> 2. 'Soft' (semi-palatalized) : 'hard' (unpalatalized) versions of
> consonants. Of course this opposition is not pertinent to Russian

only, the

> zest here is that, for instance, palatalized dentals stand

somewhere between

> semi-palatalized Lithuanian and over-palatalized (up to the

affricates)

> Polish. Thus, my Lithianian-speaking wife can hardly render such

important

> Russian word as ???? 'children', falling either in Lithuanian

d€  Ä'·-
or Polish

> dze-.

I've heard Americans trying to speak a more natural Russian by
turning [d] and [t] before vowels into [dz] and [ts] (deti --> dzetsi
(children). And they succeded more than trying to pronounce
the 'pure' Russian [d] and [t]. I believe there are many people in
Russia who keep their d's and t's clean and don't elongate a's
(ka'zyol --> ka:zyol (he-goat) but under the influence of Muscovite
accent where all these peculiarities seem to come from, the number of
those purist will be diminishing.

As to Russians in Lithuania, their Russian is lituanizing quite
rapidly. The Russian language they're speaking is already spoiled and
they end up speaking Lithuanian with slight Russian accent and vice
versa. I think this is happening to all linguistic minorities in any
country (Piotr, do you agree that the so-called Poles, living in
southeastern Lithuania, can't speak any language at all except for
their fancy Polish-Lithuanian-Russian-Byelorussian lingo?).

Juozas Rimas