COVID-19 – КОВИД: ADAPTATION OF AN INTERNATIONAL TERM TO THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

The author of the article considers the issue of adapting an international term to the Russian language. The topic of health and illness is important for Russian speech and is reflected in many linguistic studies. In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the topic is of particular relevance. The author reveals that the first Cyrillic spellings of the name of the new disease appeared not on Russian sites, but on the sites of Belarus and Kazakhstan. The author believes that this indicates the prestige of the Russian language in these countries. Adaptation occurs at different rates at different levels of the language. The adaptation to Russian phonetics happened the fastest, but the accentological norm has not yet been formed. Adapting to the Cyrillic script runs unevenly. There are spellings of the word in both Cyrillic and Roman alphabet. The development of Russian grammar word is slower. The word Сovid is not inflected in most Russian texts. However, the derivational potential of the new word is quite high. Dozens of new words were formed from the word Covid in Russian.