Language of russian-speaking immigrants in Germany

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Some of the few millions of russian-speaking immigrants in Germany speak among themselves in a mixed language or pidgin.

This article should be translated (or additional material should be added) from material at http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Язык_русских_эмигрантов_в_Германии. See also Wikipedia:Translation

[edit] Grammar

Russian acts as the linguistic substratum, supplying the syntactic structure into which German words are inserted. The German content varies from speaker to speaker, but can be as high as 50% of the vocabulary. The situation is somewhat akin to Spanglish in the United States.

Gender may be influenced by Russian genders, as in the case of most words ending in '-ung', which are always feminine in German, but usually masculine in the mixed language because Russian words ending in a hard noun are always masculine. However, some words inherit their gender from the German noun, as in the feminine какая хорошая from German feminine die Überraschung, meaning 'surprise'.

A mixed language makes greater use of the uncommon Russian auxiliary verbs иметь imʲetʲ, meaning 'to have' and быть bɨtʲ, meaning 'to be'. The corresponding verbs, (haben and sein respectively) are very common in German.

German verbs are often treated in a sentence as though they were Russian verbs, being russified by replacing the German infinitive verb ending. -(e)n with the Russian -tʲ. For example, German spüren becomes шпюрать ʂpʲuratʲ, 'to feel'

The following features vary from speaker to speaker:

• Adopting the German terms for certain everyday items, particularly if the word has fewer syllables than the Russian equivalent.
  
• Adopting the German terms for the realities of immigrant life, such as Arbeitsamt ('labor office'), Sozial (a shortening of Sozialhilfe, meaning 'social assistance'), Termin (date), Vertrag (contract).
  
• Literal translation of Russian terms or phrases into German (calques).
• Using the German pronunciation of proper names rather than the 'russified' pronunciation based on transliteration into the Cyrillic alphabet. For example, in Russian 'Einstein' is written 'Эйнште́йн', and pronounced ɛjnʂ'tɛjn. But in this mixed language would be pronounced ajnʂ'tɛjn, the German pronunciation of Einstein. Also lʲajpʦɪk (Ляйпциг) for 'Leipzig' instead of the russified lʲɛjpʦɪk' (Лейпциг), and frojd for 'Freud' instead of frɛjd.
• There is at least one example of a neologism. Arbeits´слёзы, pronounced arbeitsljozy, could be a form of the German word Arbeitslosengeld (meaning 'unemployment pay'). The word has undergone an interesting phonetic and semantic shift. Casual or incomplete articulation of Arbeitslosengeld may be vocally realized as Arbeitslose, meaning 'an unemployed person', but the word takes on a new meaning because the Russian word слёзы (sljozy) means 'tears'. The resulting word in a mixed language, Arbeits´слёзы, means 'unemployment pay' but it might be better translated as 'unemployment pain'.

[edit] Examples of the mixed language

Phrases
Phrase in the mixed language	Transliteration	German Word	English Translation
Я сижу в шпильхалле.	Ja sižu v špilchalle.	Spielhalle	casino
Гельдшайны тут я векселяю.	Gel'dšajny tut ja vekseljaju.	Geldscheine, wechseln	bills, change
И мюнцы тут я засыпаю.	I mjuncy tut ja zasypaju	Münzen	coins
В блестящий Шпилёмат.	V blestjaščij Špilëmat.	Spielomat	video arcade
А не томи мою ты зелю.	A ne tomi moju ty zelju.	Seele	soul
Не сверли в ней лох.	Ne sverli v nej loch.	Loch	hole
А не души мою ты квелю.	A ne duši moju ty kvelju.	Quelle	source
Ох как я шпюраю подвох.	Och kak ja špjuraju podvoch.	spüren	to feel

Translator's Notes: 1) Many of these phrases were taken from an online casino by the original writer of the German version of this article. 2) Latin transliterations are nonstandard in that they use ch for x.

[edit] External Links

В келлере термин . This recource calls the mixed language "Quelia".