According to the Biblical story of Tower of Babel, God imposed different languages to people with the single purpose of stopping them from uniting and building a Tower that would reach heavens. Obviously, the Tower is simply a symbol of strength and achievement and the moral of the story that humanity could become as mighty as God if only they were united; therefore separation is our curse.

Being a bearer of a certain culture and language is traditionally considered to be strength. However, up-bringing within one cultural / linguistic group often leaves an individual dis- or under informed regarding other cultures and identities, including those of our next door neighbours.

Cultural limitation. Harmless example: despite the large amount of common history, culture and linguistic similarities, the vast majority of Brits are unaware of the most significant figures of French film, for example so extremely famous comedians as Pierre Richard and   Louis de Funes. 

I offered  a PPT with portraits of six famous French actors: Pierre Richard, Louis de Funes, Alain Delon, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Gerrad Depardieu to my colleagues at a high school in London. I asked them to provide any information they know about these actors. 

The absolute majority recognised Gerrad Depardieu, who speaks fluent English and played in a few American films, while all other French actors from my PPT were exclusive for French film.Some minority also found the faces of Alain Delon and Louis de Funes familiar. My Polish colleague named film titles with participation of 5 out of 6 actors but could not remember the actors' names apart from Louis de Funes. The last is her father's favourite comedian, which clearly defines that my Polish colleague has been exposed to French film quite well. And only the French teacher, who is also a French national, demonstrated detailed knowledge about all six actors. She described the types of characters played and some rumours about each of those celebrities.

So how is this possible that an ordinary educated English speaker knows so little about their next door neighbour’s contemporary culture? And how did I, a representative of Eastern Europe, come to know not only the names of actors but also a few titles from each of those actors’ filmography? 

This is because the general English public has not been exposed to this part of the French culture at all. Not mentioning the other European countries', Russian or Asian contries' film industries that are huge.

Watching foreign films with subtitles seems to be considered a sign of a good taste in the UK. The excuse is that one can hear the valuable voices of the original actors. However, in truth, watching a film and reading subtitles simultaneously is a hard work and most people would not consider doing this for entertainment because it would just defeat the purpose. Besides those with dyslexia and other speech and language special needs automatically have no access to any foreign film at all.  

Consequently, the amount of foreign, including European films that reach the British Islands is pathetic and those few pieces get watched mainly by interested enthusiasts, who are rather an exception. Maybe simultaneous translation is a ‘bad taste’ but I guess something could be better than nothing…

The last drop that encouraged me to write this blog was a comment made by an English teacher: ‘How famouse these people can be if they are not recognisable?’ … no comments.

They are not recognisable in the English speaking reality. The ignorance and self-complacency of some people rolls but that is not their fault. Simply they are not aware of other realities.

The only-English-speakers are victims of the up-bringing system, which is based on the belief that the whole world spins around English speaking cultures, that the big truth is written in English (the language of the oldest survived democracy) and there is nothing valuable or significant in the outside world that can be added to what’s already written or translated into English. Do I need to say that this belief is limited and deceitful and it is aimed to control the majority’s views?

An average English speaker is underexposed to everything that’s not translated into English but the question is who is in control of selecting what exactly needs to be translated? Cultural awareness of people who speak only English is full of strategic gaps that are clearly a result of limitation and censorship. If one is not aware of existence of a fact or phenomenon, then, one cannot make a judgement about it and one’s picture of the world will be shifted towards those facts and phenomenon that he can access. Thier name is legion. The nation. 

Today, nearly every existing international word has been fully assimilated by the Russian grammar; the Russian language has over 20000 words borrowed from different European languages, including over 5500 words that are common between English and Russian. 

In the process of researching loanwords, the inevitable question arose: what is the reason for such a great amount of lexical borrowing in the Russian language? A linguist should consider walking a long mile hand in hand with a historian.

Language always has been sensitive to life cycles of society. In this regard, linguistic borrowing is nothing but a reflection of informational exchange and swapping objects, ideas and technologies between societies - the process of cultural borrowing. 

In modern societies, informational exchange is facilitated by mass media, to which the world owes most of its international words (gas, ballet, sport, university, telephone etc.). First, radio was invented; this was followed by television and, when the Internet became accessible to the general public, it sped up informational exchange and revolutionised the process of cultural and linguistic fusion, as language is the primary tool of media communication; it is language that tells us whose ways of living somewhere far, far away are better than our own ways...

Both, now and in the past, the basic background for cultural exchange has been the demonstration effect, which seems to be the most fundamental characteristic of human nature: I see that you have something good and I want to have it too. The Russian proverb 'the less you know, the better you sleep' is there not without a reason... Demonstration effect is the engine of progress but it also causes great deal of unrest, when people realise that their life style is not the best possible option that one can have...

Historically, in the world before media, the most powerful facilitators of cultural and linguistic borrowing were wars, religious / political missions and the quest for profit (trade). For this reason, Western European languages are closely related: their common religion is Christianity, the largest denomination of which, Catholicism, had been conducted in the same language (Latin) everywhere in the world until the end of 20th century. Even before Christianity spread, the Romans conquered most of Europe and introduced their language to the occupied territories; as a consequence, almost half of European languages' vocabulary have Latin roots.

The political map of Europe has changed a number of times during the last 2000 years. As a result of frequent wars, some territories have been passed back and forth more than once, which is reflected by the names of some countries: Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For example, the territory of contemporary Poland had been extremely unstable up until the end of World War II. 

Linguistic interference is inevitable in circumstances, when geographical borders are unstable. Official languages usually change according to changes in the status quo, which in turn impacts both, the victor's and the capitulator’s languages. Here is an example that many readers from Western Europe may find informative and that may shed light on some Ukrainian odds.

The Ukrainian language has been torn between Russian and Polish for as long as it has existed following the history of Ukraine’s statehood. It is difficult to draw a cultural border between Russia and Ukraine; country dialects of contemporary Southern Russia, especially in Rostov-on-Don and the Kuban area, include a significant number of Ukrainian words. Those dialects smoothly blend into the Ukrainian language as soon as one's journey proceeds towards the West. In Central and Eastern Ukraine, many more Russian words are being used compared to Western parts of the country, where the language is more closely related to Polish, even more so than to Russian.

Moreover, the Romanian and Moldovan languages have been officially declared identical shortly after the disintegration of Soviet Union; however, up until the end of 2013, the Moldovan language used the Cyrillic alphabet, rendering it visibly closer to Russian, the official language of the USSR. 

Another modern avenue for creating a worldwide vocabulary isglobalisation, during which one country’s business and consequently, the keywords related to that business, settle into many other countries and their languages.

Our high-school students are being taught that globalisation is 'a good thing' because it brings progress to poorer countries, never mind the history of violence that characterises the process of bringing 'civilization' to 'less developed' nations. I personally do not believe that extermination of the whole American Indians' race should be excused or forgiven as a necessary sacrifice to progress. Do not forget that globalisation originated from quest for profit and it IS a quest for profit first of all; the notorious 'progress' is merely its side effect, a pompous myth to be fed to the populaion of newly aquired markets. Globalisation is based on active and, at times, aggressive use of the demonstration effect that has been discovered by those clever business people. In truth, the 'progress' had began with bringing in gun-powder or matches for easy fire, on one hand, and digging out gold, diamonds natural resources alongside with enslaving local people, on the other hand...

Depending on earlier history of being a quester for profit or an object of such a quest, different countries developed very specific methods and patterns of cultural exchange. So, how Russia has been positioned in this dual relationship? 

It would not be exaggeration to state that the whole of the Russian history can be recorded in loanwords. However, Russian society developed a unique model of domestication of various Western achievements and, despite the extremely strong tendency to admire and absorb those ideas and inventions, Russia's relationship with globalisation is very different from that of other countries-acceptors. This is a phenomenon that many politicians from MEDCs seem to fail to take into account.

No wonder though. Even in top British (and US?) private schools the history is not being taught in chronological order so interdependence of major events may slip away even from attention of those with the best education... So they keep using their favorite cover up technique of expressing 'the big brother's concerns' about all the 'wrongs' in the political and economical developments of the other society that they do not truly understand... Well, this technique has had its short term effect of influence but the Russian society is far not the same as the tribe of Tumba-Yumba...

By means of putting the historical circumstances and causes of linguistic borrowing in the Russian language in a timeline, the pattern of cultural borrowing in Russia becomes quite apparent.