Could the word "browser" (and its derivative forms) sound different in Russian?

On the morning of Tuesday, April 10, 2012, I saw that a certain anonymous author in my form-spring asked me what I thought about the articles “ Intersystem ” and “ Inter-objectivity ” that appeared in the network wiki-encyclopedia “ Wikireality ” in February with the works of the participant acting under alias "Five Dollars".

And since the Habrakhabra community shows a noticeable and unrelenting interest in the choice between barbarism and literacy when translating foreign terms (which is at least a discussion of the “Retina display” translation that has passed far over a hundred comments!), I found the Habrahabr format to be more appropriate for the presentation of their views, rather than the Formspring format, where even editing is not provided.

To begin with, the terms “interconnection” and “inter-overage” seem to me to be a step taken in the right direction — from barbarism “cross-platform” and “cross-browser” to a slightly more Russian language.
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It also seems to me, however, that this step can be continued, because its result is not yet perfect and can be further improved.

First of all, the beginning of these words attracts attention: I would like to point out that the cross-platform software does not work in the literal sense between systems, and the cross-browser site - between browsers. Even as a metaphor, it is not very good.

What is the possible alternative to this?

Personally, the first thing that comes to my mind is the idea of ​​using some variants that are rooted in the words “different” or “many”. Perhaps because I am affected by the memory of the excellent translation of the term “multi-touch” by the word “many thousands”, which Sergei Moskalenko invented in 2007 for the article “ Ritual dances around the iPhone ”, which was later popularized in Habrahabr first murr ( in March 2009 ), then I ([ 1 ], [ 2 ], etc.).

At one time, considering the options for a more Russian analogue for the term "multicooker", I also first settled on the speech copy of the "multi-cooker". Then I realized, however, that in terms of Russian cooking “a lot” rather means the volume of the food being prepared, and then I switched to the term “raznovarka”, arranged like the existing Russian culinary term “pickles”; on it and stopped.

Following this line of reasoning, cross-platform software could also be called multi-system (because it works on many operating systems, not just one), or multi-system (but this is not very suitable: in programming, unlike in cooking, There is no tasty term “pickles” at all, but there is an unpleasant term “discord”). You can also try the “system-wide” or “system-wide” variants (however, the appearance of these last two options allows, unfortunately, it is easy to forget that this is not about one such system, but the “whole” or “general” program belongs to , and about several different systems).

However, it seems more advantageous to me to recall that the word “system” was once borrowed by Russian speech (like many other Orthodox and philosophical terms) from Greece: in ancient Greek it is “σύστημα”. This suggests a happy idea from there to borrow the prefix "poly-" (long used in such Russianized borrowed words like "polymers" or "polyglot"), and then call cross-platform programs polysystem.

With the word "interlabel" also not everything is in order.

The translation of the term "browser" by the word "browser" I have long considered a major mistake of Microsoft Corporation. This translation muddied the meaning of the original Russian word “browser” (meaning only the person who constituted the reviews, and not at all the instrument intended for viewing; we do not call the “observation wheel” a “viewing wheel” because we feel this difference). In addition, there are three syllables in the word “browser”, and five in the word “browser”. The first of the rules for the selection of a suitable Russian word, once set forth by Krylov, is that the word is more convenient in speech than it is shorter. That is why the translation "browser" was very bad and did not take root, especially in the ranks of modern computer jargon, clearly preferring monosyllabic words ("website", "chat", "blog", "tweet") or two-syllable ("email", "ICQ ”,“ Server ”,“ torrent ”,“ twitter ”,“ jabber ”,“ wiki ”), so even“ browser ”is more likely an exception for it. Ekaterina Lazhintseva (after all, it was she who was then the operating systems manager in the Russian Products Training Department at Microsoft) had to hack the term “browser” at the root of mercy.

Did she have a different path?

The real tragedy of modern network terminology in the Russian language is that the shortest (one syllable!) Word “web”, no matter how hard it tries, cannot completely replace the long compound term “World Wide Web”: it’s not convenient because all verb forms, formed by “web” , would inevitably be reminded of the obscene verb “fuck” and its various derivative forms (indeed, even in the word “webmaster”, many mockingly put dots on e). Our speech has found a workaround: “The World Wide Web” (or even just “Web”) almost no one either speaks or writes (because it takes a long time), but instead uses another (also monosyllabic) word - “Network” (with capital letters, and sometimes with a small letter, if anyone is too lazy to push Shift).

But if the word “web” was commonly used and recognizable, then the Russian word-formative suffix “-nik” would certainly come to the aid , which is clearly visible in dozens of such familiar words as “soldering iron”, “money box”, “lamp”, “ kettle "," file "," textbook "," task book "," triangle "," stretcher "," piercer "," exchanger "," duvet cover "," chicken coop "," SUV "," igniter "," diary " and in other similar. (Pay attention: this suffix is ​​the best friend of such a translator who wants to create not barbarism, but words with Russian roots for new terms: it is thanks to this suffix that we now say “refrigerator” in everyday life, not “refrigerator”, we say “receiver” , not “receiver”, we say “alarm clock”, and not some “alarm-lock”.) And they would certainly speak and write, certainly not “browser”, but also not “browser”, but even shorter - “Wien”.

And how then would the adjective “cross browser” sound?

For the term "cross-platform", I came up with the translation "polysystem" above, but the prefix "poly-" in its Greek origin does not fit the English root in the word "webcam". With English words (even in English itself), the Latin prefix “uni-” is perfectly combined (for example, in such words as “unisex”), and it is also not alien to our own speech in such words entirely borrowed from the Latin language. as "university" and "universal." The prefix "cross-" in the word "cross-browser" just means, in general, it is the universality of the site or some technical device in web-building (suitable for all browsers), so for the term "cross-browser" from the word " Webnik ”we could form the translation“ uniform ”or even“ uniform ”. Of these two options, the latter looks more subtle, because it is shorter in the number of syllables.