Suffixes and Prefixes

The vocabulary of the Russian language is quite poor. Next to the OED, its Russian equivalent looks like a Kleenex next to War and Peace . The paucity of actual words in the language is ccompensated , however, by an enormous number of suffixes and prefixes. They can be attached to words together, separately, several at once, creating new words that transmit the minutest shades of meaning . I come up with new words on a daily basis because it’s so much fun.

Now you can see why the vocabulary of swear words in Russian is so rich. If you take 30 prefixes and 30 suffixes, how many words can you create on the basis of just 10 slurs? Are there any mathematicians here who can give us an estimate ? Remember that a  word can have a prefix, a suffix, or both.

3 thoughts on “Suffixes and Prefixes

  1. That’s a lot of slurs. Statistics isn’t my strong suit, but I keep coming up with something on the order of ten million to one hundred million, and that’s for just prefixes or just suffixes, not both.

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