Recently, young people on the Internet seem to be caught in the sequelae of the Russian language, often "bird vodka" and "ruthless hala less". When someone wonders what "Hala Less" means? Whoever can blurt out its meaning is more or less revealing age.
When the Treaty of Nebuchu was signed in 1689, Chinese and Russian negotiators also needed to be brokered through the Latin language of missionaries. Why did some Russian words begin to spread widely in China after modern times, and even incorporate local languages?
Familiar foreign words
The Russian word for "Soviet" originally meant "conference", and after the October Revolution, the Bolshevik (Russian for "majority") regime chose the name "Soviet" and put forward the slogan "All power to the Soviets", making it synonymous with a completely new model of power.
The victory of the "October Revolution" brought great encouragement to the Chinese people, and some progressive people in China urgently needed advanced revolutionary ideas and theories to arm their minds, and some Marxist-Leninist works were translated into China. With the introduction of newspaper works, "Soviet" gradually became a political term familiar to Chinese intellectuals. At the end of 1927, after the victory of the Guangdong Hailufeng Peasant Uprising led by Peng Pan, the revolutionary regime was called the "Soviet". During the agrarian revolution, Soviet power was established elsewhere in China. In 1931, the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic was established in Ruijin, Jiangxi.
Ruijin Cradle of the Republic Scenic Area. Photography / Kewell24, Source / Figureworm Creative
"Soviet" also derived from the chinese usage of "Soviet". The areas occupied by the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army are often called the "Soviet Zone", and the currency issued locally is also called "Soviet Coin" or "Soviet Ticket". Later, the Soviet regime established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922, and "Soviet" was also used to refer to the "USSR" itself, with terms such as "imitation of the Soviet Union" and "Soviet style", to name a few. In addition to the Soviets, there are many such Russians that came to China with the "October Revolution", such as Davarius (comrade).
Iron blood and tenderness
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union was the first to declare its recognition of New China. After that, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance and other agreements were signed in Moscow, and the relations between China and the Soviet Union were extremely close for a time, and the two sides carried out extensive cooperation in the political, economic and cultural fields. In the 1950s, Soviet (Russian) literature reached a climax on the mainland, with Chinese readers impressed chinese readers with Mother, Childhood, War and Peace, How Steel is Made, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, Destruction, The Young Guard, The Story of Zoya and Shula, and works by Pushkin and Chekhov.
Also during this period, Soviet films and songs were popular throughout China. During the Cold War, Soviet films received two Oscars for foreign language films and multiple nominations. In October 1949, the Soviet Union presented 15 excellent feature films to the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association, including films loved by Chinese audiences such as "Young Guards", "Battle of Stalingrad", and "Elbe Division". According to incomplete statistics, during the "Sino-Soviet Friendship Month" from November 7 to December 6, 1952, there were 67 cities in the country that held Soviet film exhibitions, and more than 40 million people watched Soviet films. At that time, Shanghai, which had a population of more than 5.4 million people, had an audience of 5.9 million Soviet films.
Poster for the movie "The Young Guards"
Through these literary works, people became familiar with the word "ulla "ура". In fact, "ulla" does not have a specific meaning in Russian, and is often used as a mood word to express strong emotions. Soldiers usually shout "Ulla! Soviet/Russian military parades also use the slogan "Ulla". Despite the vague meaning, in the minds of Chinese audiences, "Ula" has become a symbol of victory. In addition to "Ulla", Chinese will also come to a few words of Russian in life, such as Sisi Bar (thank you), Hala Shao (very good) and so on.
Another familiar term is "Katyusha", which represents the relatively "tender" side of Soviet/Russian culture. "Katyusha" (Катюша) is the female name Catherine (Екатерина), similar to the nickname "Tom" in English. The Soviet song "Katyusha" tells the story of a girl named "Katyusha" who hopes for the early return of her lover who served in the border guard. Because of its beautiful melody, Katyusha was popular in the Soviet Union. It is said that Katyusha became a unique social phenomenon during the Great Patriotic War, and millions of people regarded katyusha in the song as a real girl who loved the soldiers on the front line, and even many Soviet soldiers wrote letters to girls through newspapers to pour out their hearts.
Soviet soldiers loved the Katyusha so much that the BM-13, a 16-barrel, 132 mm self-propelled rocket launcher, was also named the Katyusha. Because, when it was delivered as a mysterious new weapon to the bloody Soviet soldiers, the weapon did not have any markings, but a "K" was prominently engraved on the gun mount.
On April 16, 1945, the Red Army besieged Berlin, the lair of Nazi Germany. When the Soviets launched a charge, many troops sang "Katyusha" in unison, and the song was accompanied by the roar of more than 2,000 "Katyusha" rockets! A Soviet correspondent wrote excitedly: "Oh my God, what's wrong, it's like the song of 'Katyusha' attacking Berlin!" ”
Soviet female soldier in film and television drama. Source/Screenshot from the movie "Here the Dawn Is Quiet"
In the 1950s, Katyusha also came to China, and many elderly people would hum a few words (just as the pear blossoms bloomed all over the world / The river fluttered with a soft veil / Katyusha stood on a steep shore / The song was like a bright spring light). In the minds of the Chinese people, the "Katyusha" in the song has also become synonymous with Soviet (Russian) women.
Imprint of the place
Due to geographical ties, northeasterners in the 20th century had more contact with Tsarist/Soviets. In this way, there are also many "Russian origin words" in the northeast dialect, and even some Russian borrowed words have become the "local characteristics" of the northeast.
In the late 19th century, Tsarist Russia realized that Harbin's geographical location was in the center of the "Middle East Railway (trunk line from Manchuria to Suifenhe)", the center of the northeastern plain, and had the transportation conditions to become a metropolis. On June 9, 1898 (May 28 in the Russian calendar), Ignazius, deputy chief engineer of the Eastern Qing Railway Construction Bureau, led the construction staff to this place and began the initial construction project.
Middle East Railway. Photo / Ha Bureau Patrol BG2AXK, Source / Figureworm Creative
After the construction of the Middle East Railway, a large number of Russian overseas Chinese moved to Harbin, and by the time the Middle East Railway was opened in 1903, the number of Russian expatriates living along the railway line centered on Harbin had reached more than 30,000. At that time, whether it was Chinese working on the Middle East Railway, or the shoemakers and hairdressers on the streets of Harbin, or even the waiters and managers in the shops, they could speak a few relevant Words of Russian. With the influx of Russian overseas Chinese, their eating habits were also brought to Harbin, such as the Russian bread called "хлеб", which became "Lieba" after entering the northeast dialect.
For a time, the big lieba, the small lieba, the lieba circle, and the cream lieba were filled with the counters of the Qiulin store (a famous department store), dotted with the urban style of Harbin, and also induced the people of Harbin to develop the habit of eating "lieba". In other dialects, the word "bread" has long been "unified", but in the northeast dialect, "lieba" has become a well-known positive word for all ages, and even derived many new words, such as "black lieba", "white lieba", "salty lieba", "sweet lieba", "great leba", and the Russian-Chinese combination of "leba bread" and "leba bread".
Compared with "Leba", "Платье)" entered The Chinese language was once more powerful. "Braj" means "dress". Since the westernization of Chinese costumes in the early 20th century, the Chinese language has introduced the paraphrased word "dress" and its concept from English. However, in the 1950s, due to the close relationship between China and the Soviet Union, there was also a tendency to "Sovietize" clothing, such as "Lenin's clothing" was popular for a while. At the same time, "Braji" spread rapidly in China, once replacing the original status of "dress". At that time, the streets could hear phrases such as "Su-style Braji" and "Natasha-style Braji". As late as the 1980s and 1990s, the word "Braji" can still be heard in the cross-talk of the cattle herd and Feng Gong's performances. However, from ancient times to the present, chinese people still favor "transliteration" for absorbing foreign words, unlike the Japanese language that used katakana to transliterate foreign words after World War II, and the replacement of "telephone" by "telephone" is an example.
The TV series line has "Braji", which means dress. Source/Screenshot of the TV series "Historical Sky"
The transliteration of "Braji" from Russian is not in line with the long-formed habits of the Chinese language, so it has slowly withdrawn from the Standard Chinese Language System, and now only occasionally appears in the Northeast dialect.
As for "fence", it is a Russian loanword that has never been active only in the Harbin dialect. The "fence" seems easy to understand, but in fact, it cannot be expected to be literal. It is not the "fence" in the Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi's "Xi Sergeant Female Out of the Fence", which refers to the barrier made of bamboo or grass; it has no inheritance relationship with Tao Yuanming's so-called "Fan Cage" in "Long in the Cage, Return to Nature". Going back to the source, it's a Russian loanword. Tsarist Russia referred to the police and the police department collectively as "палиция", and the transliteration of Chinese characters should be written as "Barris". Harbin people have flexible heads, thinking that entering the police station means going to jail, they have to be fenced off, so that the squat "Barris" has become a very vivid squat "fence".
In fact, the Harbin Dialect Dictionary counts no less than 30 Russian words, and "fence" is only one of them. Zhou Libo's novel "The Tempest", which won the third prize of the Stalin Literature Prize in 1951, tells the story of a village called Yuan Maotun on the banks of the Songhua River in northeast China, and one of the passages reads: "In the year before the great year, he hid in the pine forest, Han Laoliu sued, he was arrested and squatted for three months on the fence, and was sent to Jinshou as a laborer. ”
Songhua River. Photography / Ping Tong knows, source / figure worm creative
In literary works such as "fence", the Russian word for "police station" is used. With the change of society and the passage of time, even the natives of Harbin today have become less aware of the true semantics of "fence". But in any case, the Russian words represented by "fence" still leave the imprint of the times in the Harbin dialect of Chinese.