Мат (звание)

''Mat'' (russian: мат; матерщи́на / ма́терный язы́к, ''matershchina'' / ''materny yazyk'') is the term for vulgar, obscene, or profane language in Russian and some other Slavic language communities. The term ''mat'' derives from the Russian word for mother, a component of the key phrase "Ёб твою мать", "yob tvoyu mat (fuck your mother).

Four pillars of mat

In 2014, Roskomnadzor compiled a list of four lexical roots, with any words derived from these roots - nouns, adjectives, verbs, participles etc - of the Russian language for Russia, are "absolutely unacceptable in the mass media": ''khuy'' ("cock"); ''pizda'' ("cunt"); ''yebat'' ("to fuck"); and ''blyad'' ("whore"). Since Roskomnadzor is the governmental agency legally entitled to make such decisions, this is exactly the currently active Russian legal definition of "mat".

David Remnick believes that ''mat'' has thousands of variations but ultimately centers on those four words.

All mat-words were included by Polish publisher Jan Baudouin de Courtenay in the 3rd and 4th editions of the ''Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language'', which was printed 4 times in 1903–1909 (twice) and in 1911–1912, 1912–1914. The inclusion of rude and abusive words became an obstacle to the reprinting of this version of the dictionary in the Soviet Union for censorship reasons.

Slavic languages, including Russian, are very rich in terms of word formation by adding prefixes and suffixes. For instance, in Russian, usually, the perfect form of a verb is created from its imperfect form by adding a prefix like "na-", "ot-", "s-" etc (i.e. "delat'" - "to do", "sdelat'" - "to have done"). This richness also occurs with "mat" too, thus some Russians claim that Russian language is extremely rich in its "mat", and maybe is the world-richest language in terms of obscene/profanity lexicon.

Khuy

''Khuy'' (), often also writen in Latin as "hui" or even "hooy" by Russian schoolchildren/beginners in their English studies, means cock, penis, or for an equivalent colloquial register: dick. The etymology of the term is unclear. Mainstream theories include from Proto-Indo European (PIE) *''ks-u-'', related to ''хвоя'' (''khvoya'', "pine needles"), attributed to Pederson, 1908; from PIE *hau-, related to ''хвост'' (''khvost'', "tail"), attributed to Merlingen, 1955; from Mongolian хуй (''khui'', meaning "sheath" or "scabbard"). This was the etymology endorsed by the Soviet government and attributed to Maxim Gorky, who claimed it was a loan word, imposed during the Mongol yoke. Alexander Gorokhovski suggests the derivation from the Latin ''huic'' (lit. ''"for that"'', used on prescriptions for genital diseases) as a euphemism, because the old Russian ''"ud/uda"'' (from PIE root *''ud-'' meaning ''"up, out"'') became taboo in the mid-18th century. Another theory is that it originates from the Greek word ''huios'', which means son. Currently, the first volume of the ''Great Dictionary of Mat'' by the Russian linguist and folklorist Alexei Plutser-Sarno treats only expressions with the stem ''хуй'' (''khuy''), numbering over 500 entries; 12 volumes are planned. The word ''khuy'' also appears in various other Slavic languages with the same meaning and pronunciation but not always the same spelling, such as the Polish ''chuj''.

Pizda

''Pizdá'' () means cunt.

Yebát'

''Yebát'' () (lat. futuere) means "to fuck", "to copulate", "to have intercourse".

Blyád'

''Blyád () means whore. In the Old East Slavic the word блѧдь (блядь in modern orthography) – ''blyad'', meaning: "deception, nonsense, insane, adulteress", is preserved in the Church Slavonic in three meanings: "deception, delusion", "idle talk, trivia" and "debauchery, adultery".

The word is often combined with the non-'mat' term "suka" (, bitch) to form "suka, blyád" (сука, блядь) especially among Internet users and memes, an approximate analogue for the expression "fucking shit". The term is very popular in the ''Counter-Strike'' video game community in the stylized form of "rush B, cyka blyat".

History and use

Obscenities are among the earliest recorded attestations of the Russian language (the first written ''mat'' words date to the Middle Ages).

Mikhail Lermontov's 1834 ''"A Holiday in Peterhof"'' (''"Петергофский праздник"'') is one example of the usage of ''mat''.

The prologue to ''Luka Mudishchev'', probably written at some time in the mid 19th century, was often ascribed to Ivan Barkov, an obscene poet who lived in the 18th century:

''Mat'' is also used in humor or puns by juxtaposing innocent words so that the result will sound as if an obscene word was used. An example is a Cossack song cited in ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' (1928–1940) by Mikhail Sholokhov:

:Щуку я, щуку я, щуку я поймала.
:Девица красная, уху я варила.
:Уху я, уху я, уху я варила.

Here "Уху я варила" ("I cooked the fish stew") may be reinterpreted as "У хуя варила" ("Cooked near the dick") or even "Ух, хуй я варила" ("Ooh, I cooked a dick").

The contemporaneous use of ''mat'' is widespread, especially in the army, police, blue-collar workers, the criminal world, and many other all-male milieus. An article by Victor Erofeyev (translated by Andrew Bromfeld) analyzing the history, overtones, and sociology of mat appeared in the 15 September 2003 issue of ''The New Yorker''.

Legal issues

, ''mat'' has been banned in Russia from all movies, theatrical productions, and concerts. In modern Russia, the use of ''mat'' is censored in the media and the use of mat in public constitutes petty hooliganism, a form of disorderly conduct, punishable under article 20.1.1 of the Offences Code of Russia, although there is no clear legal definition what exactly constitutes "mat". Despite the public ban, ''mat'' is used by Russians of all ages and nearly all social groups, with particular fervor in the male-dominated military and the structurally similar social strata.

See also

* Fenya
* Gopnik
* Grass Mud Horse (Chinese equivalent)
* Motherfucker
* Putin khuylo!
* Russian joke: Taboo vocabulary
* Russian warship, go fuck yourself
* Seven dirty words
* ''Leningrad'', a Russian ska/punk band famous for its vulgar lyrics
* ''Sektor Gaza'', a Russian metaironic horror hard-rock band famous for its vulgar lyric

Notes

External links

*
Русский мат с Алексеем Плуцером-Сарно
– online version of the ''Dictionary of Russian Mat'' by Alexei Plutser-Sarno
Russian slang explained in English, French and GermanCited portions of a ''The New Yorker'' article.
''The New Yorker'' via russki-mat.net
'Dead Man's Bluff' by Mikhail Volokhov. Director Andrei Zhitinkin
First play in Russia to be written entirely in profanities. Productions of this play have always been surrounded by controversy: in Russia by Andrei Zhitinkin, with actors Oleg Fomin and Sergei Chonishvili; in France by Bernard Sobel with actors Denis Lavant and Hugues Quester; in Germany and Switzerland the parts were played in French and German by Armin Rohde and Roberto Guerra.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mat (Russian Profanity)
Russian slang
Sexual slang
Russian words and phrases