Russian Etiquette Address Forms with Christian Semantics

Abstract

This article considers the Russian folksy friendly address forms, reflecting the peculiarities of the Christian perception of the world: «angel (my)», «kreschoniy», «kryostniy», «krestoviy», «christoviy», «krestnik», «pravoslavniy», «mir pravoslavniy» and some of their derivatives. In the system of the Russian language and Russian culture etiquette address forms with Christian semantics are linked by etymological, grammatical, communicatively–pragmatic, religious, ethical and historical–cultural relations. The important characteristic feature of these etiquette forms is that they combine the semantics of polite address and compliment, because they not just name the person who is addressed by the speaker, but also emphasize the spiritual relationship between the addresser and the addressee. This results in a respectful tonality of these address forms in the Russian speech etiquette. The description and interpretation of the linguistic facts presented in the article is based on the data taken from explanatory, historical, etymological dictionaries as well as the dictionary of the Russian speech etiquette.