What the various parts of speech are called in Russian

Most of these names became established in our language thanks to the book ‘Grammar’ (1619) by Meletius Smotrytsky and the book ‘Russian Grammar’ (1755) by Mikhail Lomonosov. Smotrytsky took Greek terms from the works of a Greek grammarian named Dionysius Thrax, while Mikhail Lomonosov adapted Smotrytsky’s textbook (from which he himself had studied) for the living Russian language. So, what came out of this?

Noun – Имя существительное

This is a translation of the Latin ‘substantivum’, which, in turn, goes back to the Greek ‘ousia’ (essence). ‘Существительное’ literally means what exists on its own (there is a verb ‘существовать’ – ‘to exist’). The word ‘имя’ (literally ‘name’) is used for a whole class of words and there are also:

• ‘имя прилагательное’ (‘adjective’), which is ‘прилагается’ (‘attached’) to the noun, 
• ‘имя числительное’ (‘numeral’), which denotes ‘число’ (‘number’) or order.

Verb – Глагол

In Old Church Slavonic, the word ‘глагол’ simply meant ‘word’ or ‘speech’. It’s a calque of the Greek ‘rhema’. Scholars considered this the most important part of the sentence, the “word squared” that sets everything in motion.

Pronoun – Местоимение

This is a calque of the Latin ‘pronomen’: ‘pro’ means ‘instead of’, ‘nomen’ means ‘name’, so a pronoun is something used ‘instead of a name’. In Russian, it’s ‘место’ (place) and ‘имени’ (a form of the word ‘имя’). The term explains itself: we use it to avoid repeating the same thing, something that is put in place of a name or an object.

Preposition – Предлог

The Greek ‘prothesis’ literally means ‘placing in front’. Lomonosov translated the word into Russian as ‘предлог’: ‘пред’ (‘in front’) + ‘лог’ (‘to lay / to lie’). This is a word that always ‘lies in front of’ something else.

Participle – Причастие

One of the most poetic names and also a calque from the Latin ‘participium’. It was believed that this part of speech ‘причастна’ (‘participates’) in both the noun and the verb, combining their properties.

Interjection – Междометие

Interjections interject into living speech, conveying emotions, but without grammatically connecting to other words. It appeared in the Russian language in the 18th century as a translation of the Latin ‘interjectio’. This literally means ‘thrown between (words)’: ‘между’ means ‘between’ in Russian. 

‘Gateway to Russia’ is grateful to Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру) for their help in preparing this material.