# All Slavic languages: still life



## Athaulf

A post in a thread below reminded me of a pretty colorful Croatian expression that we use to refer to the "still life" genre in art: we call such paintings _mrtva priroda_, which literally means (as you probably guessed) _dead nature_. I have no idea how this expression evolved and whether it's a calque from some other language. 

What expressions are used for "still life" in other Slavic languages? Are there other ones except Croatian that use something similar to "dead nature"?


----------



## Thomas1

Athaulf said:


> A post in a thread below reminded me of a pretty colorful Croatian expression that we use to refer to the "still life" genre in art: we call such paintings _mrtva priroda_, which literally means (as you probably guessed) _dead nature_. I have no idea how this expression evolved and whether it's a calque from some other language.
> 
> What expressions are used for "still life" in other Slavic languages? Are there other ones except Croatian that use something similar to "dead nature"?


In Polish  we have _martwa natura_, but I can't remember if I've ever heard _martwa przyroda_ used with this meaning.
I suspect it might have come to our language from French (just a hunch).


Tom


----------



## Q-cumber

Russian:

We call that genre "натюрморт" (dead nature - still life). In fact, we use its French name - "nature morte". The expression "мёртвая природа" (translation) is never used.


----------



## Athaulf

Q-cumber said:


> Russian:
> 
> We call that genre "натюрморт" (dead nature - still life). In fact, we use its French name - "nature morte". The expression "мёртвая природа" is never used.



So the expression is coming from French! This is interesting, since this expression (as far as I know) doesn't exist in German, and I'm not aware of many other examples where French words entered Croatian, but not German.


----------



## Thomas1

Athaulf said:


> So the expression is coming from French! This is interesting, since this expression (as far as I know) doesn't exist in German, and I'm not aware of many other examples where French words entered Croatian, but not German.


For what it's worth, my Oxford Duden German Dictionary gives the following translation:


> still life n., pl.
> still lifes or lives (Art) Stilleben, das


 

Don't you have a word for nature in Coratian that would be akin to the French counterpart?


Tom


----------



## Q-cumber

Polish:
*Historia terminu i pojęcia *
Ok. 1650 r. w holenderskich inwentarzach dzieł sztuki pojawił się termin stil-leven (dosł. „ciche, nieruchome życie” w sensie „nieruchomy model”), na oznaczenie obrazu martwej natury. W pocz. XVIII w. termin ten stosował holenderski historiograf sztuki Arnold Houbraken. Z języka niderlandzkego powstały później m.in. niemieckie stilleben oraz angielskie still life. Francuski termin nature morte, od którego pochodzi polska "martwa natura" pojawił się zapewne w dyskusjach teoretycznych dotyczących gatunków artystycznych w kręgach francuskiej Akademii Sztuk Pięknych w XVII w. 
(WiKi)

Bulgarian:
*Натюрмортът *(от фр. nature morte, „мъртва природа“) е жанр в изобразителното изкуство. Терминът се употребява:
В живописта - изобразяване на неодушевени предмети: цветя, плодове, убит дивеч (без пейзажи и хора)
Картина с такъв сюжет

Ukrainian:
*Натюрмóрт* (з фр. Nature morte - дослівно – мертва природа) - вид малярства, що зображає мертві (morte) предмети - букети квітів, композиції овочів, фруктів тощо.


----------



## amnariel

Thomas1 said:


> Don't you have a word for nature in Coratian that would be akin to the French counterpart?
> Tom



Nope, nature in this sense is always _priroda_. 

And it's pretty dead in all examples so far


----------



## Athaulf

Thomas1 said:


> For what it's worth, my Oxford Duden erman Dictionary gives the following translation:
> 
> still life n., pl.
> still lifes or lives (Art) Stilleben, das



Yes, that's what I had in mind: German uses literally the same phrase as English in this case, rather than the one used in French and Croatian. There are quite a few French words in Croatian, but virtually all of them are present in German too, which is understandable given the geography and history of the countries and languages involved. Thus I'm surprised that whoever calqued this term from French didn't use German instead.



> Don't you have a word for nature in Coratian that would be akin to the French counterpart?


Not really; _priroda_ is the only word for _nature_ I can think of. All direct derivations of the word _nature_ also use the root priroda, e.g. _prirodni_ (=_natural_), _neprirodan_ (=_unnatural_), _prirodoslovlje_ (=_natural sciences_), etc.

There are a few words derived from the Latin  _natura_, but these are technical terms whose meaning is very remote from the original meaning of this root, like e.g. naturalizacija (=_naturalization_, in the sense of acquiring citizenship), _denaturirani_ (=_denaturized_ in chemistry),  _naturalizam_ (=_naturalism_ in philosophy and arts), etc.


----------



## Irbis

In Slovenian we have "tihožitje".
Literary translation would be silent/quiet life.


----------



## Jana337

Irbis said:


> In Slovenian we have "tihožitje".
> Literary translation would be silent/quiet life.


We have something similar, then - zátiší. It literally means a quiet, secluded place. Ticho - quietness.

Dead nature - so funny! 

***

The posts about borrowings from French and German are here.


----------



## Maja

Athaulf said:


> A post in a thread below reminded me of a pretty colorful Croatian expression that we use to refer to the "still life" genre in art: we call such paintings _mrtva priroda_, which literally means (as you probably guessed) _dead nature_.


 Same in Serbian: mrtva priroda / мртва природа!


----------

