Russian Word of the Day

Some say that pigs make great house pets. They call them charming and intelligent with expressive personalities. However, for most of us pig pets are too exotic. I mean, would you like to be awakened by loud grunting noises?

In Russian a pig is свинья. It is a word of feminine gender; in conversational Russian свин can mean a male pig, but when people talk about pigs they usually just use the feminine form

Russian pigs don't go “oink-oink”; they go хрю-хрю, which, in my opinion, makes sense; it reminds me of grunting sounds.

Figuratively both свинья and свин can be used to describe a messy person, while свинарник, “pigpen” could describe the filthiness of their home.

Also, it serves as an insult following one’s shabby act. In that case this person’s actions can be called свинство “swinishness” or “rudeness.”

We have a rather well used expression, свинью подложить, which means to intentionally cause trouble or play a dirty trick on them.

There is a theory that this expression comes historically from the ban on eating pork, свинина in Judaism and Islam. You can imagine someone, intentionally slipping a religious Muslim some pork in order to get them in trouble or cause mischief (source).

In Russian the mumps also have something to do with pigs: we call it свинка. The name comes from the look of one’s swollen cheeks when the salivary glands get inflamed. Incidentally, свинка is the diminutive form for свинья.

Another use of the word свинья is piggy bank, свинья-копилка. I found a really cute cartoon from the 1960’s that was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, Свинья-копилка, “The Piggy Bank”.