New Words in Greek and Russian During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cover Page

Cite item

Abstract

The description of the facts of the lexical dynamics of the coronavirus period focuses on identifying similarities and differences in the linguistic practice of neologization of Greek and Russian languages. The features of the incorporation of loanwords and the subsequent adaptation of new lexical items in the modern socio-cultural context of these languages are considered through the prism of the impact of global processes. The research is conducted at the lexical-semantic, word-formation, and partially morphological levels. The material of the research was taken from lexicographic sources of modern Greek and Russian languages. The comparative analysis revealed processes common to both languages, such as vocabulary replenishment by borrowing from the same source donor language, and processes specific to each language, such as reborrowing in Greek in a different form or with a different meaning. Based on this analysis, we can conclude that most of the neologisms in these languages come from English, the donor language of the coronavirus lexicon in other languages. At the same time, despite certain similarities in the processes of penetration of new elements into Greek and Russian, the further assimilation of lexical units in each language has an individual character and features that often activate their own mechanisms of neologization.

About the authors

Victoria G. Ouroumidou

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Author for correspondence.
Email: ouroumidou@slavstud.uoa.gr
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5922-3669

PhD in Philology, Lecturer at the Department of Russian Language and Literature and Slavic Studies

Athens, Greece

References

  1. Katsogiannou, M. & Stefanidou, Z. (2020): COVID-19: the dictionary. Athens: Kavvadia Crew Publications. URL: https://covid19.algolysis.com/glossary (In Greek.).
  2. Krysin, L.P. (2000). Foreign-language word in the context of modern social life. Russian Language of the End of the Twentieth Century (1985–1995). Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture.
  3. Anastasiadis-Symeonidis, A. (1994). Neologikos Danismos tis Neoellinikis [Neological borrowing in Modern Greek]. Thessaloniki: Institute for Modern Greek Studies. (In Greek.).
  4. Zemskaya, E.A. (2000). Active processes of modern word-production. The Russian Language of the End of the Twentieth Century (1985–1995). Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture.
  5. Chinese virus: coronavirus or coronavirus or corona virus? URL: https://www.babiniotis.gr/lexilogika/leksilogika-2/467-kinezikos-ios-koronaios-i-koronoios-i-koronios (accessed: 15.07.2022). (In Greek.).
  6. Katsogiannou, M., Toraki, K. & Mutafis, D. (2021). Terminology projects for the coronavirus pandemic. In: ELETO — 13th Conference “Hellenic Language and Terminology” 11–13 November 2021, Online. URL: http://www.eleto.gr/download/Conferences/13th%20Conference/Papers-and-speakers/13th_18_29_34_KatsoyannouMarianna_TorakiKaterina_MoutafisDimitris2_Paper._V04_Teliko.pdf (accessed: 15.07.2022). (In Greek.).
  7. Vepreva, I.T. & Kuprina, T.V. (2021) LOCKDOWN, CARANTINE, SELF-ISOLATION: a new English borrowing in a synonymous series of coronavirus Russian vocabulary, Russian Coronavicular Era Language. Saint Petersburg. URL: https://iling.spb.ru/dictionaries/neology/coronavirus/book.pdf (accessed: 15.07.2022).
  8. Krongauz, M. (2003). Changes in Russian Language Words, Semantics and Pragmatics. La Revue Russe, 23, 55–64. URL: https://www.persee.fr/doc/russe_1161-0557_2003_num_23_1_2183 (accessed: 15.07.2022).
  9. Fliatouras, A. (2021). From the sublime of the Spanish flu to the lockdown of the coronavirus: a diachronic and synchronic study of the impact of pandemics on the vocabulary of Greek, AWPEL, 3, 72–90. (In Greek.).
  10. Electronic Dictionary of Modern Greek Language Pataki URL: http://lexicon-neohel.patakis.gr/el/lexikon/lemma?id=117590 (accessed: 15.07.2022). (In Greek.).
  11. Corona virus or coronavirus? (2020). Nikos Sarantakos’ blog about language, literature and… everything else. January 24, 2020. URL: https://sarantakos.wordpress.com/2020/01/24/coronavirus/ (accessed: 15.07.2022). (In Greek.).
  12. Coronavirus and moral panic by Christoforos Charalambakis. Map, 16.04.2020. URL: https://www.hartismag.gr/hartis-16/klimakes/koronoios-kai-hoikos-panikos# (accessed: 15.07.2022).
  13. Khodzhageldiev, B.D. & Shurupova, O.S. (2016). Features of borrowing English abbreviations, Philological Sciences. Voprosy teorii i praktiki, 12(66). URL: www.gramota.net/materials/2/2016/12-1/55.html (accessed: 15.07.2022).
  14. D’yakov, A.I. (2012). Word-formation potential and word-formation activity of Anglicisms in Russian, Vestnik nauki Sibiri, 4 (5). URL: https://jwt.su/journal/article/view/312 (accessed: 15.07.2022).

Supplementary files

There are no supplementary files to display.


Copyright (c) 2023 Ouroumidou V.G.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This website uses cookies

You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.

About Cookies