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Re: Father/Motherland

From:Ed Heil <edh@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 24, 2000, 3:47
On Tue, 23 May 2000, Vasiliy Chernov wrote:

> On Mon, 22 May 2000 01:19:18 -0500, Ed Heil <edh@...> wrote: > > >Russian and Polish "motherland" vs. German "fatherland" are some of > >the terms that Anna Wierzbicka examines in her book on "cultural > >keywords." > > Unfortunately, I haven't read that often-quoted book by > [v_jeZb_jít_ska], but I suppose her analysis somehow made account of > all those words... ;) (since Polish is her L1, and some Russians who > met her told me her Russian was good). > > If she does classify Russian as a 'motherland' language, her > reasoning must have been less straightforward: there does exist a > *cultural* association between 'homeland' and motherhood (and a > standard collocation _rodina-mat'_, lit. 'Homeland-the-Mother'). > Besides, of the three synonyms two (_rodina_ and _otchizna_) are > feminine nouns, one (_otechestvo_) is neuter, and none is masculine.
Nah, I probably just misremember it. :) Ed