How the Russian verb 'to fly in’ went viral (having nothing to do with flying!)
Russian youth slang is full of English words, terms and phrases, but, sometimes, there are some exceptions, like the verb ‘залететь’ (‘zaletet’), which has acquired a new meaning and popularity online.
As you might know, the Russian language has a dozen of motion verbs. For Russians, it really matters if you got somewhere by car, by foot or by plane. In situations when in English you would say, “I went somewhere,” Russians could use up to five different options:
- “я ходил” - “I walked”,
- “я летал” - “I flew”,
- “я плавал” – “I swam”,
- “я ездил” - “I drove”.
Motion verbs are so widespread that many of them get additional meanings, sometimes so figurative that they have nothing to do with the original ones. Or at least quite far from them.
Let’s take the verb ‘залететь’ (‘zaletet’). It’s a form of the word ‘лететь’ (‘letet’), which means to fly. But, it has a ‘за-’ prefix, which indicates something is flying into a space, inside of some space. Penetrating inside by flight.
- “Воробей залетел в окно.” – “A sparrow flew into the window.”
- “Мяч залетел в ворота.” – “A football flew into the goal.”
But, it also has many figurative meanings. For example, “to drop into somewhere briefly”:
- “Залететь в кафе после работы.” (“To hop into a cafe after work.”).
“Thanks to the idea of flight contained within it, the word ‘залететь’ creates an impression of swiftness and lightness,” writes linguist Irina Levontina at Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру).
There’s also a low-colloquial, crude figurative meaning of the word ‘залететь’ – to accidentally get pregnant, get knocked up.
In the recent years, you’ll probably hear a totally different meaning of this word:
- “Залететь в топы, чарты, хит-парад.” (“Zaletet v topy, charty, hit-parad”, which means “To get into top lists, charts, hit parades.”),
- “Залететь в реки” (“zaletet v reki” (which means to get into recommendations).
The new meaning is associated with the era of social networks and came from ‘TikTok’: “Видео залетело в реки” ("Video zaletelo v reki", which means the video made it onto social media recommendation feeds). And this means it went viral (which, in Russian, translates as ‘завирусилось’ – ‘zavirusilos’).
This new meaning of the verb has also developed its own grammatical pattern:
- залететь where? – “Песня залетела в хит-парад” ("Pesnya zaletela v hit-parad", “The song made it onto the hit parade”)
- залететь with what? – “Певец залетел с песней в реки” ("Pevets zaletel s pesney v reki", “The singer made onto recommendations with their song”)
- залететь onto how much? – “Видео залетело на 100,000 просмотров” ("Video zaletelo na 100,000 prosmotrov", “The video got 100,000 views”).
