to this day.

However, the work of the Spelling Commission was not in vain; its result was the complete academic reference book “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation”, published in 2006, as well as the academic “Russian Spelling Dictionary” edited by Doctor of Philology Vladimir Lopatin - the most complete spelling dictionary of the modern Russian language . There are few changes compared to the 1956 rules. For example, the verbal adjective “counted”, which was previously an exception and was written with two letters “n”, is now brought under the general rule and is written with one “n”, while the participle is written with two (counted minutes and money counted by the accountant, cf.: fried potatoes and fried potatoes).

RINGING or RINGING?

We talked about how often spelling changes. How often does the Russian language change? Constantly, because the Russian language is a living language, and only dead languages ​​do not change. Changes in language are a normal process that should not be feared and considered degradation or destruction of the language.

The place of stress in words changes. Let's take the most famous example with the verb “to call”; anyway, not a single conversation about language can do without it. Some native speakers demonstratively depict painful suffering when they hear the stress zvonit (despite the fact that they themselves make similar spelling errors without noticing it at all, for example they say drills instead of the normative drills), and journalists in relation to the stress zvonit use their favorite cliche “litmus test of illiteracy.” Meanwhile, linguists are aware of the presence in the language of such a phenomenon as the shift of stress on verbs ending in -it in personal forms from the ending to the root (this process began at the end of the 18th century). Some verbs have already gone this way. For example, they once said: loads, cooks, rolls, smokes, pays. Now we say: loads, cooks, rolls, smokes, pays.

Photo: Alexander Polyakov / RIA Novosti

Knowledge of this trend gave the authors of the “Big Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian Language”, published in 2012, grounds to record the option vklyuchit (previously prohibited) as acceptable (with a strict literary norm, vklyuchit). There is no doubt that this option, which has already passed the path from prohibited to permissible, will continue to move towards the only possible and sooner or later will replace the old emphasis “includes,” just as the new option “pays” once replaced the old emphasis “pays.”

The same process occurs with the verb “to call.” He would also follow this path, but we - native speakers - do not let him. The educated part of society has a very negative attitude towards the variant zvonit, and that is why it is not yet included in dictionaries as acceptable (although back in the 1970s, linguists wrote that the ban on the accent zvonit is clearly artificial). Now, in 2015, the norm is only calling. But knowledge of the orthoepic law, which is mentioned above, gives grounds to assert that this will not always be the case and the stress ringing, most likely, sooner or later will become the only correct one. Not because “linguists will follow the lead of illiterate people,” but because these are the laws of language.

In the process of language evolution, the lexical meanings of some words often change. Korney Chukovsky in his book “Alive as Life” gives an interesting example. The famous Russian lawyer A.F. In the last years of his life (he died under Soviet rule in 1927), Kony was very indignant when those around him used the word “obligatory” in the new meaning of “certainly”, although before the revolution it meant only “kindly”, “helpfully”.

Why are languages ​​simplified?

Language changes at the grammatical level. It is known that in the Old Russian language there were six types of declension of nouns, and in modern Russian there are three left. There were three numbers (singular, dual and plural), only two remained (singular and plural).

And here it is worth mentioning another interesting pattern. We know that evolution is a path from simple to complex. But in language it's the other way around. The evolution of language is a path from complex forms to simpler ones. The grammar of modern Russian is simpler than that of ancient Russian; Modern English is simpler than Old English; modern Greek is easier than ancient Greek. Why is this happening?

I have already said that in the ancient Russian language there were three numbers: singular, dual (when we were talking about only two objects) and plural, that is, in the minds of our ancestors there could be one, two or many objects. Now in Russian there is only singular or plural, that is, there can be one object or several. This is a higher level of abstraction. On the one hand, there are fewer grammatical forms and some simplification has occurred. On the other hand, the category of number with the advent of the distinction “one - many” became more harmonious, logical and clear. Therefore, these processes not only are not a sign of language degradation, but, on the contrary, indicate its improvement and development.

From masculine to neuter

Many people have the wrong idea about the work of linguists. Some believe that they invent the rules of the Russian language and force society to live by them. For example, everyone says “kill a spider with a slipper,” but the linguist claims that you can’t say that because the word “slipper” is feminine (the correct word would be “kill a spider with a slipper”). Some believe that linguists simplify the norm for the sake of poorly educated people and include illiterate variants in dictionaries like coffee in the neuter gender.

In fact, linguists do not invent language norms, they record them. Observe the language and record findings in dictionaries and encyclopedias. Scientists should do this regardless of whether they like a particular option or not. But at the same time, they look to see whether the option meets the laws of language. Depending on this, the option is marked as prohibited or allowed.

Why is the word “coffee” often used in the neuter gender? Is it just because of illiteracy? Not at all. The fact is that the masculine gender of the word “coffee” is resisted by the language system itself. This word is borrowed, inanimate, common noun, indeclinable and ending in a vowel. The overwhelming majority of such words in Russian belong to the neuter gender. “Coffee” was included in the exceptions because there were once in the language the forms “coffee”, “coffee” - masculine, they declined like “tea”: drink tea, drink coffee. And so the masculine gender of the word “coffee” is a monument to long-dead forms, while the laws of a living language drag it into the neuter gender.

And these laws are very strong. Even words that resist them still give in over time. For example, when the metro opened in Moscow in 1935, the media wrote: the metro is very convenient for passengers. The newspaper “Soviet Metro” was published, and Utesov sang: “But the metro sparkled with oak railings, it immediately bewitched all the riders.” The word “metro” was masculine (because “metropolitan” is masculine), but gradually “went” into the neuter gender. Consequently, the fact that “coffee” becomes a neuter word does not occur because people are illiterate, but because these are the laws of language development.

Who cares about foreign words?

Also, any conversation about the Russian language is not complete without discussing borrowing words. We often hear that the Russian language is becoming clogged with foreign words and that we urgently need to get rid of borrowings, that if we don’t take action and stop the flow of borrowings, we will all soon speak a mixture of English and Nizhny Novgorod. And these myths are passed on from generation to generation.

Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library/Global Look

It is very easy to prove that the Russian language is unthinkable without borrowed words. It is enough to give examples of words that seem to us to be originally Russian, but in fact are not. So, even in the Old Russian language the words “shark”, “whip”, “herring”, “sneak” came from the Scandinavian languages, from the Turkic - “money”, “pencil”, “robe”, from the Greek - “letter”, “ bed", "sail", "notebook". Even the word “bread” is very likely a borrowing: scholars suggest that its source is the Gothic language.

In different eras, borrowings from one language usually prevailed in the Russian language. When, during the time of Peter I, Russia was building a fleet in order to “open a window to Europe,” many words related to maritime affairs came to us, most of them from the Dutch language (shipyard, harbor, compass, cruiser, sailor), after all, The Dutch at that time were considered the best shipwrights and many of them worked in Russian shipyards. In the 18th-19th centuries, the Russian language was enriched with the names of dishes, clothing, jewelry, and furnishings that came from the French language: soup, broth, champignon, cutlet, marmalade, vest, coat, wardrobe, bracelet, brooch. In recent decades, words in the Russian language come mainly from the English language and they are associated with modern technical devices and information technologies (computer, laptop, smartphone, online, website).

What has been said does not mean that the Russian language is so poor or greedy: it only receives and gives nothing. Not at all. Russian also shares its words with other languages, but exports often go not to the West, but to the East. If we compare the Russian language and the Kazakh language, for example, we will see that the Kazakh language has a lot of borrowings from Russian. In addition, the Russian language is an intermediary for many words coming from West to East and from East to West. The same role was played in the 17th-19th centuries by the Polish language, through which a lot of words came into Russian (thanks to the Poles, we say “Paris” and not “Paris”, “revolution” and not “revolution”).

If we ban foreign words, we will simply stop the development of the language. And then there is a threat that we will start speaking in another language (for example, in English), because the Russian language in this case will not allow us to express our thoughts fully and in detail. In other words, a ban on the use of foreign words leads not to the preservation, but to the destruction of the language.

In the new orthoepic dictionary of the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on which scientists have been working for 15 years, acceptable norms for the pronunciation of words that were previously used only by illiterate residents of the country have appeared. Apparently, scientists followed the lead of the crowd, since they legalized the words “call”, “turn on”, “shell”, etc.

According to the compilers of the dictionary, not all innovations are so new - many returned to modern Russian from pre-revolutionary Russia. By what principle are controversial accents “legitimized” and how often will we have to re-learn the rules of orthoepy, Vesti FM correspondent Tatyana Grigoryants looked into:

“No sooner has the Russian public moved away from “coffee,” which may be of the neuter kind, than it will soon have to get used to “agreements,” “Yogurts,” and “call.” Although, of course, for part of the population there is nothing unusual in this pronunciation of these words. But there is another, fortunately, large part of society, which, to put it mildly, cringes at the newly appeared “acceptability” in the Russian language.

Since 2005, any person or legal entity can compile their own dictionary or reference book and submit it for examination. There are not many people interested, which is not surprising: compiling a dictionary is a painstaking task and requires more than one year of hard work. But new dictionaries still appear. The latter, orthoepic, was recently developed by the Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

This edition includes words and variants of their pronunciation that were previously unacceptable. For example, the word “turn on”, according to the new dictionary, can be pronounced both with an emphasis on the second syllable and on the first - “turn on”, and “call” is a little joy for those who cannot remember the correct version of “call”. It seems as if academicians are “adjusting” the rules of the Russian language to the illiterate part of the population. From the series, it’s easier to change the norms than to wean them from “calling.” The writer Eduard Uspensky has no doubt about this.

“They want to be, as it seems to them, closer to the people, but they are closer to the “cattle.” I am a very conservative person, I am against change. Because a lot of nasty words appeared, such as “take a picture” of me, please, let’s “take a picture” together... Such words make me feel like a pain in the ass.”

However, the developers of the spelling dictionary explain the new pronunciation standards by saying that the future lies with these options. However, some of them have a past behind them. For example, in the case of the word “yogurt”. We take the famous “Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by Avanesov. The first edition of 1983 - there is one option: “YogUrt”. Because throughout the first half of the twentieth century there was an intellectual tradition of saying this. It was decided to include this tradition in the new dictionary as one of the pronunciation options. From which it follows that not all “strange” and seemingly illiterate accents were normalized according to the principle “so the majority says.” President of the Russian Academy of Linguistic Sciences Emma Volodarskaya told what is most important when determining the norm.

“To continue to perform its main function, namely, maintaining communications. A language that does not preserve communication ceases to be necessary.”

The fact that the Russian language has undergone and is undergoing numerous editions is not scary. Changes in the lexicon are a consequence of time and the development of society. It would be strange in the age of scientific and technological progress to say: “like you are on the Moscow Ring Road” or “this is, sir, a cell phone.” But language is a kind of litmus test of social consciousness, says Marina Mikheykina, candidate of historical sciences.

“If we talk about Russia, the process of democratization naturally caused simplifications of the language, not always, however, legitimate. In this way, the language reacts to the lifting of certain prohibitions.”

Those who studied at philological faculties in the middle of the twentieth century know that there were two norms for the pronunciation of words - the senior norm and the junior one. But only specialists operated with these concepts; in society there was a single set of rules that everyone was guided by. There was no policy of “double standards,” explains Yulia Safonova, a member of the editorial board of the Gramota.ru portal.

“This does not mean that the authors of the new dictionary did something wrong... Or lied about something. Yes, no one says “turn it on”, but I don’t like that they are proposing to make this the norm! Then how do we have two standards?! Okay, I can break it down and say, I choose the senior norm. What should those who sit on the air do?”

Apparently, collect dictionaries, but don’t bother remembering modern standards - they will still change in 20-25 years, according to experts.”

Changes have been made to the Russian language “I just want coffee. And faster. Otherwise I still have time to get married...” Having heard such speech, do not rush to reprimand the person for incorrect pronunciation, otherwise you yourself may get into trouble. Drink YogUrta and read the changes in dictionaries that came into force on September 1 this year

Changes have been made to four Russian language dictionaries that have shaken the foundations of some Russian intelligentsia. For those who pronounced words incorrectly, this may have caused some joy, as if they had legitimized it.

In fact, words have undergone significant changes. For example, Marvanna’s repeated words from the first grade that “coffee is mine” have lost their meaning.

Today, the KCh experts in matters of innovation have become the Russian language help service Gramota.ru, Moscow, head Yuri Evgenievich Prokhorov - Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Rector of the State Institute of Russian Language named after. A. S. Pushkina and Inna Vasilyeva, director of the Kachkanar city library

KaratE, Tskhinvali and the Treaty

Digger, as an equivalent replacement for the word “digger”;
- the agreement exists on a par with the contract;
- on Wednesdays and on Wednesdays;
- cooking and cooking;
- karate and karate;
- Internet (only with a capital letter);
- yogurt and regular yogurt;
- fermentation and fermentation;
- Tskhinvali (not Tskhinvali);
- tandem - together with tandem;
- getting married;
- the word “coffee” can now be used not only in the masculine gender, as before, but also in the neuter gender. And the word “whisky,” which was previously used only in the neuter gender, is now also in the masculine gender;
- Italian “ciao” can be used instead of “bye” (in the sense of “goodbye”).

In addition to these changed norms of the Russian language, there are others that are published in the following publications: “Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language” by B. Bukchina, I. Sazonova and L. Cheltsova, “Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language” by A. Zaliznyak, “Dictionary of Stresses of the Russian Language” "I. Reznichenko and "Big Phraseological Dictionary" with comments by V. Telia.

In order for any dictionary to be mandatory for use in school, it must be included in another document - the federal list, which is approved every year by the Minister of Education.

Officially

On September 1, 2009, the order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “On approval of the list of grammars, dictionaries and reference books containing the norms of the modern Russian literary language when used as the state language of the Russian Federation” came into force. The order was signed by the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Andrei Fursenko.

So far, only four printed reference books have been submitted to the Ministry for consideration, which caused a great public outcry. The rest, more authoritative, such as the reference books of Ozhegov and Rosenthal, have not yet been included in the list of dictionaries. But in the near future, most likely, they will also submit applications for consideration and approval to the state list of dictionaries. But no one is going to abolish “classical” reference books and academic publications, the department reports.

It is possible that in the future some disagreements will arise between these dictionaries, which will need to be brought to some kind of agreement.

Opinions - - -

Russian Language Help Service, head Yuri Evgenievich Prokhorov:
“You don’t need to change your language habits”

Let's clarify. Firstly, amendments were made not to language norms, but to the methods of their regulation: a list of modern reference publications that regulate the norms of word usage and writing in the modern Russian language is indicated. The step, in principle, is very reasonable, considering how many popular dictionaries and reference books are published today, aimed at a mass audience. It is difficult for a non-linguist reader to navigate this abundance. In addition, outright fakes are also published; sometimes re-edited editions from the middle of the last century, or even the century before last, are passed off as the newest dictionaries of the modern Russian language.

Now, actually, language issues: coffee, contract and getting married.

The noun “coffee” has been recorded in many dictionaries as bigender for many years. At the same time, we should not forget about the stylistic difference: masculine coffee is a strict literary norm; The neuter gender is the sphere of spoken communication.

Dictionaries have been pointing out the admissibility (let us emphasize: it is admissibility, not obligatory) of the word “agreement” in casual speech over the past decade. But this in no way makes the version of the word “agreement” incorrect.

Finally, the variant of the word “marrying” also did not appear today; dictionaries have been recording it for quite a long time, without any stylistic marks, on a par with getting married.

It should be added that in many media today you can read the following phrase: “From now on, the word Internet must be written with a capital letter.” However, this option was the only correct one before, so no innovations in this matter also occurred.

We emphasize that the discussed “fried” grammatical, pronunciation and word-formation options (coffee, as a neuter noun, agreement and marriage) in no way replace the options familiar to us and you, but are only recognized as acceptable based on the practice of word usage, so There is no need to change your language habits.

Believe me, much more significant changes are constantly taking place in the language, which society does not notice simply because they do not fall into the sphere of media attention.

Inna Vasilyeva, director of the city library:
“These are incredible changes.”

In principle, any language, especially Russian, is a fairly stable phenomenon. However, a certain part of him is changing. I'm not talking about accents, but new words appear. Thus, something new is brought into the language.

There are many examples in the history of language. For example, “Hall” and “Zala”. Here not only the emphasis, but also the gender of the word has changed. Such changes occur periodically. Why such changes happened this time again, I don’t know. We are accustomed to what we were taught, our children are accustomed to it, but now it turns out that everything is different.

There is no guarantee that we adults will not speak differently. Even at the institute, we were told that it is better to have one accent in a word than to have two options. There were, of course, words that had two accents: cottage cheese and cottage cheese. But why they now added an agreement to the agreement is not clear. I personally have a negative attitude towards this, like all normal people.

YogUrt and those getting married are completely out of bounds. Thank God that we don’t use the word getting married so often. Imagine what it’s like now for the registry office workers who will be forced to say something like that? Let's write MalAko and Karova then.

There is also a problem in what environment a person is in and what he was taught. If throughout the entire learning process he was told that the word “coffee” is masculine, and everyone around him will “average” it, then he will speak incorrectly. Perhaps this is an education issue. In schools they don't stop talking about "Zhi-Shi", but people still write with mistakes.

Another problem is the Unified State Exam. There, in many questions, students must answer with the correct emphasis. And what answer will be correct if these dictionaries are approved for education? Judge for yourself: those getting married - this is incomprehensible to the mind. This could only be a typo!

What will it be like now for teachers who have been accustomed to speak this way and no other way all their lives? What were the people who introduced these changes focusing on? To people's conversations? So people say a lot of things wrong, let's change everything.

We already have enough of all kinds of confusion in the country, including in education. Why add more? The New School project, the Unified State Exam and, in addition, new rules. I think there was no need to complicate an already difficult situation.

It is likely that after some time, instead of “Hello,” something like “Hey handsome guys” will sound, and “Good night” will be included in the familiar wish “Good night.” Time will sort out the dots. But, as practice shows, language can lead not only to Kyiv, but also to the point of absurdity. Ciao.