Linguaphiles

The Oxford Etymologic Dictionary (OED) considers Ego / I as if it were a self-standing word developed within the Germanic and 'Indo-European' languages with a mere meaning of 'I / me / self, myself':[Spoiler (click to open)]

I (pron.)
12c., a shortening of Old English ic, the first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek (source also of Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg- "I," nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (source also of Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš).
Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, later everywhere; the form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c. 1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. It began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/I

ego (n.) by 1707, in metaphysics, "the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks," from Latin ego "I" (cognate with Old English ic; see I); its use is implied in egoity.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/ego

местоим., укр. я, др.-русск. язъ, я (и то и другое – в Мстислав. грам. 1130 г.; см. Обнорский – Бархударов I, 33), ц.-сл. азъ ἐγώ, реже ѩзъ (см. Дильс, Aksl. Gr. 77), болг. аз, яз (Младенов 702), сербохорв. jа̑, словен. jàz, jâ, чеш. já, др.-чеш. jáz (совр. чеш. форма – с начала ХIV в.), слвц. jа, др.-пол. jaz, пол., в.-луж., н.-луж. jа, полаб. joz, jо.
Праслав. *аzъ отличается своим вокализмом от родственных форм, ср. др.-лит. еš, лит. àš, лтш. еs, др.-прус. еs, аs, др.-инд. ahám, авест. azǝm, др.-перс. аdаm, арм. еs, венет. еχо, гр. ἐγώ, лат. еgо, гот. ik "я". Наряду с и.-е. *еǵ- (гр., лат., герм.), существовало и.-е. диал. *eǵh- (др.-инд., венет.). Недоказанной является гипотеза о существовании *ō̆go наряду с *еgō на основе слав. аzъ и хетт. uk, ug "я" (Мейе – Эрну 342 и сл.; см. Вальде – Гофм. I, 395 и сл.). Не объяснена еще достоверно утрата конечного -z в слав.; весьма невероятно, чтобы она совершилась по аналогии местоим. tу (напр., Ягич, AfslPh 23, 543; Голуб – Копечный 147), а также чтобы долгота начального гласного была обусловлена долготой гласного в tу (Бругман у Бернекера, см. ниже). Более удачна попытка объяснения аzъ из сочетания а ězъ (Бернекер I, 35; Бругман, Grdr. 2, 2, 382), но см. против этого Кнутссон, ZfslPh 12, 96 и сл. По мнению Зубатого (LF 36, 345 и сл.), в этом а- представлена усилит. част. *ā, ср. др.-инд. ād, авест. āt̃, ср. также др.-инд. межд. ḗt "смотри, глядь!" из ā и id; Педерсен (KZ 38, 317) видит здесь влияние окончания 1 л. ед. ч. -ō; сомнения по этому поводу см. у Бернекера (I, 35). Для объяснения -z привлекают законы сандхи (Сольмсен, KZ 29, 79); ср. Бернекер, там же; И. Шмидт, KZ 36, 408 и сл.; Вакернагель – Дебруннер 3, 454 и сл.
http://www.classes.ru/all-russian/russian-dictionary-Vasmer-term-17126.htm

ich (Ger.), Εγώ [ego] (Gr.), ego (Lat.), io (Ital.), yo (Sp.), I (Eng.), jag (Sw.), я [ja] (Slavic)...

However, should one look beyond the hypothetic *constructions, established by the German philologists in the 19th Century, one would see an obvious Nostratic relation of the above words with the meaning of ' I ' to the following words with the meaning of ' 1 (one)':

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This text is for a design project, with fake book covers in English and their original language. I know basic Russian, and can read and write Cyrillic, but my writing is normally just the standard handwriting style taught at schools. I wanted a scribbly block style for this cover, which is made from brown paper and an old map of Kiev. The English version looks the same, except with Roman letter forms. It's hard to find examples of this type of lettering in Cyrillic, and I have no idea what search term to use in Russian.

Two questions for native speakers:

1) Is the text readable and attractive looking? (Don't worry about the spacing, I want to change that). Do any of the letters look too strange?

2) Where is the best place to split постороннего? The English title is "Death and the Penguin", which fits in quite differently. I think I'll have to split постороннего, but I'm not sure where the most readable place is.

Hello, everyone. My friend and me are trying to translate the text from Urkainian to English. We've got a lot of troubles with it, dictionaries don't help much really.
It would be great if you could help us. Thank you. )

1. A state of nature before a thunderstorm when the air is thick and humid etc. Is there one word to describe it?
in Russian: предгрозье
in Ukrainian: передгріззя

2. Expression to descibe the movement of placing weapon on your sholder holding the belt of it. Don't know how to describe it with words. Here is the picture http://www.vetrabotnik.narod.ru/Modelizm/Texts/Uniform/USA/USA024.jpg
The dictionary gave us "fling over one's shoulder", but google didn't find any examples, so we considered it to be wrong.
In Russian: "перебрасывать оружие через плечо"
In Ukrainian: "перекидати зброю через плече"

3. Is it alright to say "the death is (up)on my consience"?
In Russian: "смерть на моей совести"
In Ukrainian: "смерть на моїй совісті"

Hi,
I'm hoping to come up with a definitive list of the languages my great grandparents would have spoken. They all came to New York after World War I, from the late 1910's to the mid 1920's. I believe they would have spoken Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, German (and probably the Bavarian dialect also), Yiddish, Hungarian and, some English. Please let me know if you believe I'm leaving anything out or if anything should be taken away. Below are the list of places they were from and info I have gathered pertaining to what languages they may have spoken. This is just a personal curiosity of mine in researching the linguistic diversity of the country a century ago, especially as it pertains to my ancestors. Any help would be much appreciated.
Best,
Hunter


Gura Humorului, Bukovina, Romania (part of Austria-Hungary before 1917)
Also Gura Humora, hometown of paternal grandmother's father

Nuremberg, Germany
Hometown of paternal grandmother's mother - earlier Kingdom of Bavaria - probably spoke Bavrian dialect in addition to German

Smila, Cherkassy, Ukraine (then Russian Empire)
Hometown of paternal grandfather's parents - Ukraine became a republic in 1917, before part of Russian Empire

Mariupol, Ukraine (then Russian Empire)
Hometown of maternal grandfather's father - historically high Greek population, but not sure if non-ethnic Greeks would have spoke Greek - Ukraine became a republic in 1917, before part of Russian Empire

Poltusk, Poland
Hometown of maternal grandmother's parents - Part of Russian Empire, when Poland was taken over after Napoleon's defeat by Russia, 1815-1918

EDIT: I forgot about this thread here with language documents of my great great grandparents from a few years ago.

I just found out that part of my family comes from Ukraine. The way my relative wrote it was not written using traditional Ukrainian. The state/province in Ukraine was noted as "Ekaterinoslav" which Wiki says is "Yekaterinoslav" (Ukrainian: Катеринослав, Russian: Екатеринослав); it is now called Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk (Ukrainian: Дніпропетровськ, Russian: Днепропетровск). The actual town where my family resided was called "Grafskoi" but I could not find any information on this. Is there a more "Ukrainian" way to write it?

The only other hint I can give is that the closest town was noted by my relative as "Uziveh" (Wiki says it used to be called Yuzovka, Staline, then Stalino), and is now Donetsk (Ukrainian: Донецьк, Russian: Доне́цк).

Any help is appreciated! By the way, I can't read Cyrillic.

I have been wondering this for a while, but really honestly cannot figure out how this sounds. It's just for personal reasons relating to characters I draw in illustrations and such. I like hearing how they may sound when speaking.

Anywho! I've come to the conclusion that this character would have a Hungarian accent in Ukrainian. I know how each of these languages sound separately, but no idea how the sounds would interweave in an accent.

Anyone have any idea? I've been trying to search a sound file or a video, but I got nothing :(

I have a character, Russian (actually he's Ukrainian), mid-40s, who was given the nickname, "The Ghost". Both because of his physical features (pale skin, hair and eyes though not Albino. Just very light coloring) and his ability to sneak up on people.

What would "Ghost" be in Russian?

Please transliterate.

Thanks.

So first off this is a serious subject with a very amusing protest. As well i'm curious to know more of what is generally being said by everyone spectators and performers alike.

This is a protest against female students being sexually harrassed by their professors. It involves short skirts and some slightly risque actions. Nothing is exposed other than underwwear but you still may not want to have to explain it to your kids.

If anyone can reccomend a good place to get information on how this turns/turned out I'd love to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyiKhgpWUnQ <- Link only as youtube is unwilling to allow it embedded. I assume something on my part rather than them.

Hi, I just watched "Everything is Illuminated" recently (I'm a huge fan of the novel), and while I know that what's spoken throughout the film is a more Russian form of Ukrainian, I was hoping someone could help me out with one of the pieces used in their soundtrack.

It's got a rather gypsy flare to it, but the language is Ukrainian, I think. If not, then it's Russian, but I only just started Russian so I'm not very premium familiar with it.

Could someone maybe give me the lyrics and translation of this song? I've been digging through the internet, but my search has been unsuccessful thus far.

Could anyone help me translate the following?

I can read Cyrillic but I have quite a few problems with vocabulary. (I *think*) I understand that some data for the years mentioned are not available, but I don't understand the ending part.
Thank you very much in advance! :-)