The editor answers a language question: We're for "dzvizh". And for "varushnyak" too

"Everything around us changed so instantly: human relations, working conditions, customs. Even our very psychology changed radically. The concepts of separation, absence, distance, return no longer contain their former essence, although the words remained the same. To comprehend the present world, we use a language that corresponded to yesterday's world. And it seems to us that once life corresponded better to our nature, but this is only because it corresponds better to our language," — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote 99 years ago in his "Planet of Men".

The pilot there spoke about his time: when the development of technology began to change the world and people's psychology along with it, and the words for describing the world and man remained the same, and they began to miss reality.

Modern slang — and in most languages of the world new words arise mostly through slang — endlessly self-renews not only because young people have an internal need to separate themselves from their elders through speech. It is also because the world is constantly and rapidly — faster than ever before — changing, and people along with it. Each new generation strives to more accurately describe an increasingly complex world with ever new words.

Young people say "chilić" (to chill), because "chilić" is a bit different from "adpachyvać" (to rest).

Young people say "skuf" because such a type of person has appeared, and it differs from previously widespread types. It's not an old geezer and not an old fogey; it's something else.

Thus, the words "dzvizh" and "dzvizhukha" arose because phenomena with new shades of meaning appeared.

It so happened that youth slang, like IT slang, is largely similar in the countries of the former USSR. This is a reality. "Chilić", "dzvizh", "skuf" are used by different peoples.

Even in Lithuanian and Latvian, it is used in slang: dvižas and dvižūcha.

A lot of words came into slang from English — the language of technology and IT. The word "outsourcing" (аўтсорс) entered the language not for "fashionableness," but because try to describe this economic practice with one Belarusian word.

Lithuanians, for example, create new words for such concepts: both for "touchscreen" and for wellness, they have established their own words. But this is because they have a generously state-funded linguistic institute working on this. We have nothing of the sort, and there won't be under occupation.

Slang has such a feature that it is difficult to "artificially create" it, "artificially accustom" people to it. Youth later deliberately created "varushnyak" (a bustle/commotion) in their hangouts as a synonym for "dzvizh", and it stuck.

But the writer Leanid Dranko-Maisyuk created a synonym for a mobile phone — "daĺkažyk" (far-caller), and it didn't stick.

"Nasha Niva" uses both the word "varushnyak" and the word "dzvizh". These are synonyms — like hippopotamus and hippo, tea and "harbata" (tea). It is important to maintain lexical diversity.

Because real Belarusian-speaking Belarusians say "dzvizh" as well, not only "varushnyak". It seems "dzvizh" is said more often.

As for the word "dzvizh", it may have entered the language naturally because it has an old, Proto-Slavic root; it does not contradict the "spirit of the language". The word "dzvihnuć" did not enter the TSLMB (Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language) in its time — due to the lexical poverty of the TSLMB and its Russification forced by political circumstances, although it was widely used in dialects.

"Dzvihnuć" meant 1) to perform hard work, a task, an assignment, 2) to strike sharply.

"How much work we "dzvihnuĺi" (lifted/accomplished)!"

"When he "dzvihnie" (strikes/moves), this one rolled like a sheaf".

The word dates back to the Proto-Slavic root *dvigati (to lift something heavy, to move upwards).

Hence in the language, the Old Slavicism "podzvih" (feat) = heroism, heroic deed, great courage.

This Proto-Slavic root meant the very act of lifting a weight or moving. From this verb, nouns arose in Polish: dźwignia (lever, balance) and dźwig — lift, machine or device for lifting people or cargo. In Czech — zdvihat / zdvihnout.

In Russian, this root gave the word "dvizheniye" (movement). In Belarusian, the word "rukh" is used in this meaning.

In Russian, this root also gave the Church Slavonic word "vozvizheniye" (exaltation/elevation). In Belarusian, this concept is called "uzvizhanne".

But now "dzvizh" has entered the language.

"In the 'Liolia' store, cultural "dzvizh" will become regular," wrote Hrodna.life.

"I'm for any "dzvizh"!" — I heard from a former political prisoner.

"Dzvizh" may also defeat "varushnyak" because it is shorter. And young people, over long periods, prefer shorter options.

"Dvizh (or движ) — is a youth slang word that means activity, movement, hangout, or event organization" — Ukrainian dictionaries have already recorded.

And personally — let's not be neophytes who change words just "so it's not in Russian." The language system is not just about vocabulary. Let's take that same example from folk usage:

"How much work we "dzvihnuĺi" (lifted/accomplished)!" In Russian, "Сколько же мы тяжелой работы проделали!" (How much hard work we've done!) — perhaps sensitive Russian-speaking people, some Solzhenitsyn, would have said it more beautifully, I don't know how.

The semantics of the word "pratsa" (work/labor) is not the same as the Russian "rabota" (work). And for the word "dzvihnuć", there is no unambiguous Russian equivalent. (And precisely such words rarely made it into the Soviet TSLMB or were recorded there as colloquial, regional — with all due respect to the creators of that TSLMB.)

The language of "Nasha Niva" should not be impoverished, "dictionary-bound". It should correspond to the living language of its real speakers. Don't be afraid of slang — language develops through slang. On the contrary, slang saves the language from petrification, especially under conditions where authorities restrict its spheres of use.

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