{"id":11605,"date":"2019-03-14T07:10:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T07:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=11605"},"modified":"2019-03-25T15:21:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T15:21:06","slug":"spelling-and-abbreviating-bulky-words-in-russian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/spelling-and-abbreviating-bulky-words-in-russian\/","title":{"rendered":"Spelling and Abbreviating Bulky Words in Russian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to their numerous prefixes, suffixes, and endings, Russian words can be pretty long<\/a>. In addition, the “morphology principle of spelling” (\u043c\u043e\u0440\u0444\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0433\u0438\u0301\u0447\u0435\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0301\u043d\u0446\u0438\u043f \u043f\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043e\u043f\u0438\u0441\u0430\u0301\u043d\u0438\u044f<\/strong>) dictates that we spell Russian word roots consistently, even if they are pronounced differently in related words. Think of \u0433\u043e\u0301\u0440\u043e\u0434<\/strong> (city) vs. \u0433\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0434\u0430\u0301<\/strong> (cities). If they were spelled phonetically, they would look something like \u0433\u043e\u0440\u0430\u0442 and \u0433\u0430\u0440\u0430\u0434\u0430. How do native or proficient speakers of Russian deal with these challenges?<\/p>\n

\"journal\"

Photo by Cathryn Lavery<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Abbreviations<\/h2>\n

Many people who went to primary, secondary, or tertiary school (\u043d\u0430\u0447\u0430\u0301\u043b\u044c\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0448\u043a\u043e\u0301\u043b\u0430, \u0441\u0440\u0435\u0301\u0434\u043d\u044f\u044f \u0448\u043a\u043e\u0301\u043b\u0430, \u0432\u044b\u0301\u0441\u0448\u0435\u0435 \u0443\u0447\u0435\u0301\u0431\u043d\u043e\u0435 \u0437\u0430\u0432\u0435\u0434\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438\u0435<\/strong>\u2014that’s elementary, middle\/high school, and college for our North American readers) in Russia and culturally-similar regions will remember sitting in a lecture where the instructor is going a mile a minute, and you are desperately trying to keep up. From what I recall, technology did not necessarily help things as, instead of writing down the spoken words, you would often end up chasing a rapid-fire succession of slides.<\/p>\n

So how do <\/em>Russians handle note-taking? Well, audio recording is one way. A few years ago, some people would use Dictaphones (\u0434\u0438\u043a\u0442\u043e\u0444\u043e\u0301\u043d\u044b<\/strong>). Another thing that has emerged is a sophisticated system of abbreviations (\u0441\u043e\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0301\u0449\u0435\u043d\u0438\u044f<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The most common pattern is writing the first few letters of the word followed by a dash and then the last few letters. Some examples of this kind include:<\/p>\n