Glokaya kuzdra

Glokaya kuzdra (Russian: Глокая куздра) is a reference to a meaningless but grammatically correct Russian language phrase, similar to the English language phrases using the pseudoword "gostak". It was suggested by Russian linguist Lev Shcherba. The full phrase is: "Гло́кая ку́здра ште́ко будлану́ла бо́кра и курдя́чит бокрёнка" (Glokaya kuzdra shteko budlanula bokra i kurdyachit bokryonka). In the phrase, all word stems (glok-, kuzdr-, shtek-, budl-, bokr-, kurd-) are meaningless, but all affixes are real and used in a grammatically correct way.

Shcherba used it in his lectures in linguistics to emphasise the importance of grammar in acquiring foreign languages. The phrase was popularized by Lev Uspensky in his popular science book A Word about Words.^[1]

See also

• Jabberwocky
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

References