Padonkaffsky jargon
Encyclopedia
Cant (language)
A Cant is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.-Derivation in Celtic linguistics:...
language developed by padonki
Padonki
Padonki is a counter-culture subculture within the Russian-speaking Internet community most famous for using their slang Olbanian language or padonkaffsky jargon...
of Runet
Runet
Currently Internet access in Russia is available to businesses and home users in various forms, including dial-up, cable, DSL, FTTH, mobile, wireless and satellite...
. It started as an Internet slang
Internet slang
Internet slang is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites...
language originally used in the Russian Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
community. It became so popular, that President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
jokingly suggested Olbanian language should be taught in schools.
Origin and etymology
The term Olbanian is an alteration of Albanian languageAlbanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
, although Albanian is not used to create Olbanian slang.
Learn Olbanian! (Russian: Учи албанский! Ukraininan: Вчи албанську!) is a popular phrase that was coined in a 2004 incident in LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
when an English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
user found a post written in Padonkaffsky jargon, which he didn't understand and was unable to translate. He asked what language was being used. He was jokingly answered that the post was in Albanian. He questioned why people were posting messages in Albanian by saying:
"Because? It's LIVEJOURNAL. An American website. Not an albanian; (#*!@! site.
Plus, being an American means that the rest of the world should have to cater to me. But that's just mypointofview."
In reaction to this comment, an Internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
was started, urging the English language user to Learn Albanian! and flooding him with email messages, text messages, and calls to his personal cell phone. Eventually, the English language user wrote an apology in Russian, explaining that he had mastered the Albanian language.
Since then, the request to "Learn Olbanian!" became a friendly response to anyone using incorrect grammar or when saying something that doesn't make sense.
An invitation to "Learn Olbanian!" was directed at Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
in 2006, when in her blog she used an electronic translator to address her Russian fans and called them "Russian ventilators" by mistake.
Use and development
The language was first developed in 1997 by intellectuals with Internet accessInternet access
Many technologies and service plans for Internet access allow customers to connect to the Internet.Consumer use first became popular through dial-up connections in the 20th century....
who were developing and using open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
and Russian FidoNet
FidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
. They were journalists, system administrators and professionals with academic degrees.
The language is based on phonetic spelling of the Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and sometimes transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and often uses profanity
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
. It combines complex orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
with creative use of idioms and literary expression. It is often used to express disagreement, amusement, or to create political satire
Political satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...
. It was popularized by the padonki
Padonki
Padonki is a counter-culture subculture within the Russian-speaking Internet community most famous for using their slang Olbanian language or padonkaffsky jargon...
subculture on websites like Udaff.com and Fuck.ru (currently defunct) created by entrepreneur Egor Lavrov
Egor Lavrov
Yegor Sergeyevich Lavroff is a Russian entrepreneur who made his fortune in Internet-related projects, political PR, and a number of businesses in the United States and Latin America.-Early years:Lavroff was born in Moscow, Russia...
and Konstantin Rykov
Konstantin Rykov
Konstantin Rykov , a.k.a. Jason Foris is a Russian politician.-Biography:Rykov was born in Moscow. Since 1998 he made his mark as one of the first professional Russian Internet producers. Rykov together with Egor Lavrov created websites such as and and television programs such as the popular...
, now a deputy of the Duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
.
Padonkaffsky jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
is difficult to translate with a traditional dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
because many of the misspellings also involve puns
Puns
Puns may refer to:*Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui, the Sahrawi political party* Pun, figure of speech* Phoenicians...
and cultural slang. Padonkaffsky language has gone mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
and is common in Russian vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
and popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. As a result, the websites on which Padonkaffsky language originally appeared are now dominated by another kind of high-shock-value material, adult content.
In politics
- On July 6, 2006 in an online conference, Vladimir PutinVladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
was asked this question: "PREVEDPrevedPreved is a term used in the Padonkaffsky jargon, a meme in the Russian-speaking Internet which developed out of a heavily-circulated picture, and consists of choosing alternative spellings for words for comic effect...
, Vladimir Vladimirovich! How do you regard MEDVEDMedvedMedved is the Slavic term for "bear", literally translating into "one who knows honey." It may also refer to:People:* Aleksandr Medved, Soviet-Belarussian wrestler* David Medved, physicist and father of Michael Medved...
?" This became the most popular question, with 28424 votes. No answer was given, but the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, reporting on the questions collection process, interpreted MedvedMedvedMedved is the Slavic term for "bear", literally translating into "one who knows honey." It may also refer to:People:* Aleksandr Medved, Soviet-Belarussian wrestler* David Medved, physicist and father of Michael Medved...
as a reference to then-vice-prime-minister Dmitry MedvedevDmitry MedvedevDmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
. Another popular question in the same conference was: How does one patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?How does one patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?"How does one patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?" is an internet meme in Russian Internet culture. The question was originally posted on the #anime channel of the RusNet IRC network on May 8, 2004...
- UkrainianUkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
politician and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of UkraineCommunist Party of UkraineThe Communist Party of Ukraine is a political party in Ukraine, currently led by Petro Symonenko.The party fights the Ukrainian national self-determination by identifying any Ukrainian national parties as the National-Fascist ones The Communist Party of Ukraine is a political party in Ukraine,...
, Petro SymonenkoPetro SymonenkoPetro Mykolayovych Symonenko is a Ukrainian politician and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Symonenko was the Communist Party's candidate in both the 1999 and 2004 presidential elections. During the Ukrainian presidential election, 2010 he was the candidate of the Election...
became a victim of a practical joke when he was asked this question in an Internet conference:
-
- "Hello, I am from KhersonKhersonKherson is a city in southern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kherson Oblast , and is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast. Kherson is an important port on the Black Sea and Dnieper River, and the home of a major ship-building industry...
oblastOblastOblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
and I am an ethnic Russian. My daughter was prohibited from wearing a fofudjaFofudjaFofudja [fofudyá] is an internet and social phenomenon in the Ukrainian segment of the LiveJournal community. While its name denotes a piece of religious clothing, it has been used lately as a satirical protest against Russian imperialism, xenophobia, ukrainophobia, antisemitism and religious...
at school, a symbol of Russian culture — on the grounds that the state language is UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. I just wanted to ask you, Peter Nikolayevich, for how long [will it last]?
- "Hello, I am from Kherson
-
- Mr. SymonenkoPetro SymonenkoPetro Mykolayovych Symonenko is a Ukrainian politician and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Symonenko was the Communist Party's candidate in both the 1999 and 2004 presidential elections. During the Ukrainian presidential election, 2010 he was the candidate of the Election...
promised to "look into it".
- Mr. Symonenko
See also
- ArgotArgotAn Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
- Cant (language)Cant (language)A Cant is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.-Derivation in Celtic linguistics:...
- Dulya
- Internet slangInternet slangInternet slang is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites...
- KaschenismKaschenismKaschenism is a specific style of conversation in forums, blogs, Fido echos, etc. used by some people in Russian FidoNet and Internet. Its main feature is provocativeness and mockery while being formally polite...
- Mat (Russian profanity)
- PadonkiPadonkiPadonki is a counter-culture subculture within the Russian-speaking Internet community most famous for using their slang Olbanian language or padonkaffsky jargon...
- PrevedPrevedPreved is a term used in the Padonkaffsky jargon, a meme in the Russian-speaking Internet which developed out of a heavily-circulated picture, and consists of choosing alternative spellings for words for comic effect...
- UdaffUdaffUdaff.com , or the resource is a Russian Padonki counter-culture site devoted to publishing short stories. Although technically anything can be posted on the site, it is pre-moderated by its creator, so boring or homosexual-sympathetic stories will most likely will end up in "/dev/null"...