When learning Russian these are just a few of the words I found myself saying even when speaking English. Which gives a hint that a good direct translation maybe isn’t quite there.
There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be -- almost like Huffman coding.
In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.
It is no surprise that the English word is shorter, as - unlike English - Russian has two words for "why".
"почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?
"зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?
Note the difference in implication if I ask you "why" you were late for work. "почему" allows room for circumstances beyond your control, while "зачем" places the blame squarely on your shoulders.
English speakers may be completely unconscious of the overloaded nature of "why" - such is the value of learning other languages.
> Unlike English, Russian has two words for "why".
English has at least three in the same space, two of which are in modern use.
> "почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?
In English, that's, unambiguously, “How". Which is kind of why your own translation starts with it.
> "зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?
In English that is, again unambiguously, though somewhat archaic, “wherefore”.
“Why” can mean either and is usually disambiguated by context (but is usually read modernly as “wherefore” if the context isn’t otherwise unambiguous, though the existence of the archaic phrase “whys and wherefores” which seems to mean the same as the modern “whys and hows” suggest to me that the bias has flipped over time.)
Though I know very little Russian, I know enough to say that "how" and "pochemu" do not map 1:1 -- If I asked, in English, "how is this cardboard box flat?", the natural response would be "it's designed to be flattened" rather than "someone folded it down", but the natural response to "pochemu" would be the second. The full translation that was given would be necessary to disambiguate.
I think you are on the right path, it also explains why Russians are so good at Math because сколько is a 2 syllable word vs. "how many" 3 syllables and two words.
To be serious, Russian morphology restrict the number of short words. A verb or a noun will have a suffix that changes by plurality, case, gender, tense etc. and often a prefix. E.g. a pretty common word such as "come" in "Come to dinner with us" will have four syllables in 'заходите' because its root has a vowel, prefix has a vowel and suffix has two.
Question words are grammatically pronouns in Russian so they have all the morphological features of nouns.
I think that “почему/зачем?” is more of an entertainment question in Russia, because the most popular answer would be “it just so happens”. Like, all by itself. You will generally spend much more than three syllables (and maybe some amount of alcohol) to get your answer even from friends. Another fun observation about “почему” is that “normal” russians mostly deal with consequences of the processes out of their direct control. Snow and cold? Ok, find a shelter. Alien invasion? Ok, burn them down and return to a shelter. New “strange” law? Ok, it can’t be properly enforced, or someone will come up with a countermeasure in a week, no need to even leave a shelter. It’s all weather, you don’t question weather.
> There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be
I’m really interested in linguistics, but I’ve never heard of such a rule. Could you give a source please? I’d be curious to know if this is true.
(A striking counterexample I ran into just yesterday: the Urim word for ‘head’ is tukŋunakŋ, and ‘we (incl.)’ is mentepm-. I don’t think this is because Urim people avoid talking about heads or groups of people. That being said, it’s tricky concluding anything from a sample size of n=1.)
