Brian K. Stimmler and David K. Hart, Germanic and Slavic Languages

My original intent was to research Russian dialects by means of English words recently borrowed into the Russian language. I was going to visit various cities and villages of Russia, ascertain to what degree key words had penetrated the local dialect, and record the pronunciation of these words. I suspected that some historical phonological rules (i.e. palatalization, assimilation, de-voicing, etc.) were no longer in effect. I was also interested in the semantic variation that was sure to be evident in the different regions of Russia.

My first task was to create a base list of words which had recently (within the last 10 years) entered the Russian language. I searched N. G. Komlev’s 1995 edition of Slovar’novykh innostranykh slov (Dictionary of New Foreign Words), and found about 160 English words that had entered the Russian language in the last 10 years. I assured myself that these words really were new by searching for them in older Russian dictionaries. All the words in my list were new.

I made two observations soon after compiling the list. First, I noticed that any shift of stress in the Russian version was always from left to right, from the beginning toward the end of the word. Never did a stress shift toward the beginning of a word. For instance, the English MARketing is rendered in Russian as marKETing. Likewise, a computer MOdem becomes a moDEM in Russian. I met with my mentor, Dr. Hart, to discuss this phenomenon and he pointed out that the Russian default stress falls on the end of the word, whereas in English it falls on the beginning of the word.

I also observed a few words that broke spelling rules that I had learned years ago in Russian 101. For instance, the word security, when rendered in Russian, is written and pronounced sekyuriti. Students in Russian 101 (as well as pupils in the second grade in Russia) learn that vowels such as ya or yu must never follow a velar. I shared my observation with a Russian friend and he told me that there are many borrowed words, especially from French, which do not follow this rule. He gave as an example words such as kyure and Kyuvet. I did some more reading and understood that palatalized velars mutated to hushers in past centuries, making a palatalized “k” an impossibility in older forms of Russian. The periods of velar mutation have passed, so this orthographic rule based on historical changes will not affect any words introduced into the Russian language in this century.

Upon arriving in Russia, I realized that I would have to change my research plans. I gave the list to my hostess in St. Petersburg and asked her to comment on the words that she knew and used. My tape recorder was ready and I was excited to finally get started on my work “in the field.” To my dismay, she knew one word, marketing. My only consolation was in the fact that she put the stress on the second syllable.

I soon saw that dialectical studies were of secondary importance. I realized that the knowledge and usage of these borrowed words did not vary in the different regions of Russia, but in the different groups of society. I had to go to different people to work with different words. Teenagers knew slang, computer junkies understood computer terminology, and businessmen were fluent in business terminology. I became even more convinced of this fact as I interviewed a teenager from Yekaterinburg, visiting Western Russia for the first time. She knew every word that St. Petersburg teenagers knew, and not one more. I decided not to spend the money on a ticket to Yekaterinburg-I would not find any surprises in Siberia.

The results of my research did surprise me though. I had expected most phonological rules to be non-existent in these borrowed words, but such was not the case. For example, I did not expect final devoicing to still be a valid rule. On the contrary, words such as marketing did not end with the customary English ing, but with the ‘traditional’ Russian ink. Likewise with kidnappink and parkink. Also, I was surprised to find assimilation active in the borrowed words. An obvious example was in the word background. When pronounced by Russians, I repeatedly heard bagground-the voiceless k assimilated the voicing of the g.

I did find a few interesting phenomena. First, I realized that palatalization rarely took place in the borrowed words. After the first interviews I suspected palatalization to be absent, but I had to isolate my observations to stressed syllables to know for sure. As I concentrated more on words such as bestseller and modem, words with the stress on the front vowel e, I realized that palatalization certainly was absent. This is interesting from a historical standpoint. For over a thousand years, Russian consonants have palatalized (softened) before front vowels. Now, it seems that this rule is no longer in effect. What will be the consequences? Why are some rules, such as assimilation, still active, yet other rules ignored? I do not know. Yet.

It was also interesting to observe words such as walkman, subway, and crossword. In Russian orthography these are all rendered as valkman, subvay, and crossvord. Curiously, Russians pronounce them in their English forms. Crossvord is pronounced crossword. I repeatedly asked why the pronunciation differed from the spelling, and the only decent reply I received was, “it’s easier to pronounce that way.” The sounds are similar: both the Russian “v” and English “w” are labial sounds with the tongue located near the front of the mouth. The only explanation I can offer is that these words entered Russian orally, or through media such as radio or television. Thus they retained their original pronunciation, even though they were spelled in a more “Russian” way.

In my research proposal I pointed out that this project would be a good preparation for my future-I would have first-hand field experience. I badly needed this experience. I learned to accept change and barriers as opportunities to improve my research. Once I was open to new ideas in analyzing and collecting data, my work was much more interesting and fun. I also acquired some skills in collecting data and interviewing people. I had the opportunity to interview everyone from businessmen to teenagers to babushkas on park benches. This project was a very rewarding experience.