all Slavic: adult

G

Gavril

Senior Member
English, USA
I've noticed that the Slavic languages have an interesting range of terms for "adult".

Most seem to include the word for "grow" (or a derivative thereof), but there are at least three different prefixes added to this stem:

vz-: Russian vzroslyi, Bulgarian vŭzrasten, Macedonian vozrasen = ~"grown-up"
od-: Slovene odrasel, BCS odrastao = ~"grown-off"/"grown-away"
do-: Polish dorosły, Ukrainian doroslij, Belarusian darosly = ~"grown-to"

(Czech and Slovak also appear to use do- in their words for "adult", but the verb stem to which it is prefixed is different.)

Are there any other patterns seen in Slavic words for "adult", or similar, that aren't listed above?

(For example, what about Sorbian etc.?)

Thanks
 
    • Gavril said:
    Are there any other patterns seen in Slavic words for "adult", or similar, that aren't listed above?
    Click to expand...
    In Polish there is also another word, "pełnoletni", an adjective derived from 'full years'. It's a legal term referring to an 18+ years old person. Sometimes the two are juxtaposed to convey the meaning that someone is formally adult, but in fact still childish.
     
    jasio said:
    In Polish there is also another word, "pełnoletni", an adjective derived from 'full years'. It's a legal term referring to an 18+ years old person.
    Click to expand...
    Same in:
    Macedonian - полнолетен (polnóleten)
    Bulgarian - пълнолетен (pŭlnoléten)
    Serbian - пунолетан / punoletan
    Croatian - punoljetan

    In Macedonian, although both words (vozrasen and polnoleten) kind of have the same meaning, they are used differently. For example, we say:
    • филм за возрасни (film za vozrasni) = a 18+ film; We don't say филм за полнолетни (film za polnoletni).
    • Секој полнолетен граѓанин има право на глас. (Sekoj polnoleten graǵanin ima pravo na glas.) = lit. Every "of legal age" citizen has the right to vote.; We never say Секој возрасен... (Sekoj vozrasen...)
    Also, depending on the context, возрасен (vozrasen) can also mean elderly.

    There is also another word, somehow related, meaning "fully developed physically and mentally", "mature", "ripe":
    Macedonian - зрел (zrel)
    Russian - зрелый (zrelyi)
    Bulgarian - зрял (zryal)
    Serbian - зрео / zreo
    Croatian - zreo
     
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    Czech has all mentioned adjectives (vzrostlý, odrostlý, dorostlý, zralý) , but they are not used for "adult".
    Btw, Czech retains the consonant t (dorostlý).

    adult in Czech:

    dospělý, from the verb dospěti;
    plnoletý (plný + léto = full + year/summer);

    dospěti (perf.) = 1. to reach sth 2. to grow up;
    spěti (impf.) = to be heading towards sth;

    1. Dospěli jsme k dohodě. = We reached agreement. / Dospěli jsme do cíle cesty. = We reached the destination.
    2. Dospěli jsme. = We grew up. / Jsme dospělí. = We are adults.

    from the verb růsti (= to grow) we have a term dorostenec / dorostenka, it is an age category in sport (~ junior);
     
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    Briefly:
    vzrostlý = full-grown, high-grown, e.g. vzrostlý strom = high-grown tree;
    odrostlý = grown out, e.g. odrostlé vlasy = grown out hair;
    dorostlý = grown up to, grown back, e.g. dorostlé vlasy = grown back hair;
    zralý = mature, ripe;
     
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    The Slovene counterparts of the words mentioned above are "odrasel" (adult), "polnoleten" (of legal age), "zrel" (mature).
    There is also "dorasel", which takes a dative object and means "able to cope/deal with" that object.
     
    In Ukrainian:
    дорослий - дорослий син /adult son/
    повнолітній - повнолітні діти /adult children/
    здоровий - здорова дівка /adult girl/
    дійшлий - дійшлий розумом /??/
     
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