4. Mother…tongue
(Previous chapter: 3. One Small Step)
You might say, OK, so the first word might not have been the best possible word to start a life with. But who cares? (Except for the poor parents, obviously.) Surely, the kid will grow out of it?
For you to fully appreciate the significance of it, you have to know that there are three main dialects of Russian. Unlike other languages, those three Russian dialects have nothing to do with the physical location you come from — instead, they have to do with the social one.
The Russian language, even as used in unofficial settings, is a very polite language. It usually only incorporates a hint of a curse, as emphasis or an expression of surprise. For example:
“Hi dad, I’m sorry, I just had an accident with our car. Sorry!”
“Fffffuuuun…”
Then there is the dialect called “Blatnoy”. Its name probably comes from the phrase, “po blatu” which means “by virtue of connections.” The phrase is usually used to indicate that somebody got something “through his connections”, as opposed to the official channels — simply because most things in Soviet Russia could not be gotten any other way. Also, “Blat” in the name possibly comes from “Brat”, which means “brother”. The sharp Russian r, like the Spanish one, tends to be difficult to pronounce, especially if you are drunk or are lacking some teeth — and so sometimes, very rarely, it can get replaced by an L*. The Blatnoy dialect has a slightly different vocabulary then normal Russian, for example:
Koresh (noun,m): the friend you made in jail.
And then there is the third dialect. It is called “Materny”. The distinction between “Blatnoi” and “Materny” is fuzzy, and you can use them in combination. Speaking “Blatnoi” was hip among Russian youth (I imagine, quite like the “gangsta” slang in the US), while “Materny” is usually only spoken freely by the poor, by the menial workers, and drunks, and could reach the level of layered high art, in which case it is called “three-story Mat.”
The origin of its name, “Materny,” is probably another Slavic language. For example, in Croatian, “Materny” means “Mother’s.” Often, assuming similar social circumstances as the Materny speaker in Russia, it accompanies a phrase like “pichky ty materny” - which loosely translates to “your mother’s primary sexual organ” — which probably gives you the right idea about this particular dialect.
In the “good old days of the republic” you could be jailed for up to fifteen days just for speaking it on the street, because the entire dialect consists of obscenities, maybe with a rare exception of an occasional personal pronoun. What makes it possible is the curious structure of the Russian language: it is root-based. You can take a root, for example, “fuck”, and construct a word of any length and sound structure out of it, by adding appropriate prefixes and suffixes. Given enough context, people will usually simply know which word you replaced, without ever needing a translation. Like, for example, in this dialog from Any Random Construction Site:
“The fuck you fucked in a fuckton in the fuck? Fuck it the fuck out!”
“Ah, fuck that, let’s fuck on!”
I am sure you understand that it concerns the fill level and transportation of a wheelbarrow.
Of course, despite coming from a similar social background as the said construction workers, the stage hands in theaters and circuses would never talk this way to a little kid.
But you have to understand, that when my mother finally introduced me to her workplace at the tender age of 11 months or so, I already spoke their language. It’s not like they could spoil me, right?
And then, well, just think about parrots.
* Beware, however, that replacing an R with an L will make your IQ, as perceived by the person you are talking to, drop by about 20 points.
