Eponimical linguistic parts of the language as the object of Russian translation.

It is often said that Russian texts are made from English texts in such a way that the proper names in most cases are not given in translation but in transliteration. Moreover, as experience shows that it is really practiced this way. Still, there is a special type of proper names that this rule does not refer to or only refers to in a limited range.

You may come across some word combination which are partly a sort of proper names and partially a sort of regular words. Eponyms are meant here. Prior to going into this question of eponymics any further, let us look and discover the meaning of the lexical unit called eponym and its derivatives in linguistics. The array of vocabulary items in both English and Russian is divided into two big groups: appellatives and proper names. If you understand ancient Greek, you could know that the lexical unit “eponym” stands for “naming” or “giving the name”. For ancient people eponyms were people, gods or heroes, whose names were used to name villages, tribes and various objects, as well as governmental positions (e.g. archonts, consuls). In the period of a couple of centuries, the meaning of “eponym” grew wider to include not only the personal name, but also other objects that shared some metaphorical similiarity.

These days the word "eponym" is more frequently used when you refer to regular phrases that have been chosen in a language on the basis of displacing one lexical item from the category of proper names to the class of common words with an immediate allocation of metaphorical lexical meaning. Hence, we deal with three separate notions of an eponym:

1. being or object

2. proper name

3. common word.

When an interpreter works with an English text, they should assume the background awareness of the English text intended audience and the degree of awareness of the Russian audience. The connotation of eponym arises out of the etymological context. As Russian and English languages have dissimilar cultural background, there are non-similar ways in which proper namesturn into eponyms. The primary issue connected with eponymisms is the subject of their cultural transparency which is a discreet feature depending on the linguistic competence and encyclopedic knowledge of Russian native audiences. Then there is a question: should the Russian translator consider such problems? Undoubtedly such eponymisms as lolita "a sexually attractive young girl" or a superman “a man with exceptional physical or mental ability, with strong integrity" are etymologically transparent both to English and to Russian speakers so making Russian interpretation of them does not cause any problems.

If there is no transparency of the context among the people from the 2 cultures, then all the same the task of an interpreter is a no brainer. (e.g.: Adonis named after a handsome young man adored by both Aphrodite and Persephone and killed by a wild boar, or the game of badminton that got its name from Badminton in the South West of England, Duke Beaufort’s country seat, where people started playing it). There is a difficulty only when an eponym is transparent to native English speakers, but means absolutely nothing to the Russian audience. As you may observe, not all eponyms make Russian translators think hard. There are some eponyms that are quite easy to figure out.

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