Any vicious circle of communication, in which, for one reason or another, different people find themselves, inevitably gives rise to its own language. It can be professional slang, student slang or thug jargon.
Representatives of the criminal world of Russia have created an original subculture, which inevitably reflects prison life, the peculiarities of the criminal business, and the psychology of prisoners. So what does it mean - to work on a hair dryer?

The origin of thug jargon

Thieves' jargon has existed in our country at least since the appearance of the first prisons where convicted criminals were kept, that is, since about the 16th century.
For a long time Fenya remained only the language of criminal elements. But since the twentieth century, the spread of prison vocabulary among the townsfolk began. This is largely due to the fact that the number of prisoners serving sentences in Soviet prisons and camps has increased markedly compared to pre-revolutionary Russia. Mass amnesties, the popularization of thieves' romance by individual cultural figures also contributed to this process.

Initially, thug jargon itself appeared to hide information that was not intended for prying ears. Criminal elements could discuss the details of a future robbery in the presence of onlookers or policemen without being exposed. The inmates warned each other right in front of the jailers. Now, when most of the townsfolk and law enforcement officers understand thieves' speech, dashing people use a hair dryer just to confirm their belonging to the criminal world.

There is a thug jargon wherever there is a criminal stratum of society. According to the version widespread in scientific circles, Fenya arose on the basis of the language of peddlers (ofenei). Without an official written language, the Ofeni passed on their language orally from generation to generation. Soon wandering musicians, horse thieves, pimps, beggars began to use it.

Linguistic features

Interest among linguists and simply curious intellectuals in the specific language of criminals has always been high. Back in the days of Tsarist Russia, many scientists published works on this topic. For example, V. Dal compared criminal slang with "criminal music" composed by thieves and swindlers of various stripes.

It is noteworthy that V. Trakhtenberg, the compiler of the book “Jargon of Prison”, published in 1908 in St. Petersburg, was also an international swindler. This enterprising businessman somehow managed to sell mines in Morocco to the French government, which did not exist in reality.

A striking feature of thieves is a frequent reference to terms from a zoology textbook. Perhaps this is due to the psychological aspects of prison life, when a prisoner often needs to humiliate his cellmates, to demonstrate his dismissive attitude to them. Such words, as a rule, carry a negative connotation: rooster, goat, bull, horse, rat (stealing from his own), hen (snitch).

Blatnaya fenya is also replete with adjectives that have passed into the category of nouns, when one or another quality of a person becomes his designation. For example, thieves, looking, cops, offended, lowered, black, red, nepotism, etc.

The researchers note that thieves' jargon was often replenished with borrowings from other languages: there was just anyone in Russian prisons. For example, the famous word "fraer", according to one version, comes from the German frei, which translates into Russian as "free". The word "marviher" (experienced highly skilled thief) in Yiddish means "capable of making money." But the term "huckster" (speculator, dishonest businessman) is formed from the word "profit", which has Turkic roots. Most of the feni are simplified or obsolete words of the Russian language, which are sometimes given a different meaning.

Thieves' jargon is a changing, living phenomenon. Each prison or zone, each criminal profession has its own specific catchwords.

Who is speaking

Many Russians are dissatisfied with the fact that words from criminal jargon are gradually moving into the vocabulary of people who are far from crime. Through the media, films and books, young people have long known what a "rotten bazaar" or "show-off" is. However, the prison subculture is an integral part of the life of our society, and thieves are rich in capacious phrases and original expressions, the brightness and emotionality of which is hard not to recognize.

There are two main categories of people running around the hair dryer: the criminals themselves and the so-called "passengers" who are not directly related to the underworld, but due to certain circumstances, face criminals. If for the first Fenya is their language, in which they think and speak constantly, sometimes not even knowing how to express their thoughts and feelings in a different way, then the “passengers”, although they understand criminal vocabulary, use it only when necessary. The same people who try to impersonate thieves, using the theoretical knowledge of slang expressions, real criminals figure out right away.

Despite the fact that the Fenya practically exposes the criminal, the thieves speak their own language, this is part of their image, which they are proud of. The thieves' jargon is understood by them as their own special language, opposing the thieves to the rest of society, whose laws they do not recognize.

It is noteworthy that there are translations of individual classical works into Fenya. Fima Zhiganets (real name Alexander Sidorov) is especially famous in this regard. This author, for example, translated the well-known poem by M. Yu. Lermontov "On the Death of a Poet" into thieves' jargon.

Slang vocabulary in the Russian language has long been a common phenomenon. But many people, upon hearing this phrase, immediately think of criminal expressions that the average person cannot immediately understand. But an example of jargon can be found in everyday life. And, by the way, there are many more.

What is jargon

Before considering the example of jargon, you should understand what this terminology is. So, these are words that are used only in certain people. They can be united by one profession, specialty, interests, age, common views, etc. In other words, jargon in Russian is a completely separate speech that only certain people can understand. And, based on the fact that there are a huge number of social groups today, the jargon, respectively, also flourishes.

Types of jargons

It should be noted that today an example of jargon can be found in almost any. They arise in almost any team that is moderately stable. So, for example, one can observe jargon in the speech of schoolchildren, students, military men, musicians, athletes, alcoholics, criminals, etc. As you can see, the social "scatter" is quite large. Needless to say, even the expressions of the intelligentsia can be called jargon with full confidence - and this will be correct. After all, their expressions are clear only to them, and they were not formed from scratch. So everything is fair.

Popular words

Many people do not even know that they use slang words. They have become so firmly established in our lives that they have already become quite normal and acceptable expressions, and we pronounce them without hesitation. Take as an example the speech of schoolchildren or students. The word "physicist", "couple", "physicist", "fidget", "annoys", "clear", "I don't get it", etc. - we hear all this every day and understand what these expressions mean.

However, there are also words "stronger". We are talking about the jargon of people associated with the criminal sphere. Or, as it is also called, "thieves". Perhaps the most common word from this area is "zone". Everyone has definitely heard it. It means, as it was already possible to understand, a prison. By the way, in fairness it should be noted that the thieves' and criminal jargon is the richest of all. It really is a separate language. "Fart" (luck), "Kent" (close friend), "Olive" (bullet), "Kipishnut" (to be indignant), "Zhigan" (desperate) - there are many more such words. You should not go deep into their meaning - you can already understand that this "language" is really complex.

Emotionality

It is worth noting that the jargons, which were discussed above, differ in some features. Whatever sphere they belong to, they are united by one thing - a high level of expressiveness. Many jargons appeared as a result of the fact that it was necessary to come up with some word that would successfully describe this or that situation (or person). When there are no longer standard expressions that would convey the entire emotional degree of delight or disapproval. It should be as emotional as possible - this is the main characteristic of jargon. For example, the phrase "What kind of collision?", Pronounced with the appropriate intonation, sounds much more serious than "What are you doing?". By the way, quite a vivid example of jargon.

This vocabulary is also much more variable and mobile. Also, jargon is dying pretty quickly - they are replaced by other, new expressions. So, for example, the youth slang of the 60s has practically disappeared - today young people speak in a completely different way.

Formation of jargon

So, for what reason such expressions appear - it is clear, but how are they formed? It's actually very simple. The first way is through borrowing. So, for example, the word "men" (guy, man), "feng" (fan, worship), "people" (people, society), etc. came into our modern language. As you might guess, the words listed are taken from of English language.

Often they simply take and rethink some popular word. To "buzz" - it means "drink". Why this particular expression? Because it very well emphasizes the duration of this process.
There is also another popular way, which is word formation. There is such a word as "fun" (enjoy). This is where the slang "baldezh" (pleasure) came from. And there are many more such examples.

The jargon has always existed and will continue to exist. This vocabulary constantly interacts with the national language, "grabbing" certain expressions from it and transforming them in its own way. The most important thing is to know the measure in the use of such words. Still, you should not clog your speech with such expressions too often. Otherwise, the purity of our mighty Russian language will have to be forgotten if everyone switches to jargon.

How did slang (jargon) appear?

Slang, or jargon, is a variation or modification of a standard language. If you look closely, you can find different types of jargon.

For example, slang can be created by combining several words, for example, scab, shortening words (mike, ok), onomatopoeia (boom, fuck), borrowing from foreign languages ​​(samurai, driver), and also by analogy (sew, take away ).

Different kinds jargons arise for various reasons and under various conditions. One of the common ways is the emergence of new words and phrases in one professional group. For example, students say "unsuccessful", "spur". Motorists call their cars "four", "nine".

But it should be remembered that often slang words used by one group may have a different meaning in other groups. Some conditions accelerate the emergence of new words. For example, the formation of new groups containing different segments of the population and representatives of different nationalities leads to the rapid emergence of new slang. As, for example, in the armed forces: "woki-toki", "AWOL", "demobilization".

Sometimes a new word comes up with one person, and it is picked up by the rest. In most cases, new expressions that were once related to slang eventually find their way into dictionaries.

Causes of jargon

The causes of jargon are different. Sometimes this happens as a result of the desire for speech expression specific to a given group, to express a special attitude to the realities of reality and to the words denoting these realities. Often the reason for the appearance of jargon is a protest against the ordinary, the cliche of language means, and idle talk. In other cases, jargons are a means of linguistic conspiracy.

Unlike ordinary words, which "live" in the language for quite a long time, jargons are very mobile and changeable. Slang words sometimes die, giving way to new designations ("tugriks" - "grandmothers" - "bucks"), sometimes partially revived ("dude").

In addition, sometimes slang words pass into the category of colloquial (“screw up”) or colloquial (“swindler”), being one of the sources of replenishment of the Russian literary language.

Ways of jargon formation

A very common way (inherent in all jargons that stand next to a certain terminology) is the transformation of some term, usually large in volume or difficult to pronounce. Here you can highlight:

• 1) Abbreviation: computer - computer, hard drive - screw, mac - poppy.
• 2) Univerbation: motherboard - mother, strategy game - strategy, role-playing game - role player, inkjet printer - inkjet, Zd studio max - max (the word is the name of the most popular program, not yet grammatically formed).
• 3) As in the professional language of computer scientists, there are a lot of English borrowings in the jargon. Often these are borrowings from English computer jargon:

The word Gamer - from English. jargon Gamer (Professional gamer). Emoticon - a funny face, which is a sequence of punctuation marks (:-|) - from eng. jarg. Smily, Doomer - Doomer (Fan of Doom).

4) The “fathers” of jargon can also be professional terms of English origin, which already have an equivalent in Russian: hard drive, hard drive, heavy drive - hard drive (hard drive), connect - to connect (join), programmer - programmer ( programmer), user - user (user) to click - click (click. Although now “click” is starting to compete with “click”). The grammatical assimilation of some borrowings by the Russian language is accompanied by their derivational Russification. Zip (zip) - zip, zip, zip, User (user) - user.

Interestingly, there is also the opposite phenomenon. A jargon synonymous with the term appears, formed from a word that has long been entrenched in the Russian language: Vents - a contemptuous name for the Windows operating system.

• 5) Borrowings, however, are by no means the only source of replenishment of the lexicon of a given lexical system. Some words come from the jargon of other professional groups, such as motorists: teapot (novice user), engine (kernel, “engine”, programs. This word is also semantically equivalent to the English counterpart engine (engine)). Sometimes the processor of a computer is called a motor, and the computer itself is called a machine. The word glitch and the word-formation series from it - widely used in youth jargon, gets here the meaning of "unforeseen errors in the program or incorrect operation of the equipment." Wed “My printer is buggy,” or “Windows 98 is a rather buggy product.”
• 6) A very productive method of metaphorization (which is widely used in all jargon systems). With it, words such as:

Damn - SD disk (already outdated.).

Rat - Soviet-made mouse.

Resuscitator - a specialist or a set of special programs to “call out of a coma” a computer whose software is seriously damaged and it is not able to function normally.

Verbal metaphors are numerous: slow down - extremely slow operation of a program or computer, demolish or kill - delete information from a disk.

• 7) A number of synonyms are interesting related to the process of disrupting the normal operation of the computer, when it does not respond to any commands other than the reset button. They say about such a computer, then it hung, hung, got up, fell, collapsed. Although the word freeze (there was a freeze, in case of a freeze) can now be excluded from jargon - it is officially used as a term. This is not the only example of the presence of synonyms in the jargon vocabulary, it is also worth noting: computer-car-device-computer - machine, screw - hard drive - hard drive - heavy drive.
• 8) You can also find a way of metonymy in the formation of jargon using the example of the word iron - in the meaning of “computer, computer components”. Buttons - in the meaning of "keyboard".
• 9) You can find examples of phraseological units, the motivation of the meaning of which is clear only to the initiated: the blue screen of death (the text of the Windows error message on a blue background before freezing), a combination of three fingers or send three fingers (Ctrl-alt-delete - emergency removal of any running program), stomp the loaves (work on the keyboard button - buttons).
• 10) A special place in computer jargon is occupied by words that do not have a semantic motivation. They are in relation to partial homonymy with some common words (morphophonetic matches):

Lazar - Laser printer (Lazar and laser)

Waxa is the VAX operating system.

Pentyukh - Pentium.

Computer jargon - actively developing dynamic system(due to the unusually rapid progress of computer technology). This is one of the ways of penetration into the Russian language of anglicisms (sometimes completely unjustified). Many words from computer jargon are moving into official terminology. Jargon exists not only in oral speech, not only in numerous electronic documents of letters and virtual conferences, they can also be found in print, they often come across in reputable computer publications: “... There are monitors with a diagonal of at least 17 inches, with a “motor "no weaker than pentium120..." ("PC World" A. Orlov, December 1997). And they can be found in abundance in magazines devoted to computer games, for example: “And the monsters strafe there no worse than any doomer.” A considerable component of the vocabulary, which is distinguished by colloquial, rudely colloquial coloring, expressiveness characteristic of youth slang, indicates that there are a lot of young people among computer scientists.

How did the English language originate?

Almost all modern languages ​​have their original language from which they originated. This original language, with all its derivatives, constitutes the "family" of languages.

English belongs to the Indo-European group of languages. It also includes French, Italian, German, Norwegian and Greek.

There are various subgroups within the Indo-European group, and English belongs to the West Teutonic subgroup. In fact, the English language has its origins in the middle of the fifth century, when the Celtic tribes were invaded by newcomers from across the North Sea, who conquered the entire territory of modern Great Britain.

For convenience, the history of the English language is divided into three main periods: Old English (Anglo-Saxon) - 400-1100; Middle English - 1100–1500; modern English - from 1500 to the present.

Initially, Celtic was spoken in England. However, after the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the islands, very few Celtic words remain in modern English.

The Anglo-Saxons spoke various dialects. Later, after the invasion of the Normans, elements of the Scandinavian language appeared in the language. This language, belonging to the Germanic languages, also influenced the English language.

In 1066, William the Conqueror declared Norman French the language of his court. Initially, the "Norman" language spread among the most prosperous segments of the population. Gradually, this language became more widespread, and a new language appeared, different from the Anglo-Saxon. This language was the basis of modern English.

Slang, or jargon, is a variation or modification of a standard language. If you look closely, you can find different types of jargon.

For example, slang can be created by combining several words, for example, scab, shortening words (mike, ok), onomatopoeia (boom, fuck), borrowing from foreign languages ​​(samurai, driver), and also by analogy (sew, take away ).

Different types of jargon arise for different reasons and under different conditions. One of the common ways is the emergence of new words and phrases in one professional group. For example, students say "unsuccessful", "spur". Motorists call their cars "four", "nine".

But it should be remembered that often slang words used by one group may have a different meaning in other groups. Some conditions accelerate the emergence of new words. For example, the formation of new groups containing different segments of the population and representatives of different nationalities leads to the rapid emergence of new slang. As, for example, in the armed forces: "woki-toki", "AWOL", "demobilization".

Sometimes a new word comes up with one person, and it is picked up by the rest. In most cases, new expressions that were once related to slang eventually find their way into dictionaries.