# Russian language has no native word for passport? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 10, 2022, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797 "2022-03-10T05:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/61 "2022-03-13T18:50:51Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > English had so many words forced into it and borrowed so many that sometimes we get multiple words borrowed at different times from the same language. For instance, there are the words discus, desk, dais, dish, and disk which are all ultimately derived from the Greek word discos. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2022, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/62 "2022-03-13T21:42:01Z")
interesting - thx for that … then it is even more obscure … the french perruque … and the german “macher” (maker) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/63 "2022-03-13T22:39:15Z")
Thanks Wendell. The “guardian”/“warden” example is particularly interesting to me because English got two words with the same meaning, from two different versions of French and the same with wily and guile (in both cases the one English got first “feels” less fancy. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/64 "2022-03-14T02:23:42Z")
A long list of Western/European languages use the same word for [crocodile](https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/crocodile), with minor variations: Dutch and many eastern European: krokodil German: Krokodil Polish: krokodyl Russian and other Cyrillic languages: крокодил Yiddish: קראָקאָדיל Samoan: korokotaila etc. And, as everyone here on the Dope well knows, the universal (Western at least) word for [hummingbird](https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/hummingbird): colibri, kolibri, kolibrie, koolibri, колибри, etc. In Yiddish, it’s הוממינגבירד ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/65 "2022-03-14T02:32:36Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Thanks Wendell. The “guardian”/“warden” example is particularly interesting to me because English got two words with the same meaning, from two different versions of French and the same with wily and guile (in both cases the one English got first “feels” less fancy. The same “g” / “w” difference shows up in “guarantee” and “warranty”, both borrowed from French. You can also see the “gu” / “w” difference between “Guillaume” and “William”. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/66 "2022-03-14T10:12:21Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > A long list of Western/European languages use the same word for [crocodile](https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/crocodile), with minor variations: There’s lots of words like that. Almost any word for something that has a single source will be the same in numerous languages. I once tried to find the word spelled the same in the most languages. I gave up when I realized the available bilingual dictionaries were too varied in quality. A lot of relatively recent words were not in them. This was before online translators, but those are even worse. If the translation software doesn’t have a word in it, they usually pass it through without change. Which means you can’t tell if the word is spelled the same in the target language or it’s just passed through. Anyway, the word spelled the same in the most languages is probably _internet_, although it may not have been back then\*. However, in the last couple years, that’s likely been eclipsed by an even more common word that’s spelled the same even in some languages that don’t use an alphabet. \*This was in the early 90s and virtually none of the bilingual dictionaires had it then. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/67 "2022-03-14T10:56:53Z")
Yes, but in Spanish it is cocodrilo. It always gets me confused how the “R” wanders around. In a similar vein: Spanish: Argelia, capital city Argel German: Algerien, capital city Algier English: Algeria, capital city Algiers French: Algérie, capital city Alger Italian: Italian: Algeria, capital city Algeri Dutch: Algerije, capital city Algiers Why do Spanish "r"s wander around like that and even swap places with "l"s? Drives me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/68 "2022-03-14T11:07:18Z")
The French are peculiar with information technology terms: the World Wide Web is _[la toile d’aragnée mondiale](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web)_ (literally the world wide spider web), a program is a [_logiciel_](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logiciel), that is, a set of logical instructions, byte is a _multiplet_ or [_octet_](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octet) (8-bit byte), among many other peculiarities designed to make interpreters and translators go berserk. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/69 "2022-03-14T11:44:15Z")
All this reminds me of a short piece by Poul Anderson called _Uncleftish Beholding_. It shows what English in an alternate universe might look like without influences from Latin, Greek, French, etc. uncleft = atom beholding = theory > **Uncleftish Beholding** > > For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life. > > The underlying kinds of stuff are the _firststuffs_, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff. > > The firststuffs have their being as motes called _unclefts_. These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. The full text is 2 pages long, and available [here](https://msburkeenglish.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/uncleftish-beholding-aka-atomic-theory.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/70 "2022-03-14T11:57:48Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > The French are peculiar with information technology terms: the World Wide Web is _[la toile d’aragnée mondiale](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web)_ (literally the world wide spider web), a program is a [_logiciel_](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logiciel), that is, a set of logical instructions, byte is a _multiplet_ or [_octet_](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octet) (8-bit byte), among many other peculiarities designed to make interpreters and translators go berserk. Yes, but “internet” seems to be spelled the same in French as it is in English, although it doesn’t seem to require an article. At least “on the internet” translates as “sur internet” according to a couple online translation dictionaries. Unless those dictionaries still don’t have that word, which would be really surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/71 "2022-03-14T11:58:11Z")
And also available here > [@Russian language has no native word for passport?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/27): > > Yep. Time to drop a link to one of my favorite things - an essay on Atomic Theory that drops all those foreign (Latin or Greek) words (like Atomic and Theory) for words made out of good Germanic roots [https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3fD7eW0/m/\_7p8bKwLJWkJ](https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3fD7eW0/m/_7p8bKwLJWkJ) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/72 "2022-03-14T12:06:48Z")
I’d heard that the Russian word for railway station, вокзал, originated from the early railway station in London, Vauxhall, which was one of the first stations seen by a visiting Russian delegation in the early Victorian era. However this BBC link suggests that the name actually came indirectly from the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, an even earlier loan term. > **[BBC - Languages - Your Say - Weird words - Russian - Waterloo and Vauxhall...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/weird_words/russian/waterloo_and_vauxhall_vauxhall.shtml)** > > Send us your weird words and we will publish them and read the contributions of other users ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/73 "2022-03-14T12:08:17Z")
Oops, sorry! Missed that. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/74 "2022-03-14T12:08:58Z")
No problem. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/75 "2022-03-15T02:56:13Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Some English cognates that come from Russian include borscht and dacha. Another that is sort of a cognate is babushka, Not one of these words is a cognate. They are all loan words. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/76 "2022-03-15T03:34:35Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Yes, but in Spanish it is cocodrilo. It always gets me confused how the “R” wanders around. In a similar vein: > > [. . .] > > Why do Spanish "r"s wander around like that and even swap places with "l"s? Drives me nuts. Italian too? There, it’s _coccodrillo_ ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/77 "2022-03-15T03:57:10Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Why do Spanish "r"s wander around like that and even swap places with "l"s? Could be worse. Could be like the “r” in “colonel”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/78 "2022-03-15T07:21:12Z")
**Senegoid** , **Northern\_Piper** : Indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/79 "2022-03-15T14:49:55Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Not one of these words is a cognate. They are all loan words. See my post above from March 13, especially: " b of a word or morpheme **:** related by derivation, borrowing…" I’m taking “loan” and “borrowing” to refer to the same mechanism. Isn’t that right? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797/80 "2022-03-15T14:52:15Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > See my post above from March 13, especially: > > " b of a word or morpheme **:** related by derivation, borrowing…" > > I’m taking “loan” and “borrowing” to refer to the same mechanism. Isn’t that right? When talking about word derivations, a word can be _either_ cognate with a word from another language, _or_ it can be a loan word from that other language. These are two constrastive processes. They are not synonyms for each other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-language-has-no-native-word-for-passport/960797.md?page=5)