{"id":9591,"date":"2014-02-06T11:34:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T11:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=9591"},"modified":"2014-02-06T11:34:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T11:34:13","slug":"russian-melancholy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=9591","title":{"rendered":"Russian melancholy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I was trying to learn some adjectives in Russian, and noticed that there seemed to be more Russian words for sad (9) than for happy (4), at least in one dictionary I checked (bab.la<\/a>). This might be a coincidence as in other dictionaries are more words for happy than for sad. In fact, combining the words together gives us nine words for happy and ten for sad.<\/p>\n

Words for happy include:<\/p>\n

– \u0441\u0447\u0430\u0441\u0442\u043b\u0438\u0432\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: fortunate, lucky, providential, blessed)
\n– \u0432\u0435\u0441\u0451\u043b\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: gay, cheery, fun, hilarious)
\n– \u0434\u043e\u0432\u043e\u043b\u044c\u043d\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: glad, pleased, amused, content)
\n– \u0443\u0434\u0430\u0447\u043d\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: successful, felicitous, chancy, fortunate)
\n– \u0431\u043b\u0430\u0433\u043e\u043f\u043e\u043b\u0443\u0447\u043d\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: safe, trouble-free)
\n– \u043b\u0438\u043a\u0443\u044e\u0449\u0438\u0439 = happy (also: jubilant, exultant, gleeful, elate, cookahoop, triumphant)
\n– \u0440\u0430\u0434\u043e\u0441\u0442\u043d\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: jolly, joyful, joyous glad, merry, cheery, high, gleeful, frabjous)
\n– \u0443\u0434\u0430\u0447\u043b\u0438\u0432\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: lucky, successful, prosperous, fluky)
\n– \u0443\u043b\u044b\u0431\u0447\u0438\u0432\u044b\u0439 = happy (also: smiling)<\/p>\n

Words for sad include:<\/p>\n

– \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0440\u0431\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: sorry, lamentable, regrettable, grievous)
\n– \u0433\u0440\u0443\u0441\u0442\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: melancholy, wailful, lamentable, minor)
\n– \u043f\u0435\u0447\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: down, sorrowful, deplorable, dolorous)
\n– \u0442\u0451\u043c\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: dark, dirty, cimmerian, darksome)
\n– \u0443\u043d\u044b\u043b\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: moody, dreary, chap-fallen, cheerless)
\n– \u0443\u0436\u0430\u0441\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: awful, horrible, terrible, dire)
\n– \u043e\u0442\u0447\u0430\u044f\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: desperate, foolhardy, hotshot, reckless)
\n– \u0442\u0443\u0441\u043a\u043b\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: dim, gloomy, blear, bleary)
\n– \u0442\u044f\u0436\u0435\u043b\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: heavy, difficult, hard, grinding)
\n– \u0434\u043e\u0441\u0430\u0434\u043d\u044b\u0439 = sad (also: annoying, provoking, pesky, plaguesome, vexatious)<\/p>\n

I wondered if this might reflect the reputed Russian melancholy nature of the Russian character. Do you think there’s anything in this?<\/p>\n

Are all of these words in common use, or are some used more than others?<\/p>\n

Even if this has no particular significance, it does illustrate the difficulty of choosing the right word when translating from one language to another.<\/p>\n

Sources: http:\/\/en.bab.la\/dictionary\/english-russian\/<\/a>, Reverso<\/a>, EUdict<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I was trying to learn some adjectives in Russian, and noticed that there seemed to be more Russian words for sad (9) than for happy (4), at least in one dictionary I checked (bab.la). This might be a coincidence as in other dictionaries are more words for happy than for sad. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,10,52,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-language","category-russian","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}