Wendlandish: Difference between revisions

Russian influence in Wendlandish is mostly concentrated in the last century, but there's no doubt that it has tremendously impacted the language, not only in Soviet times but, possibly even more deeply, after the Soviet Union broke up. The early post-Soviet years were marked by a huge decline in the Wendlands and people immediately developed a strong sense of nostalgia for the Golden Age of the Wendlands - the days of the Soviet Union, when the Wendlands were a strategically important and cosmopolite part of the country due to it being its westernmost extent. This sense of nostalgia — called ''savjetskalgia'' as a portmanteau of ''savjetski'' (Soviet) and ''nostalgia'' — is still enormously visible in the prestige that the Russian language, emblem of the Soviet era, has in the Wendlands, probably even more than in Russia itself. Russian loans are entering Wendlandish en masse, often with a more "official" meaning when compared to the native Wendlandish term, and Russian is the preferred language of the Academy of the Wendlandish language in order to coin terms, to the extent that Wendlandish academics have recently coined terms from Russian roots that do not even exist in Russian, like ''vadifsji'' "car" (< ''водивший'' "driven"; though colloquial Wendlandish uses ''lada'' from the car brand) or ''hadifon'' for "mobile phone" (from ''ходить'' "to walk" and Wend./international ''telefon'').

* post-Soviet coinages from Russian roots or hybrid Russian-Wendlandish ones, like the ''vadifsji'' and ''hadifon'' mentioned previously; ''viliksjetj'' (internet, from ''великая сеть'' "great net"), ''patpojst'' (subway < ''под'' (under) and ''поезд'' (train)), or ''elekpisjmó'' (e-mail, from ''электронное письмо'' (electronic letter)).