🌎 On Cosmonautics Day, as we celebrate human spaceflight and international cooperation, it’s worth remembering that even language has to adapt in orbit. On the International Space Station, it isn’t just English or Russian — it’s something in between.

Runglish is a hybrid of Russian and English that emerged naturally as crews needed to communicate quickly and efficiently in a bilingual environment. As cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev once joked, when they lack a word in one language, they simply borrow it from the other.

It’s not a formal language, but a practical tool shaped by life in orbit. You might hear phrases stitched together mid-sentence, or hybrid verbs like “spacewalkovat” (to go on a spacewalk) and nouns like “Soyuznik” for a crew member. Even everyday speech can switch fluidly between English and Russian — because on the ISS, both are essential for operations and safety.

Some examples feel especially surreal. In Runglish, English verbs get Russian endings (“to fix” → “pofiksit”), while Russian words sneak into English grammar. And then there’s the legendary to “prikryt”. In Russian, it neatly means “to close something partially” — say, a hatch that’s shut but not latched. In English, you’d need the longer “close but do not latch”, so crews simply say “we’ve prikryt’ed the hatch” — faster, clearer, and slightly mind-bending.

🤝 Runglish is a brilliant reminder that language adapts wherever humans go — even in orbit.