Talk:Borscht

Kissel

Brewing of kissel in Belgorod Kievsky. A miniature from the Radziwiłł Chronicle

Concerning this section: "It may suggest that hogweed soup was on some occasions combined with a fermented mixture of water and barley flour, oatmeal or rye flour. Such soured flour-and-water mixture, mentioned in Polish historical sources as early as 997, was originally known as kisiel (from the archaic Polish verb kisieć 'to become sour'). Eventually, both Polish words, barszcz and kisiel, shifted their meanings: the sour flour soup became commonly known as barszcz (and later – to distinguish it from the red beetroot borscht – as barszcz biały 'white borscht'), whereas kisiel refers, in modern Polish, to a sweet fruit-flavored jelly made form potato starch."

• Do the authors specify which historical sources they quote? I suspect that they may refer to the East Slavic Radziwiłł Chronicle which in turn includes the old East Slavic Primary Chronicle where there is a story of how kissel saved the 10th-century Kievan Rus' city of Belgorod Kievsky, besieged by nomadic Pechenegs in 997 (exactly the same year!). The story is rehearsed in some detail in Kissel#Etymology.
• In any case, the whole description should be generalized from "Polish" to "Slavic". The meaning of "kissel" as a fruit and starch based jelly/drink is nowadays the same in Belarussian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. The historical oatmeal kissel is known today in Russia as "Russian kissel" (see ru:Русский кисель). AFAIK, "Russian kissel" is rarely cooked today in Russia. It was basically revived by Pokhlyobkin (see Кисель in his "Dictionary of Cookery").
• Also, the root of the word kissel is the same in all these languages. According to Vasmer's etymological dictionary it is the same for all Slavic languages (see кислый). While Polish kisiel is traced back to archaic Polish kisieć, Russian кисель and кислый ("sour") is traced back to archaic кысати. So I think one should just mention that this comes from the Proto-Slavic root for "sour" (see wikt:kisel, wikt:кислый and ru:wikt:кислый).
• Also note, that the Czech version of white borscht is called kyselo.
• There are further historical East Slavic dishes of the same type: salamata (ru:Саламата), kulaga (ru:Кулага (блюдо)) and dezhen (ru:Дежень).

--Off-shell (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Etymology

Hi Taivo, I'd like to discuss your recent edits to this article's Etymology section. You modified the statement that the Yiddish word borsht derives from Ukrainian or Russian borshch by removing the mention of a possible Russian origin. You also removed two dictionary references calling them "stupid" and "lazy", and replaced them with references to two other dictionaries. Of the latter two, one is not available online and I have no access to it, so I would appreciate if you could provide a verbatim quotation (here, on talk page). The other one says "from Yiddish borsht and Ukrainian and Russian borshch", so it actually defeats your point. You haven't provided any convincing arguments why the sources you removed were less realiable than the ones you replaced them with. On a more general note, Ukrainian борщ and Russian борщ are identical in spelling and identical or very similar (depending on the dialect) in pronunciation. It is probably impossible to determine with absolute certainty which of these is the source of the Yiddish word. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

The print source (which I ALWAYS consider to be superior to on-line sources) states: "[Little Russian borshch] A Little Russian ragout or soup...". The original printing was in 1947, so, of course, "Little Russian" means "Ukrainian". I consider all references to "Russian" to be lazy for the simple reason that many lexicographers see a word that they recognize as "Russian" and don't stop to consider that the source may actually be Ukrainian, not Russian. They stop at the "default" setting for anything written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The 1947 source I consider to be more accurate since 1) it recognizes that the soup is Ukrainian in origin and therefore 2) recognizes that the word is Ukrainian and not Russian. Obviously, if there is a word that is identical in both Ukrainian and Russian and there is no obvious reason to choose one over the other, we will generally choose the Russian derivation. But in this case, where the soup is Ukrainian (and even Russians recognize it as Ukrainian), then there is a clear reason to choose Ukrainian and not Russian as the source of the word. We have to intelligently use our sources here on Wikipedia. The on-line source I have there because it shows the Yiddish addition of the "t" at the end for the most common English form. (The Webster's dictionary actually has "borsch" as the primary spelling from 1947, but the "t" has expanded into general use since then.) You've done a great amount of good work on this article, by the way. --Taivo (talk) 17:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Taivo and Kpalion. There are in fact two statements here:

1) What is the origin of the word borscht?

2) From what language was it adopted into Yiddish (from which it supposedly moved to English)?

As for the first question, the word is Proto-Slavic for hogweed. Modern beetroot-based borscht is apparently of Ukrainian origin, but it is not clear where the original hogweed-based versions of this soup appeared first. Gil Marks claims here that it first appeared in the northern part of Eastern Europe, possibly in Lithuania. Since he talks about an early medieval period (at least before the 16th century, when they started to grow modern beetroot), I suppose he meant the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which covered the territory of present-day Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Estonia, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. With all this information, I don't see why the word borscht is ukrainian in origin. The fact they call the soup ukrainian (actually the modern version of the soup), does not mean that the word itself is Ukrainian in origin.

The answer to the 2nd question is also unclear. Jewish immigrants in the USA spoke mainly Yiddish but also Russian, Ukrainian, and probably mixed dialects like surzhyk. I also don't see a clear evidence that the word was adopted into Yiddish from Ukrainian. One could argue that the Ashkenazi Jews lived for many centuries in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in particular also at the territory of modern Ukraine, before it was taken by Russia and the Pale of Settlement was formed, and thus they possibly had much less contact with Russian than with Ukrainian. But one needs a WP:RS on the historical development of Yiddish to make such statements. Without further sources, I think we should stick to what the dictionaries say, namely, that the Yiddish form was adopted from Ukrainian and/or Russian. --Off-shell (talk) 20:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with everything Off-shell wrote. The Ukrainian origin of the soup does not necessarily imply a Ukrainian origin of its name in Yiddish and, indirectly, in English. Taivo may be (and probably is) right about the laziness of some lexicographers who assume a Russian origin of a word that may have been borrowed from any East Slavic language. But we shouldn't be cherry-picking our sources and if they disagree, we need to maintain a neutral point of view. I've got nothing against keeping the two references added by Taivo, but I also think we should put back the two references that were deleted, together with "or Russian". — Kpalion^(talk) 22:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I checked some further details meanwhile. Gil Marks writes: "Beetroot soup (boreke borscht) first appeared in Jewish sources, pronounced borscht or borscht in Yiddish, towards the end of the 1500s in eastern Europe, corresponding to its initial usage in the region... Borscht was most fundamental among Jews in Ukraine and southern Poland..." Comparing this to the history of Ukrainian language: "After the fall of the Kievan Rus' as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the language" (Old East Slavic) "developed into a form called the Ruthenian language. The Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate." So I think it is almost impossible that it was borrowed into Yiddish from Russian, but it is probably also incorrect to say that it was borrowed from Ukrainian. It was probably some form of Ruthenian language ("Western Russian" a predecessor of modern Belarusian, Rusyn and Ukrainian) which the "lazy" dictionary editors call "Ukrainian or Russian". I think the best we can do is to write "East Slavic" instead of "Ukrainian/Russian". --Off-shell (talk) 08:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Rather than "East Slavic", "Ruthenian" (the usual name for Old Western East Slavic) would be a better term and more commonly used (and is the title of the article about it). --Taivo (talk) 13:37, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that we need a reference that it was really Ruthenian. Otherwise it remains my original research. "East Slavic" is a general term which would cover Old East Slavic, Ruthenian, as well as modern Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian. It is less specific but is in agreement with the sources we currently have. --Off-shell (talk) 21:08, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's go back to what our sources say. In the four sources considered so far, we've got the following etymologies:

• Yiddish borsht; compare Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian borshch soup with red beets as ingredient; or directly < East Slavic (Dictionary.com)
• from Russian borshch "cow parsnip," which was an original recipe ingredient (Online Etymology Dictionary)
• Little Russian borshch (Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, second edition)
• from Yiddish borsht and Ukrainian and Russian borshch "beet soup" (Merriam-Webster's Word Central)

We can try and find more dictionary refs, but my feeling is we're gonna find pretty much more of the same. For example:

• Yiddish borsht & Ukrainian & Russ borshch (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Eleventh Edition)

Ruthenian isn't mentioned in any of them. I think the best thing we can do, without publishing our own original research, is to write that the Yiddish borsht derives from the word борщ (borshch), which is common to East Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian and Russian (and cite all or some of the above sources). Would this wording be acceptable to both of you? — Kpalion^(talk) 21:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

No, sorry, that won't be acceptable, although it's getting closer and just needs a little tweaking. Including Russian is, as I have said before, default/lazy etymologizing. We have one reliable source (from the days well before electronic, click-the-button on-line posts) that clearly and unequivocally points to Ukrainian ("Little Russian") for the earlier English spelling of "borsch" or "borsh" (and I will add the exact quote to the note). We know that the "t" comes from Yiddish, we have a reliable source for that as well. I propose stating that "borsch", the earlier form in English, is from Ukrainian (sourced) and the later and presently most common form "borscht" is from Yiddish (also sourced). We don't necessarily have to link Ukrainian > Yiddish > English since none of our sources make that connection. We can leave in the Proto-Slavic etymology. --Taivo (talk) 21:38, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

So we have two English spellings: borsht borrowed from Yiddish and borsch borrowed directly from Slavic. I agree that we can leave out the etymology of the Yiddish word (and thus skip the discussion of Ruthenian), but I disagree that a source "from the days well before electronic, click-the-button on-line posts" is more reliable than modern sources. Moreover, looking at Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Eleventh Edition provided above by Kpalion, we find that it was first mentioned in English as late as 1808! At this time, Russian was already spoken in parts of Ukraine, and borscht was already known in Russia. Hence, if we are talking about the direct adoption into English (not via Yiddish), it could well have been from Russian too. And again, Taivo, your 1947 reference says: "A Little Russian ragout or soup" but it does not seem to say that the word was borrowed into English directly from Ukrainian. So if we are going to specify the etymology in detail, we should state that "borsch", the earlier form in English, was borrowed from Ukrainian or Russian, and the later and presently most common form "borscht" is from Yiddish. --Off-shell (talk) 22:26, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

You are incorrect, Off-shell. The second edition of Webster's exactly says that the English word came from Ukrainian--that's what the brackets mean in that edition: "comes from". In other words, unlike all the other sources that hedge about its origin or use the "default Cyrillic setting" of "Russian", the 1947 source specifically and unequivocally states that it came from Ukrainian, not Russian. And, unlike the "Collegiate Dictionary", which is abridged, the 1947 edition is the 10-inch-thick unabridged version that is widely considered to be Webster's best. --Taivo (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, it was not clear to me what the brackets mean. As for the other argument, I cannot easily see that one version of Webster's dictionary is more accurate than another, even if it is bigger. However, I tried to dig further and to find the origin of these statements. Here, someone gives the source for apparently the first written mention of borsch in English (1808, as pointed above). Baron Campenhausen described it while visiting Kremenchuk. Here is a scan of this book. So, the question is what language was spoken in Kremenchuk at that time? I don't think the dictionary editors have any other means to determine it than we have. Here is the language distribution of Kremenchuk population in 1897 (the first census of the Russian Empire in languages): 47% Yiddish, 30% Ukrainian, 19% Russian. Can we definitely say, it was borrowed from Ukrainian? --Off-shell (talk) 02:01, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I think that the numbers are pretty clear, personally. There are some editors who would think that it's inappropriate synthesis, but since research is part of my real-world job description, I'm convinced. --Taivo (talk) 03:54, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

The census numbers tell us that we don't know whether it came from Ukrainian or Russian. Baron Campenhausen mentioned only Russian, but probably he couldn't distinguish between "Little Russian" and "Great Russian". It seems to me the dictionary editors were not "lazy". They studied the sources and understood, that it could have been any of the two languages. So "Ukrainian and Russian borshch" is the only statement we can make, and this will be according to the sources. BTW, the mention of borscht in this book seems to have been discovered rather recently; many dictionaries give 1884 for the first usage of the word. Not sure, whether in 1948 (the year of publication of the big dictionary which you refer to) this source was known. --Off-shell (talk) 07:17, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I continue to oppose the inclusion of "Russian" here. The census data is clear that the majority of Slavic speakers in your source spoke Ukrainian, the region of greatest contact between Yiddish and Eastern Slavic was in Ukrainian territory, the beet-based soup is Ukrainian in origin (even Russian sources assert that), and we have at least one major unabridged English dictionary (one of the most highly respected) unequivocally names Ukrainian. During our discussions here, it has become clear that the zone of contact was in the western East Slavic region. It's clear that we have to reject any source that only names "Russian" as using that term as a "default" Cyrillic option. If you won't accept my option of including just Ukrainian, then I would compromise with using Kpalion's wording with a slight tweak, "which is common to East Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian and Belorusian". --Taivo (talk) 12:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Taivo, I'm sorry, but this comment is below any academic standards, and I start to doubt your sincerity. Either bring new arguments, or surrender. We agreed before, that we treat the spelling borscht separately, as it came from Yiddish which in turn might have adopted it from Ruthenian but we have no source for that. So it was your proposal to make a separate statement on the older spelling borsch. So we traced the origin of it down to the primary source from which it is clear that both languages were present in the region of Kremenchuk with ratio 3:2, and hence we don't know whether it was Ukrainian or Russian or both. And the dictionary editors don't know it either, and therefore they put "Ukrainian or Russian". Now trying to defend your position, you start to bring Yiddish back into the discussion. In addition, your argument that one major unabridged English dictionary names only Ukrainian, is flawed, as several other dictionaries mention also Russian or even exclusively Russian, including another major one - the Oxford English Dictionary (OED, which calls itself "the definitive record of English language"). So far, I saw no convincing argument to leave Russian out, except your personal disfavour of it. --Off-shell (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

There is a very good reason to leave Russian out. The word entered Yiddish and the Western languages through contact with the western region of East Slavic--in other words the Belarusian and Ukrainian regions. That is a key factor here--western East Slavic. Thence into Yiddish and thence into the West. Yes, there is a minority of Russian speakers who are in the western areas, just as there are a minority of Scots speakers in Canada. So when you write that some First Nations language in Canada has borrowed a word from English, you don't look at Scots just because there happens to be a Scots minority. No. You assume the majority language unless there are compelling reasons otherwise. Thus, when borsch is borrowed from the western region of East Slavic, you don't assume (unless you follow lazy "Russian default" practices) Russian, you assume the majority languages of the area unless there are compelling reasons otherwise. There are no such compelling reasons here. --Taivo (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

We do not discuss the history of the Yiddish word anymore. We discussed it already above and we don't have to repeat it. We discuss the word borsch without t which was adopted directly from Slavic. Everything else you say is a repetion of your original argument that Russian overshadowed Ukrainian for historical reasons. This might be true in this case or not true. So far it remains your original opinion. I tried to check your statement and found that we cannot conclude it based on the primary source. The ratio of 3 to 2 cannot be interpreted in terms of "majority" and "minority", because the numbers are very close to each other. If it were 20 to 1, I could agree with you, but not for 3 to 2. Hence we have to stick to what the different dictionaries say. And just to make it clear once more: It does not matter that the soup originated in Ukraine and later went to Russia. The adoption into English took place so lately, that the word was already common in Russian. --Off-shell (talk) 09:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Dear Taivo and Off-shell, I think it's time to close this discussion. This is not the place to discuss the percentages of ethnic groups in one town and draw conculsions from there about the etymology of "borscht", because whatever conclusions we reach, they will be a result of our original research. What we're left with are dictionary references which we cannot simply accept or reject according to whether they fit our personal opinions. Ultimately, we may have to agree to disagree and accept that consensus doesn't require unanimity. Considering that Off-shell and I both remain unconvinced by Taivo's arguments against any mention of Russian as a possible source language for "borscht", I'm going to restore it, together with a mention of East Slavic as an umbrella term including both Russian and Ukrainian, and all of the dictionary sources used in this discussion so far. — Kpalion^(talk) 23:29, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Ukrainian origin

Here's the issue: This is the English Wikipedia and the primary association of English-speaking readers of "borscht" is with the red beetroot variety. As such, that's where the lead needs to begin (just as the English form of the word is the title of the article). That's of Ukrainian origin. Then the second paragraph can move on into other, older forms of the soup that are virtually unknown to English speakers. The lead doesn't need to be in historical order, it needs to be in familiarity order for English readers so that they don't have to read into the second or third paragraph to find the information about the soup that they automatically associate with the article's name. "Car" is a clip of the word "carriage" which was once drawn by horses, but the article on cars shouldn't start with that. --Taivo (talk) 19:56, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The 1st paragraph of the lede, as it reads now, makes an impression that all forms of borscht, or at least the most ancient one, originated in Ukraine, for which we seem to have no evidence. Any Wikipedia article must represent a WP:WORLDVIEW of the subject and avoid systemic bias. This is what the article in general currently does. As for the 1st paragraph, an unexperienced reader, who never saw borscht (just imagine how many English speakers in India saw it), will get exactly this impression. It must be made clear that it is the beetroot version which originated in Ukraine to avoid any confusion. Please, rewrite it as you wish, e.g. like "the best known variety in the English-speaking world, the redbeet borscht, originated in Ukraine" or whatever, but remove this confusion from the text. --Off-shell (talk) 23:24, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind emphasizing that the most common variety of borscht encountered by English readers (the vast majority of whom are in North America and Britain, of course) is beetroot and originates in Ukraine. And then the second paragraph can talk about its origin in other forms with less definite points of origin in eastern Europe. But the first paragraph should address the thing which is most commonly encountered by English-speaking readers. This is why article titles are based on most common English form, not on other criteria. --Taivo (talk) 00:44, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I've rewritten the lead again, trying this time to accord due prominence to the Ukrainian origin of beetroot borscht by mentioning it already in the first paragraph rather than the distant second. Please note that the previous version, after Taivo's edits, was self-contradictory: it first defined borscht as a "a beetroot-based soup" only to say that "varieties that do not use beetroot also exist" within the same paragraph. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Your rewrite looks fine. Thank you for understanding that we must give the most commonly-known beetroot variety prominence. --Taivo (talk) 15:54, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Spelling

Borsch should be spelled without a "t". The Borscht variant is Yiddish.101.98.74.13 (talk) 02:48, 17 March 2016 (UTC)