# прекрасный = admirable?



## pimlicodude

From Solzhenitsyn (quoting someone else):


> А в розовости Февральской революции всероссийская газета опишет эту картину так: «Когда в Одессе во время нейдгартовского погрома девятьсот пятого года юноши-самооборонцы расхаживали с ружьями, эти юноши были трогательны и прекрасны, и сердце трепетало от сочувствия им, от сострадания…»


эти юноши были трогательны и прекрасны - there is a translation on the Internet that translates this "they aroused emotion and admiration". Can прекрасный mean "arousing admiration"? I thought it should be a mix of "excellent" and "good-looking"?


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## Rosett

_Admirable_ means _восхитительный _literally.
*admirable*
A замечательный, восхитительный, превосходный, очаровательный

Эти юноши были _прекрасны_ - _lithe, fine_


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## Awwal12

Literally "beautiful", but it doesn't necessarily mean *physically* beautiful, you know. The rest is up to the context.


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## nizzebro

I'd say "nice" suits here, but it lacks some subtle details as applied to young people.

Прекрасный is about inner qualities of the object that is such, you know, really good in every sense; this meaning excludes any personal estimation (which "excellent" seems to imply anyway) - the point is only inner indisputable nature of the object.

But what these qualities are - it is the matter of the noun. If it is about food, it is an excellent food. If it is about time spent, it is great/lovely time we had.  If it is about a person, they are really good/nice: the impression they make is only good and it doesn't depend on other people but is only their nature. If it is about a young man, there is a little shift to the qualities that youth have: maybe immediacy, being not corrupted yet or having good upbringing, along with overall freshness of those who are young.
Sometimes it is focused on beauty as such, but still as revealing personal qualities of a good and nice person.
Прекрасный is probably a little "brighter" than 'nice', but not so pompous as e.g. 'gorgeous'.


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## Rosett

эти юноши были трогательны и прекрасны - these youths were compassionate (causing compassion, affecting) and lithe/admirable.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> I'd say "nice" suits here, but it lacks some subtle details as applied to young people.
> 
> Прекрасный is about inner qualities of the object that is such, you know, really good in every sense; this meaning excludes any personal estimation (which "excellent" seems to imply anyway) - the point is only inner indisputable nature of the object.
> 
> But what these qualities are - it is the matter of the noun. If it is about food, it is an excellent food. If it is about time spent, it is great/lovely time we had.  If it is about a person, they are really good/nice: the impression they make is only good and it doesn't depend on other people but is only their nature. If it is about a young man, there is a little shift to the qualities that youth have: maybe immediacy, being not corrupted yet or having good upbringing, along with overall freshness of those who are young.
> Sometimes it is focused on beauty as such, but still as revealing personal qualities of a good and nice person.
> Прекрасный is probably a little "brighter" than 'nice', but not so pompous as e.g. 'gorgeous'.


Looking at a list of synonyms of "gorgeous", maybe "engaging"? Or maybe "splendid".


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## nizzebro

An interesting idea came to me (but only applied to girls as I prefer them personally; still it might be useful):
1."Я повернул за угол и увидел прекрасную девушку" - an overall feel of beauty as a miracle-like effect.
2. "Его дочь - прекрасная девушка" - rather a nice person but considering qualities one expects from a young lady: she might be not beautiful physically, but her good personality makes the same positive effect as natural beauty does - but in this case, some time is needed for summing it up.

Она была прекрасна generally makes me think of the effect in the former example - and it is supposed to be the same in case of a young man. But, as our context considers a group, and the quality goes as observed during some time through the prism of empathy, it is more about their characters in general - it is like inner purity  of them, their bright faces, hopes and good intentions on their eyes etc. Maybe also a bit of that effect of Apollo if you like - but without an extra heroic pathos or focusing on body.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> An interesting idea came to me (but only applied to girls as I prefer them personally; still it might be useful):
> 1."Я повернул за угол и увидел прекрасную девушку" - an overall feel of beauty as a miracle-like effect.
> 2. "Его дочь - прекрасная девушка" - rather a nice person but considering qualities one expects from a young lady: she might be not beautiful physically, but her good personality makes the same positive effect as natural beauty does - but in this case, some time is needed for summing it up.
> 
> Она была прекрасна generally makes me think of the effect in the former example - and it is supposed to be the same in case of a young man. But, as our context considers a group, and the quality goes as observed during some time through the prism of empathy, it is more about their characters in general - it is like inner purity  of them, their bright faces, hopes and good intentions on their eyes etc. Maybe also a bit of that effect of Apollo if you like - but without an extra heroic pathos or focusing on body.


I think "engaging" is fine here. It literally means "someone who captures your attention" (обаятельный?), but doesn't focus solely on physical attraction. Maybe an engaging person has "something about him" (в нём что-то такое есть) that makes you want to listen to him.


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## nizzebro

Probably it will work, even though прекрасный doesn't imply directly any sense of interaction or effect on the other side - rather it represents that as an intrinsic value (that's why it has developed through "beauty" or "brightness"; I believe that 'red' became "beautiful" because our ancestors viewed beauty not in our way but rather as something positively outstanding, unlike modern us demanding for exterior sophisticated details but often unable to catch the whole thing at once... Even though the point might be that they had no other paint but red).

The only word I know that implies no direct impact or personal estimation  is "nice", but it is of a weaker degree, so to speak.

It doesn't much matter how to translate it because it is a really broad sense. The author of the citation likes these young people and so finds them really nice, "beautiful" people, bright souls, splendid human material - this word means all that without focusing any particular sense. Красивая музыка means something like smooth melodies and charming melismas, but прекрасная музыка just means that it is both good quality and able to touch anyone's feelings - that is, shows its best as music; in the same way young men described in such way show their best as young men.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> Probably it will work, even though прекрасный doesn't imply directly any sense of interaction or effect on the other side - rather it represents that as an intrinsic value (that's why it has developed through "beauty" or "brightness"; I believe that 'red' became "beautiful" because our ancestors viewed beauty not in our way but rather as something positively outstanding, unlike modern us demanding for exterior sophisticated details but often unable to catch the whole thing at once... Even though the point might be that they had no other paint but red).
> 
> The only word I know that implies no direct impact or personal estimation  is "nice", but it is of a weaker degree, so to speak.
> 
> It doesn't much matter how to translate it because it is a really broad sense. The author of the citation likes these young people and so finds them really nice, "beautiful" people, bright souls, splendid human material - this word means all that without focusing any particular sense. Красивая музыка means something like smooth melodies and charming melismas, but прекрасная музыка just means that it is both good quality and able to touch anyone's feelings - that is, shows its best as music; in the same way young men described in such way show their best as young men.


You said Red became beautiful, but красный originally meant Beautiful, not a Red. Red Square in Moscow originally meant Beautiful Square, and was called that before the Bolsheviks.


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> You said Red became beautiful, but красный originally meant Beautiful, not a Red. Red Square in Moscow originally meant Beautiful Square, and was called that before the Bolsheviks.


My mistake then. Frankly, I'd like to see a convincing argumentation regarding 'red' as a derived notion and as well the position of 'to paint' in the chain - which reasoning, I believe, still couldn't be opposed to the idea that olden days speakers used to associate 'red' tightly with 'beautiful', and, if we assume that 'beautiful' in turn was conceptualized as 'catchy' (think of little kids who react on red toys) - there's no point then to view one of them as original and another one as derived. On the other hand, if 'to paint' was the original meaning (say, as primeval make-up made with ochre - which is red, so all the meanings would be resolved) - that would be another deal.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> My mistake then. Frankly, I'd like to see a convincing argumentation regarding 'red' as a derived notion and as well the position of 'to paint' in the chain - which reasoning, I believe, still couldn't be opposed to the idea that olden days speakers used to associate 'red' tightly with 'beautiful', and, if we assume that 'beautiful' in turn was conceptualized as 'catchy' (think of little kids who react on red toys) - there's no point then to view one of them as original and another one as derived. On the other hand, if 'to paint' was the original meaning (say, as primeval make-up made with ochre - which is red, so all the meanings would be resolved) - that would be another deal.


Yes, you're right. They must have been associated concepts. In Chinese culture, red is the lucky colour.
Wikipedia says this about Red Square:


> По поводу происхождение названия, наиболее традиционной является версия о том, что прилагательное «красный» использовалось в значении «красивый» (в русском языке это однокоренные слова). Предположение некоторых авторов о том, что слово «красный» означало «главный» этимологически неясно. Предположение Рачинского о том, что Красная площадь была названа так потому, что через неё пролегал путь в Кремль к Красному крыльцу комплекса построек царского дворца[19] представляется необоснованным усложнением. Вместо этого, допустимо предположить, что переименование площади было связано с «повышением её статуса» от непритязательного рынка до места проведения военных парадов в честь встреч иностранных послов.


Maybe the original word for "red" was червонный or алый?


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> Maybe the original word for "red" was червонный or алый?


It was, but I think the matter is who used it originally. According to Fasmer's dictionary червонный goes from a pigment made from worms;  so the term could appear relatively late with the technology that was likely borrowed. Which term could have been used for the radical red color by those who were untouched yet by trade and citizenship - I have no idea.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> It was, but I think the matter is who used it originally. According to Fasmer's dictionary червонный goes from a pigment made from worms;  so the term could appear relatively late with the technology that was likely borrowed. Which term could have been used for the radical red color by those who were untouched yet by trade and citizenship - I have no idea.


What about алый? Is it mainly used for roses?


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## nizzebro

Алый is assumed to be a Turkic word - that is probably the reason why it goes as a shade and not the "general red" today.
Yes, it is lighter, like aurora or, say, red fabric when it is thin so like semi-transparent; roses can also be that color - if not too bluish and not much whitened, just light red.


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## Awwal12

nizzebro said:


> According to Fasmer's dictionary червонный goes from a pigment made from worms; so the term could appear relatively late with the technology that was likely borrowed.


Given that Polish cochineal naturally inhabits large areas in Eastern and Central Europe, I find that unlikely, and *čьrvenъ looks like a perfectly proto-Slavic word indeed (after all, people always wanted to wear bright colours, and used all available sources for fabric pigments - it's just  that not all domestically available pigments were good enough).


nizzebro said:


> Yes. it is lighter, like aurora or, say, red fabric when it is thin so like semi-transparent.


Scarlet.


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## nizzebro

Awwal12 said:


> Given that Polish cochineal naturally inhabits large areas in Eastern and Central Europe, I find that unlikely, and *čьrvenъ looks like a perfectly proto-Slavic word indeed (after all, people always wanted to wear bright colours, and used all available sources for fabric pigments - it's just that not all domestically available pigments were good enough).


No objection, this sounds reasonable. But anyway, wiki says that 'crimson' appeared as referring  in a similar way to a pigment made from beetles - but, the general color in English is still 'red'; and, it is assumed to be of the same origin as our ржавый/рыжий, but, it seems that rust is more reddish there in the West, or what else could cause that рыжий is yellowish in Russian...


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## Rosett

nizzebro said:


> the general color in English is still 'red'; and, it is assumed to be of the same origin as our ржавый/рыжий, but, it seems that rust is more reddish there in the West, or what else could cause that рыжий is yellowish in Russian...


Interesting, _рыжий_ as hair colour is known as _red_ in English. _Рыжьё_ as slang stands for the items made of gold or gold plated.


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## pimlicodude

Rosett said:


> Interesting, _рыжий_ as hair colour is known as _red_ in English. _Рыжьё_ as slang stands for the items made of gold or gold plated.


Red hair or ginger hair.


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## nizzebro

I wonder whether 'ginger' is about the ginger root or not. If it is root - which is rather yellow, "соломенный"  (straw) is sometimes used in Russian for that. But "красный" cannot be used for hair (head, or fur)  for some reason  - even with the flaming shade of henna-dyed hair. I've got a suspicion that, regarding live being's body, "красный" is strongly associated with blood - so the term suits for skin getting red with  blood flow, or lips, but not hair. Anyway  "красный" presupposes some homogeneity in coloring with no specific deviations.

I remember I first encountered that hair color issue when I read "The Technicolor Time Machine" by Harry Harrison translated in Russian - the plot is about a film company travelling to the past using a time machine to make a movie about Vikings. There was a pun about Eric the Red, where their company boss said like - "no commies, or we get problems". If I remember right, in the book, there was an explaining footnote, because in Russian it is Эрик Рыжий but красное знамя.


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## Rosett

nizzebro said:


> If I remember right, in the book, there was an explaining footnote, because in Russian it is Эрик Рыжий but красное знамя.


В первой публикации _The Adventure of the Red-Headed League_ было переведено как _Лига Красноголовых. _Только позже  кто-то сообразил исправить это на _Союз Рыжих_.


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