Russian fast food

Thanks to this sign I have learnt the Russian for fast food. It is фастфуд (fastfud).

Though written in English, this sign is in Barcelona so it advertises Mediterranean fast food. The Russian reads:

Лучший средиземноморский фастфуд

The first word лучший (luchshiy) means the best (Slavonic languages do not trouble themselves with articles and do not seem to suffer as a result).

The second word средиземноморский (sredizemnomorskiy) is a compound adjective: среди means middle, земно means earth, мор means sea and ский is a masculine singular nominative adjectival ending. The sea in the middle of the earth is of course a calque of the Latin Mare Mediterraneum, which has given its name to the sea in Romance languages and also English. German has the calque Mittelmeer, and Germany is close enough to the sea and has a sufficient history of connection with the Roman empire to understand the connection but I find it curious that Russian should use a name that is translated from Latin and makes no sense in terms of Russian geography.

Photo copyright © Peter Harvey 2013.

Comments

[John Cowan]

Almost certainly the Latin and Russian forms were independently calqued from the Greek Μεσόγειος (Mesogeios); the most usual Classical Latin name was mare nostrum 'our sea' in any case. The Modern Hebrew name הַיָּם הַתִּיכוֹן (ha-Yam ha-Tikhon) and the Modern Standard Arabic name البحر المتوسط (al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ) are also calqued from Greek.