Language Game with a Case Ending -ов or How Padonki Were Replaced by Kittens

The article discusses the non-standard use of the endings of nouns for feminine and neuter words (продавать рыбов), which became popular in the Runet language in 2021. The competition of the zero ending with -ов in the genitive and animate accusative, arising in the Old Russian language as a result of mixing two declensions, in the modern language led to the victory of -ов (нет столов, домов), while maintaining the zero ending for some groups (нет англичан, мальчишек) and variation in colloquial speech for a number of words (нет помидоров/помидор), meanwhile the zero option in the XXI century is clearly less common than the “ов-forms”. Under the influence of a “viral” meme about a conversation between cats and a seller, since the summer of 2021, a language game has become widespread, consisting in intentionally joining of -ов to the “unsuitable” stem: рыбов, книгов, деньгов, etc. Such a language game has existed for a long time (for example, the traditional ironic imitation of the colloquial делов-то), but as rare individual jokes, and in 2021 it became frequent, popular, used in a variety of memes and in advertising, associated with the theme of “kittens” and a certain worldview. The “Language of kittens” began to turn into a new linguoculturological phenomenon, comparable in degree of recognition to the Olbanian, or the Padonkaffsky jargon, the peak of popularity of which occurred in the mid-2000s. Now, instead of the misrepresentation of the orthographic appearance of the word (аффтар), which is characteristic of the Olbanian, referring to the idea of protest, the grammatical form is changing, referring to the idea of quiet touching humility before the injustice of life.

Keywords

anacoluthon, grammatical variation, case variation, Internet memes, linguoculturology, Olbanian, spoken-written language of the Internet, errative, Padonkaffsky jargon, language game

Acknowledgment

The article was prepared within the framework of the project “Uncodified Russian speech of the XXI century: grammatical variability. The first stage” with the support of the St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University and the “Living Traditionˮ Foundation.

Received

28.09.2022

Publication date

28.09.2022

Number of characters

17674

Cite

GOST	Dobrushina E., Borzenko E. Language Game with a Case Ending -ов or How Padonki Were Replaced by Kittens // Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka – 2022. – V. 81. – Issue 4 C. 81-88 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://izv-oifn.ru/S160578800021459-0-1 (circulation date: 03.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S160578800021459-0
MLA	Dobrushina, Ekaterina R, Borzenko, Ekaterina O "Language Game with a Case Ending -ов or How Padonki Were Replaced by Kittens." Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 81.4 (2022):81-88. DOI: 10.31857/S160578800021459-0
APA	Dobrushina E., Borzenko E. (2022). Language Game with a Case Ending -ов or How Padonki Were Replaced by Kittens. Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 81(4), pp.81-88 DOI: 10.31857/S160578800021459-0

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