# Which languages use structures analogous to Russian 'с новым годом' / 's novom godom'



## Lorenc

In Russian many expressions of wishes use the somewhat inscrutable form С + instrumental_of_wished_thing. For example:
С новым годом! (s novom godom!) Happy new year!
С приездом!   (s prijezdom!) Welcome! (after a road trip)
С днём рождения! (s dnjom roždjenija!) Happy birthday!

I would like to know whether or not they are used in other Slavic languages.


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## ilocas2

Hello, it doesn't exist in *Czech*.


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## Eirwyn

It's a common East Slavic construction, that's for sure.

"з новым годам" - Google Search
"з новим роком" - Google Search


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## Lorenc

ilocas2 said:


> Hello, it doesn't exist in *Czech*.





Eirwyn said:


> It's a common East Slavic construction, that's for sure.



Thanks! I'm quite confident such structures are not at all used in Polish. How about southern Slavic languages? I'd also be interested in knowing when and how this form arose. 
Perhaps it originated as an abbreviation of 'with the new year [please accept my best wishes]'


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## Eirwyn

There is a much more obvious etymology for this construction:

http://listivki.ru/novgod/2018/7.jpg
поздравлять - Wiktionary


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## jasio

Lorenc said:


> Thanks! I'm quite confident such structures are not at all used in Polish.


Actually, sometimes they are - but marginally, very colloquially. I would assume it's Russian or Ruthenian influence, so I would not be surprised, if they were somewhat more popular in eastern Poland. I can imagine raising a toast "no, to z dniem urodzin" (though I would rather say "no, to najlepszego" or simply "zdrówko"), but for actual greetings I'd prefer "wszystkiego najlepszego w dniu urodzin" or "wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin".  Especially in writing.


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## Lorenc

jasio said:


> Actually, sometimes they are - but marginally, very colloquially.


Thanks, that's very interesting, I stand corrected then 
BTW as someone noticed I made a mistake in my original post: it should be с нов*ы*м годом (instrumental case) and not нов*о*м (prepositional or locative case). Google does shows quite a lot of results of 'с новом годом', some of them in published magazines, perhaps suggesting they are pronounced the same by some speakers.


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## ZDalexx

Hello Lorenc,
This kind of expression doesn't exist in Slovak.


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## Awwal12

Eirwyn said:


> It's a common East Slavic construction, that's for sure.
> 
> "з новым годам" - Google Search
> "з новим роком" - Google Search


It looks like calques from Russian to me, even though "віншаваць" and "вітати" have identical government and theoretically could produce similar shortened phrases (the fact they didn't so in West Slavic languages makes it doubtful). Note that the very "віншаваць", "вітати" and "поздравлять" are all (!) loanwords (the first two from Polish, the latter from Church Slavonic).

Obviously, Russian "с (чем-л.)!" is a shortening of "поздравляю/поздравляем тебя/вас/всех/... с (чем-л.)!"


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## jasio

Awwal12 said:


> Note that the very "віншаваць", "вітати" and "поздравлять" are all (!) loanwords (the first two from Polish, the latter from Church Slavonic)."


That's interesting... in Polish there is an almost identical word: "pozdrawiać", which matches well the Polish word for health, "zdrowie" - in East Slavic languages it is pronounced witn an additional vowel in the stem (in Russian "здоровье", Belorussian "здароўе" and in Ukrainian "здоров'я").


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## nimak

Lorenc said:


> How about southern Slavic languages?



It doesn't exist in *Macedonian* and other South Slavic languages (_Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian_). They mainly use:

среќен _(sreḱen)_, srečen, срећан, srećan, sretan, щастлив _(štastliv)_ = _happy_
весел, vesel, весео, veseo = _merry, cheerful, joyful_
честит, čestit, čestiti = _"happy", "merry"_


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## Panceltic

Perhaps not surprisingly, it exists in Lithuanian (which is not a Slavic language). (I have observed multiple "calques" like that comparing Russian and Lithuanian).

We in Slovenian don't use this construction - we say "čestitam za ...." + acc. case (I congratulate for ....").


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## AndrasBP

Panceltic said:


> Perhaps not surprisingly, it exists in Lithuanian (which is not a Slavic language). (I have observed multiple "calques" like that comparing Russian and Lithuanian).




Also in *Latvian*:

*"Ar dzimšanas dienu!"* is short for "apsveicu ar dzimšanas dienu" = "поздравляю с днём рождения".

ar = with
dzimšana = birth
dzimšanas = birth (Gen.)
diena = day
dienu = day (Acc.)


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