Abstract:
One of the words in Russian that is quite popular in everyday usage, as well as being productive derivationally, is the noun хам from which are derived хамить, хамство and хамоватый. It possesses a specificity of its own that is supposed to be explained in an appropriate way. If this is the case, we have to face the problem how to translate it into Bulgarian with appropriate words and expressions. To our own surprise we find that except the Bulgarian простак that comes close to certain uses of the Russian word, the best fit turn out to be three Turkish loans in Bulgarian - тепегьоз, гьонсурат and перде. The comparisons between them thus require a procedure of mutual recognition in the context not of two, but three different cultures - Russian, Bulgarian and Turkish. Under the circumstances it becomes a challenge to explain to learners of Bulgarian as native and/or Russian as foreign language what is special about these words. The outcomes of such a contrastive semantic analysis, if enacted in an appropriate way, can offer insights not only in the domain of comparative language-and-culture studies, but also in much more general terms dealing with the relationships between language, individual and society.
