On forming the Russian scientific language in the late XVIII – early XIX centuries

Abstract

Studying the history of the Russian language of science is necessary primarily to understand the trends and prospects of its development. The language of Russian science today is heavily influenced by English, which is due to the requirement to write articles for journals in English, and to numerous international conferences where even Russian scientists make reports in English, as well as to the spread of terminology in English, in place of the conventional Russian terminology, which for many seems a marker of “novelty” in approach. It is possible to change the approach only if we understand the tendencies in the Russian scientific language at different stages of its historical development. This article is devoted to one of the earliest periods in the formation of the Russian scientific language – the second half of XVIII – early XIX centuries. It was during this period that the first Russian scholars appeared, writing in their native language. And the increasing translation activity leads to the appearance of quality works of a scientific nature (encyclopedias, academic books, and dictionaries) – and these works become a reference point for the emergence of original scientific texts. Finally, in 1783 the Russian Academy was founded, and its first work was the Dictionary of the Russian Academy (1789-1794). The article analyzes certain features of the scientific language at that period and their reflection in the current scientific language. The author concludes that the formation of the science language in XVIII – early XIX centuries was contradictory: the scientific language sought to avoid morphological and syntactic innovations and at the same time the vocabulary of the language sought imagery and vividness, which led to the formation of terminology with its internal form in the Russian language.