The frantic, fast-paced and fast pace of life, the desire for economy in everything always and everywhere. In our life, such a phenomenon in the Russian language as abbreviations is firmly established. What it is? An abbreviation is a special set of characters that is formed by abbreviation of a word or phrase by the first letters, syllables or parts of words and even sounds included in the name of an object or phenomenon. In simple life, it is often required to save time and place. Therefore, people begin to use simple abbreviations, which are often used. It can be compressed phrases or words.
History of Abbreviations
The history of the emergence and formation of such a linguistic phenomenon as abbreviations originates from ancient times with the advent of the written language. All peoples who knew how to write used abbreviations. Saving space on the material (papyrus, birch bark, ceramic tiles) and speed of writing were important for scribes. Antiquity began to develop the use of abbreviations in inscriptions on buildings, and then in manuscripts.
Often the Romans abbreviated proper nouns, and then official words, for example, cos. - consul. The Greeks began to use abbreviations similar to the Romans in their papyrus and coin inscriptions. A similar phenomenon has become widespread with the reduction of measured and weight units.
Thanks to the development of Roman jurisprudence, a code and a system of reduction rules were compiled. It was them who later began to be used in the medieval era. "Tiron badges" - one of the most famous systems, which is the basis of Roman rapid writing - tachygraphy. These marks, not without Latin, went further into the Middle Ages, where they were also used in manuscripts and coin inscriptions, letters.
Then Greek and Latin letters began to be used in words. And thanks to this, special signs appeared for reducing syllables, as well as not only double consonants, but also vowels. The first method of reducing the word by its initial letters began to be used by the Greeks, from whom the Romans adopted it. The most widely used abbreviations in the legal, medical and theological field.
Prison abbreviations as a separate large significant group
Prison jargon (it is also called criminal, thieves or thieves, and even more correctly called “argo”) is a special dialect that arose on social grounds in a criminal environment. The emerging language system, which includes special terms and expressions to identify members of the criminal community, was opposed to the language system of a law-abiding society.
One of the main goals of prison argo is to make it difficult to understand the meaning of what was said between the declassed elements for ordinary people who are called the uninitiated. Prison abbreviations (thieves, in the form of tattoos) served as one of the main and effective tools to achieve this. Consider the types of abbreviations. They are different - alphabetic, syllable, sound, semantic, etc. The typology of abbreviations is huge and specific.
In the largest division, they are divided into initiative and syllable. Each of these groups contains its own subgroups. Consider each of them in abbreviations of prison slang.
Initial Abbreviations
The first type of abbreviation in this group is the letter abbreviation, which is read as the letters are called in the alphabet.
Examples: AA - "angel of hell", PVA - "despise your asset."
The second type of abbreviation is sound. She is acrophonetic. The principle of its construction is such that the first letters of the constituent words are also taken, but they are not read by alphabetical name, but as a single word.
Examples: GORN - “the state has condemned (c) slaves forever”, BOTTOM - “let us rest a bit”, “let us catch our breath”.
The alphanumeric abbreviation combines the two listed above. That is, its composition includes alphabetic names of letters, and their merger into words. Such abbreviations are not represented in prison jargon.
A special group is created by backronyms. These are abbreviations that are created by the existing abbreviation. There are a lot of such examples among prison abbreviations. Example: GOD, CAT, CROSS, SWAN, SUMMER, SKY, DAD, LIGHT.
There are also recursive abbreviations. This is a type of abbreviation that includes in its decoding not only words, but also the abbreviation itself. For clarity, we give an example: PHP - PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. There are no recursive abbreviations in prison abbreviations.
Syllabic Abbreviations
Another large group are syllabic abbreviations. Prison cuts are not actually found in this type, but still, for a general understanding, you need to consider this point. There are several ways to get syllabic abbreviations:
- The initial parts of two or more words are added up: a department store is a department store.
- The beginning of one word and another word from a whole phrase are combined: a terrorist act is a terrorist act.
- The initial part of the word is formed with the form of the indirect case of the noun: department head - department head.
The beginning of the first word and the beginning and end of the second / end of the second word are connected: moped - mo (tocicle) + (bicycle) ped.
Prison tattoos and abbreviations
There is an opinion that prisoners began to make tattoos on their own and for internal reasons. But this is not entirely correct. The Russian government itself gave impetus to the development of prison tattoos. Abbreviations, images - all this was later applied to prisoners by their bodies. And before that, the state branded those law-breakers who were Siberian convicts for life. Over time, tattoos changed their meaning and essence. They became in some way a passport, a visiting card of every prisoner.
Tattoos spoke of belonging to a declassified society, about the place of their carrier in the hierarchy of the underworld. There are no prison tattoos that have no special meaning. Each of them describes a certain status and specialization of a person in the criminal world. Tattoos include a wide variety of images and abbreviations. Prison cuts - a huge number, and we will consider the most famous.
ELEPHANT
A similar tattoo is characteristic of Soviet and some Russian prisoners. ELEPHANT - abbreviation - prison tattoo, which consists of four letters.
The official and main decoding is “death by the cops from the knife”. However, there are other options that decrypt this abbreviation. Firstly, “Soviet special purpose camps”, secondly, “Solovetsky special purpose camp”, and thirdly, “Glory to Lenin - to our father”. Sometimes there is also such an option as "from an early age one misfortune." Elephant tattoo has no special restrictions for its application. But because of individual words, for example, such as “cops” and “knife”, it was mainly inflicted by convicts who are negatively inclined towards the authorities.
GOD
Too many prison cuts are interpreted differently. The same applies to the abbreviation GOD. The prison tattoo, which has nothing to do with religion, has several interpretations. And often its true meaning is known only to its carrier and to no one else. The most famous transcripts are, firstly, "God will absolve sins, " and secondly, "was condemned by the state." Also, there are such options as “I'm afraid to stay hungry”, “I will rob again” and “be careful, robber”.
BOSS
BOSS is a prison abbreviation that has nothing to do with the modern understanding of the word. A tattoo with these four letters refers to the most unambiguous, having a small number of deciphers. So, the first version of the full name is “was condemned by the Soviet court”, and the second and very close in meaning is “was condemned by the Soviet Union”.
The Meaning of Prison Abbreviations
Prison abbreviations and their meaning can be classified into several groups. For example, there are abbreviations that talk about the convict’s attitude to the country, government and politics:
- AGMD - “Adolf Hitler is my friend”;
- ALLURE - “I love anarchy with my young love - joyfully”;
- ARBAT - "and Russia was, and now."
Some abbreviations affect certain values that are important for the entire declassified society or for its individual participant (love, family, freedom, honor, etc.):
- ALENKA - “but you need to love her like an angel”;
- BLITS - “take care of love and value freedom”;
- DMNTP - "for me, you are not more beautiful."
You can also distinguish a group of reductions that directly relate to the state, to the judicial process, the territorial location of a prisoner, etc. For example: GORN - “the state has condemned (in) slaves forever”. This may also include the above-mentioned abbreviations SLON and BOSS.
