Re: Father/Motherland

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