Pandemic has Increased Spread of Englishisms and Military Metaphors into Russian, Three Perm Scholars Say

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 20 – Because the coronavirus pandemic has been so widespread across the world and has lasted so long, it is no surprise, three linguistics specialists at the Higher School of Economics research center in Perm say that it has had a major impact on the language Russians speak.

            According to Elena Smolyanina, Irina Morozova and Tatyana Permyakova, the two most notable developments have been the spread of Englishisms into Russian given the role of the Internet and the increasing rise of military metaphors to describe the fight against the virus (iq.hse.ru/news/545237635.html).

            They document the large number of English terms about the virus and the struggle against it and show the ways these words have entered Russian directly or as slang or combined with Russian words, the last two of which have speeded the acceptance of these English words, the three say.

            The three also say that the pandemic has promoted the use of metaphors to describe the fight against it and the spread of these metaphors into Russian. Among the most prominent of these are those which compare the fight against the covid virus to a military operation, a development that reenforces the military nature of much public discourse in Russia.