----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 1:34
PM
Subject: Re: [phoNet] Russian
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.
Slightly palatalised [ts] and [dz] are frequent
Polish learners' substitutes for t' and d'
(such sounds are also found in East Slavic-influenced dialects of
Polish). Apparently some amount of affrication produces a more satisfactory
imitation of a Russian accent than targeting on somethging like the stage
pronunciation of palatalised dentals. I wonder if it also sounds more
successful from a native speaker's point of view.
An afterthought about what Sergei wrote about
vowels: if a Pole attempts to imitate Polish spoken with a Russian accent,
the most obvious thing to do (apart from modifying the palatals) is vowel
drawling with all the diphthongoid or triphthongoid effects caused by CV and
VC transitions.
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, this is a political question. I can't speak for these
people. I know some Polish Lithuanians who as far as I know speak
impeccable Lithuanian. I have a colleague in my department, a Lithuanist,
who comes from the Suwalki area, whose wife is 100% Lithuanian, and
whose five sons speak both languages fluently (here, in Poznan, western
Poland!). I know people from Vilnius who consider themselves Poles and who
speak beautiful Polish (with a Vilnius accent); I know some ethnic
Lithuanians who are fluent in Polish (I was impressed by Vytautas
Landsbergis's Polish, for example). I have no doubts that there must be
people who regard themselves as members of the one or the other nation for
purely opportunistic reasons without being able to speak their alleged
"native language". I'm sure of one thing: when dealing with delicate
ethnolinguistic situations one must avoid unfair generalisations or dividing
people into rigid categories. Ethnic identity has many components and
language is only one of them, though certainly very important.
Talking of politics (which I should forbid on this list :)). I hope
for the best relations between our countries, free of any irrational
phobias. Ethnic self-definition is no longer a problem in Polish-German
relations and it's surely high time more such ghosts were laid to
rest.
Piotr