Russianism or Russicism is an influence of the Russian language on other languages. In particular, Russianisms are Russian or Russified words, expressions, or grammar constructs used in Slavic languages, languages of CIS states and languages of Russia.
However, the scope of the Russian language influence is wider. For example, in Italian Russianisms rank fifth and sixth after Anglicisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, Hispanisms, and Arabisms.
Jovan Ajdukoviàreinterprets and innovates the "theory of transfer" of lexical borrowing (õ.g., Rudolf Filipovià1986, 1990) and introduces the "theory of approximate copying and activation" of contact-lexemes.
In the "theory of transfer", the concept of Russianism (Russism) in lexicographical sources in the broader sense means (1) an unmotivated or motivated word of Russian origin which has kept a strong formal-semantic connection with the corresponding word in Russian (e.g. Serb. ), (2) an unmotivated or motivated word of Russian origin which has partially or completely lost its formal-semantic connection with the original Russian word owing to adaptation (e.g. Serb. ), (3) an unmotivated or motivated word of non-Russian origin borrowed through Russian (e.g. Serb. ) and (4) an unmotivated or motivated word of Russian or non-Russian origin borrowed into the receiving language through a transmitter language (e.g. Maced. ). For example, the transmitter language in Russian-Macedonian language contacts is Bulgarian or Serbian (AjdukoviÃÂ 2004: 94; 340).
In the "theory of approximate copying and activation" (so-called "AjdukoviÃÂ's Theory of Contacteme"), the concept of Russianism (Russism) means a word having one or more "independent contactemes", which have arisen under the dominant influence of Russian (e.g. Serb. ). Jovan AjdukoviÃÂ introduce the term "contacteme" for the basic unit of contact on each separate level of language. He distinguish "contact-phoneme", "contact-grapheme", "contacteme in distribution of sounds", "prosodic contacteme", "derivational contacteme", "morphological contacteme", "semantic contacteme", "syntactic contacteme", "stylistic contacteme", "contact-lexeme" and "contact-phraseme" (e.g. Serb. ) (AjdukoviÃÂ 2004: 99; 340) (see also AjdukoviÃÂ's Homepage) .
Russianisms are common in countries that have long been under the dominance of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and subject to Russification. They are especially frequent in Ukrainian and Belarusian, as the languages are linguistically close to Russian.
Examples of Russianisms in Ukrainian would be "ÃÂðÃÂø" (ÃÂasy, "clock") instead of "óþôøýýøú" (hodynnyk), "úþòÃÂþÃÂ" (kov'or "carpet") instead of "úøûøü" (kylym), "ÿÃÂð÷ýÃÂòðÃÂø" (praznuvaty, "to celebrate") instead of "ÃÂòÃÂÃÂúÃÂòðÃÂø" (svjatkuvaty), and many others. Examples from Moldavian include "odecolon" and "subotnic".
Use of Russianisms resulted in creation of Russian-Ukrainian or Russian-Belarusian mixed languages (called surzhyk and trasianka accordingly).
Of note is the adoption of the East Slavic-style patronymic surnames (with patronymic suffix '-ov/-ova') and the use of the patronymic part of the personal name for the peoples of Central Asia and Caucasus. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the usage of native naming has becoming increasingly common. Example: Arsen Fadzaev: , . In particular, Russian-style naming for new names of ethnic Tajiks was officially replaced by the national one in Tajikistan in 2016.