Russian outside of Russia (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Russian outside of Russia
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

ruskivyetr
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Message 1 of 8

25 April 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged

In my recent ponderings of where to immerse myself in Russian, a number of locations have passed through my
mind. Since Russia has a strict visa policy, it's only sensible for me to think of other places that would offer a
cheaper alternative to Москва или Петроградская. My question is:
Is the Russian spoken in Belarus or the Ukraine noticeably different to the standard Moscow or St. Petersburg
accent?
For example: If I were to base my accent through speaking in Minsk or in Kiev, and I somehow developed a native-
like accent without many foreign qualities, would a Russian from Moscow be able to say "Oh he learned in Belarus"
or "He learned in the Ukraine"?
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ember
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Message 2 of 8

25 April 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged

Most of my Belorussian friends have no noticeable accent at all. Ukrainians can have a very distinct accent, easily recognisable as "Ukrainian/Southern", but not all of them do. People from the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) can have no, little or pronounced accent, depending on their age and background. The language itself would be more or less the same in all these countries, but for some youth slang, perhaps.
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William Camden
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Message 3 of 8

25 April 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged

I visited Kiev in 1984, and a woman was serving hot tea - she called out haryachiy chai as she was serving it from a kind of samovar. At the time, I wasn't sure if this was Ukrainian or merely Russian spoken with a Ukrainian accent. In fact, it was Ukrainian.
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Chung
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Message 4 of 8

26 April 2010 at 5:31am | IP Logged

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Russian wrote:

Ukrainian Russian is, according to O. Ponomariv, a variety of Russian language spoken by the Russian-speaking Ukrainian people.[1] It is widespread in Ukraine, but also in other territories populated by Ukrainians or in other words having Ukrainian substratum, such as Sloboda Ukraine, Russian Far East, Kuban, Extreme North, Western Siberia, etc. Some features of it are the part of written standard in Ukrainian education and science. [2] It's not to be confused with Surzhyk, which is just the Ukrainian language plenty spoiled by Russian loanwords.

CONTENTS

    * 1 Roots
    * 2 Differences with the proper Russian
    * 3 See also
    * 4 References
    * 5 External links

ROOTS
[This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (April 2010)]

The history of Ukrainian Russian began with the Russification of Ukraine. During the Russian rule and to some extent presently, Russian was considered to be the "high language" in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians switched from their native Ukrainian to the Russian language, nevertheless preserving some original features in lexis, phonetics and grammar.

In the last centuries the territory populated by Ukrainians greatly increased and covered such lands as Sloboda Ukraine, Russian Far East, Kuban, Extreme North, Western Siberia, which are currently in Russia, but the locals still speak Ukrainian and Ukrainian Russian in addition to standard Russian language.[citation needed] In Ukraine, Ukrainian Russian is the usual variety of Russian language. It is also spoken by people who claim to be of both Ukrainian and Russian descent. Because Ukrainian Russian appeared as the result of the literary Russian's influence on the language of Ukrainians, it mostly does not incorporate any features from the neighbouring indigenous Russian dialects (e.g. Southern Russian).

DIFFERENCES WITH THE PROPER RUSSIAN
[This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (April 2010)]

The Ukrainian Russian shares the majority of features distinguishing it from the proper Russian even with the literary Ukrainian language. The smaller part of peculiarities is of dialectal Ukrainian and proper Ukrainian Russian origin. The latter are mostly made of the words from Odessa city dialect or Donbas miners' argot.

Some examples of Ukrainian Russian lexis comparing to Ukrainian and Russian languages:

English || Standard Russian || Ukrainian Russian || Ukrainian

what || что || шо || що
who || кто || хто || хто
let || пусть, пускай || хай, нехай || хай, нехай
or || или || чи || чи
to escape || убегать || тикать || тікати
to catch || хватать || хапать || хапати
handful || горсть || жменя || жменя
to hide || спрятать || заныкать || заникати
Easter cake || кулич || паска, пасха || паска
to || к || до || до
along || вдоль, над, по краю || понад || понад
maybe || может || може || може
in Ukraine || на Украине || в Украине[3] || в Україні
to rest upon || прислонять || тулить || тулити
to shake || висеть; шататься || телепаться || телепатися
exactly! || именно! || отож! || отож!

The phonetics keeps special vowel reduction and some typical Ukrainian features, like the Russian [g] transition into the Ukrainian [ɦ].

SEE ALSO
    * Russian language in Ukraine
    * Ukrainian language

REFERENCES
   1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/entertainment/story/2009/09/0 90905_ponomariv_interactive_is.shtml
   2. ^ http://www.mon.gov.ua/newstmp/2009_1/27_08/Rosiyska_mova_dly a_ZNZ_z_ros_mov_nav_(avt_Mihaylovska_G_O_ta_in).pdf
   3. ^ Is used more frequently than the proper variant

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Cherepaha
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Message 5 of 8

26 April 2010 at 1:59pm | IP Logged

QUOTE=ruskivyetr] If I were to base my accent through speaking in Minsk or in Kiev, and I somehow developed a native-like accent without many foreign qualities, would a Russian from Moscow be able to say "Oh he learned in Belarus" or "He learned in the Ukraine"?[/QUOTE]

My guess would be that you are safe to study in Ukraine or Belarus, since you are most likely going to keep an accent that is based on your mother tongue. If, however, you perfectly imitated the local speech patterns of those regions, the native speaker from St.Petersbourg or Moscow will be able to tell that you have a regional dialectal intonations and vocabulary.

In my experience Belarussians speaking Russian do not have such a prominent accent, as the Ukrainian native speakers do, when speaking Russian. However, you’ll still hear them place word stress incorrectly. Despite those nuances, though, you’ll be understood just fine.

ruskivyetr wrote:

Since Russia has a strict visa policy, it's only sensible for me to think of other places that would offer a cheaper alternative to Москва или Петроград.

All of the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz Republic) and Kazakh (Republic of Kazakhstan) people I’d met, have an impressively native-like sounding Russian.
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Americano
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Message 6 of 8

26 April 2010 at 5:33pm | IP Logged

I didn't have a problem getting a student visa a few years ago to study in St.Petersburg. If I were you I would try to go to Russia itself. And personally I would prefer to live in St.Petersburg over Moscow. Moscow is more metropolitan, but I prefer the ambiance of St.Petersburg as it is a beautiful city and it is still large without being massively large like Moscow. I studied at St.Petersburg State University, and I recommend it as a good place to study.
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Cherepaha
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Message 7 of 8

26 April 2010 at 11:53pm | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

Here's an article on Wikipedia about Russian spoken in Ukraine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Russian (Because the article is nominated for deletion, I will repost it here for the sake of this discussion)

Some examples of Ukrainian Russian lexis comparing to Ukrainian and Russian languages:
English || Standard Russian || Ukrainian Russian || Ukrainian

what || что || шо || що
who || кто || хто || хто
let || пусть, пускай || хай, нехай || хай, нехай
or || или || чи || чи
to escape || убегать || тикать || тікати
to catch || хватать || хапать || хапати
handful || горсть || жменя || жменя
to hide || спрятать || заныкать || заникати
Easter cake || кулич || паска, пасха || паска
to || к || до || до
along || вдоль, над, по краю || понад || понад
maybe || может || може || може
in Ukraine || на Украине || в Украине[3] || в Україні
to rest upon || прислонять || тулить || тулити
to shake || висеть; шататься || телепаться || телепатися
exactly! || именно! || отож! || отож!

Chung,

It's very interesting to "catch" an article before it gets deleted. Thank you for posting!

Let me quickly go through the Russian normative examples in the above quote and comment on them, as some of them appear to be incorrect.

English || Standard Russian || Ukrainian Russian || Ukrainian
1/ what || что || шо || що
2/ who || кто || хто || хто
3/ let || пусть, пускай || хай, нехай || хай, нехай
4/ or || или || чи || чи
5/ to escape || убегать || тикать || тікати
1/-5/ are correct, and the corresponding Ukrainian/U-R examples are recognized by Russian speakers as demarcations of the Ukrainian speech.

6/ to catch || хватать || хапать || хапати
The Russian portion of it is not correct.
"To catch" in Russian is "ловить", while "хватать" means "to grab".
"Хапать" means "to grab at something with greed". It might be borrowed into Russian, but we recognize it as a meaningful word, albeit of a colloquial kind.

7/ handful || горсть || жменя || жменя
"Горсть" is correct, and "жменя" I do not recognize as anything meaningful.

8/ to hide || спрятать || заныкать || заникати
To hide = "спрятать" is correct as the literary Russian form.
"Заныкать" is used as a colloquial expression with the same meaning "to hide".

9/ Easter cake || кулич || паска, пасха || паска
"Easter cake" = "кулич", while "Пасха" means "Easter" or without the capital letter - the name of a sweet Easter time dish made out of cooked cottage cheese with raisins, etc.

10/ to || к || до || до
12/ maybe || может || може || може
13/ in Ukraine || на Украине || в Украине[3] || в Україні
10/, 12/ and 13/ are correct, and the corresponding Ukrainian/U-R examples are recognized by Russian speakers as demarcations of a Ukrainian speech.

11/ along || вдоль, над, по краю || понад || понад
"Along" = "вдоль, над, по краю" is correct.
"По-над" – Russian uses this word with a hyphen. Ushakov's dictionary (Толковый словаpь Ушакова) shows "по-над" as a regional/dialectal word in Russian for "above".

14/ to rest upon || прислонять || тулить || тулити
"Прислониться, опереться" would be correct here. "Притулиться" also exists in Russian as a dialectal expression meaning "to lean against, to cozy up behind or against something". A quick search just brought this expression up in use in a novel by Turgenev (so, 19th century), where he qualifies this word as being in use in the Orlov region.

15/ to shake || висеть; шататься || телепаться || телепатися
The Russian portion of it is incorrect.
"To shake" is "трясти"
"Висеть" means "to hang down"
"Шататься" means "to wonder around without any purpose"
Finally, Ushakov's dictionary (Толковый словаpь Ушакова) shows "телепень" as a regional/dialectal word in Russian with the following meanings: 1) Flail (weapon) 2) the tongue of a bell 2) figurative: an awkward, clumsy person 3) figurative: a not very bright person

16/ exactly! || именно! || отож! || отож!
exactly! as "именно!" is correct for the literary Russian.
Contemporary colloquial Russian also has an expression "а то!" with the same meaning.
"А то! А ты-то как думал?!"
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stelingo
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Message 8 of 8

27 April 2010 at 12:42am | IP Logged

I studied in Odessa for 2 weeks and did not notice any discernible difference in the Russian spoken there. Russian is by far the prefered language and I hardly heard any Ukranian spoken.

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