User:Russavia/Runglish

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Runglish (Ruglish, Russlish Russian: Рунглийский язык), is a neologism increasingly used to denote at least three different interferences of Russian and English languages: pidgin, spoken manner, and informal latinizations of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Contents

[edit] Pidgin

As a term for describing the Russian-English pidgin language,[verification needed] it was popularized in 2000, when the language aboard the International Space Station was described as "Runglish". Although less widespread than other pidgins and creoles, such as Tok Pisin, Runglish is spoken in a number of English-Russian communities, most notably the Russian-speaking community of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York.[verification needed]

Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two had a micro-plot involving a similarly named phenomenon, Russlish. See "Russlish in 2010".

[edit] Spoken manner

"Runglish" is also used informally to describe the variety of English spoken by native Russian speakers. Distinctive features of Runglish may be noticed in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and in all cases reflect the respective features of Russian being applied to English.

[edit] Pronunciation

See also: Non-native pronunciations of English: Russian.

  1. Runglish speakers make no distinction between closed/open and long/short vowels: /i/ (heat) and /ɪ/ (hit), /ɔ/ (port) and /ɒ/ (pot), /ɑ/ (heart) and /ʌ/ (hut), etc.
  2. Runglish /æ/ (bad) sounds like /ɛ/ (bed).
  3. Final voiced consonants are pronounced as voiceless ones, that is dog sounds as dock, hard as heart, etc.
  4. Absence of /ð/ and /θ/ sounds in Russian phonology is a reason of Runglish speakers pronouncing thing as sing or then as zen.

[edit] Vocabulary

There are quite a few "false friends" in the English language for a native Russian speaker i.e. words which appear very similar to their Russian counterparts, but have completely different meanings.

Also, the following changes are common:

  • underground → metro,
  • year (in university) → course,
  • handsome → beautiful,
  • unfair → dishonest,
  • joke → anecdote.
  • to enjoy doing something → to be fond of/ to be keen on

[edit] Grammar

1. The Russian language has no articles ("a, an, the") (see zero article). The question: Do you know the man who is standing there? can take the Runglish form of:

Do you know man standing there?
Do you know a man standing there?
Do you know the man standing there?

It is perhaps also worth noting that Russian uses its verb for "to be" differently (it is mostly omitted in the present tense), explaining why in these examples the "who is" part of the sentence has disappeared.

2. Collective nouns take a singular verb in Russian, which can lead to Runglish results like:

Our people is suffering.

(instead of Our people are suffering)

Notice that even for native English speakers collective nouns may present problems or produce inconsistent results in usage e.g.

There are a number of people in the hall.

vs.

There is a number of people in the hall.

Actually, "people" can also be used in the collective sense "A body of persons living in the same country under one national government; a nationality.", or "narod". E.g. "the peoples of UN". Moreover, with collective nouns, English often allows both singular and plural agreement. Thus, both "the police is here" and "the police are here" are correct. See Practical English Usage.

3. The Russian word for "money" ("деньги") is plural which may result in sentences like:

The money are good.

(instead of The money is good)

4. Perfect tenses are rarely used in Russian, but rather the perfective aspect of the verb (e.g., "открыть" vs. "открывать"), which is used to convey the meaning of a totally completed action with a specific result.

I lost my key, did you see it?

(instead of I've lost my key, have you seen it?)

This is actually standard usage in American English. See "Practical English Usage" by Michael Swan.

5. Differences and distinctions in the use of English modal verbs are frequently poorly perceived (modality is expressed differently in Russian).

  • I must go now.
  • I have to go now.
  • I gotta go now.
  • I will go now.
  • I would go now.
  • I shall go now.
  • I should go now.
  • I ought to go now.
  • I am going to go now.

6. Runglish speakers often use Yes, I don't or No, I do in response to negative questions. Consider the following conversation:

- "You don't like it, do you?" asked Bob.
- "No, I don't like it," agreed Mary.
"Yes, I don't like it" is a correct construction in Russian, though such constructions are usually frowned upon by English speakers. According to Russian grammar rules, upon being asked a question, the starting "yes/no" of the answer inticates respectively the agreement or disagreement with the statement from which the interrogative sentence was constructed.
- Yes, I don't. (agreement with the statement "You don't like it.")
- No, I like it. (akin to "Why? I like it" denoting disagreement)

7. Double, triple and multiple negation is a norm in Russian. While in English, double negative is correctly used in an affirmative way ("Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee"), or alternatively may be used to convey a meaning of irony, Russian allows and in most cases prescribes such constructions. Consider the following English question:

Have you seen anyone in the house?

In English, a negative response may be phrased as either

I haven't seen anybody.

or

I have seen nobody.

but normally not as

I haven't seen nobody.

In Russian, the first form ("Я не видел кого-то.") is highly unusual, and may not be understood to mean the same as its English analogue, although it becomes closer when used with a qualification, as follows:

Have you seen anyone suspicious in the house?
I haven't seen anybody suspicious. (Я не видел кого-то подозрительного.).

The second form ("Я видел никого.") is not considered standard Russian, and will be unlikely to be understood correctly. Ironically, the first two forms may often be heard from those Russian speakers with limited command for the language, but for whom English is the primary language; these are usually either those learning Russian, or former native speakers whose primary language has switched (a process occurring very commonly in immigrants born in a Russian-speaking country who moved to an English-speaking place in adolescent years).

The usual (and correct) usage corresponds to the third form ("Я не видел никого."), and as such the corresponding English structure, while not considered proper in English, is likely to be used especially by those who are still new to English, and are speaking by translating Russian words into English words one by one.

It is worth noting that double negative (to mean negation, not affirmation) is also used in English vernacular, although such usage is usually considered a sign of poor language skills. In addition, this is a standard usage for several English variations, most notably Ebonics. As noted above, using double negative in Russian is correct (and not using it is incorrect in many cases).

8. Some relationships expressed in English with verbs or modal verbs, such as "to agree", "must do something", in Russian are expressed with adjectives. Thus a Russian speaker through habit can say:

I'm (not) agree. (instead of I (don't) agree)
I'm must (to) do something, I was must (to) do...

9. Runglish is also accompanied by a combination of English verbs and Russian verb conjugational endings. The verbs consist of English actions yet they end in Russian conjugations and take place throughout a conversation mainly spoken in Russian.

→:давай я поведу or let me drive is the correct form of pronunciation in Russian as it is translated into English

→:давай я по-drive-у also let me drive however this time used as a the base of a Runglish transformation, in this case, the English verb drive is used and embedded within a Russian verb conjugation.

[edit] Transliteration

Since the term "Runglish" entered circulation, it has been increasingly used to denote what was earlier known as Volapuk encoding: the rendering of Russian-language texts using the Latin alphabet.

[edit] Russlish in 2010

A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010 concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a Stamp Out Russlish!! campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present.

Use of "Russlish" in space has been realized to some extent on the International Space Station. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov said in October of 2000: "We say jokingly that we communicate in 'Runglish,' a mixture of Russian and English languages, so that when we are short of words in one language we can use the other, because all the crew members speak both languages well."

[edit] Humor

The following joke vividly illustrates some of the grammatical issues presented above.

Two gentlemen have the following conversation in Trafalgar Square:

"Excuse me, which watch?"
"Near six."
"Such much?"
"To whom how..."
"MGIMO finished?"
"Ask!..."

While mostly or fully incoherent for someone without good knowledge of Russian, this exchange is immediately understood by native speakers; each sentence is merely a direct ("word-for-word") translation into English while keeping Russian grammatical structure intact; in most cases, when a Russian word has several English translations (each with a different meaning, appropriate in different context), additional incoherency (and humor) is obtained by choosing an incorrect version. Similar issues are commonly encountered in machine translation.

The sentence-by-sentence explanation follows.

Original joke sentence Russian source English meaning Comments
Excuse me, which watch? Простите меня, который час? Excuse me, what time is it? In Russian, час means hour, whereas часы means watch. Picking the correct form yields which hour [is it]?, which, although unnatural, is much easier to understand.
Near six. Около шести. About six. Again, (purposely) choosing an incorrect version among several translations of около (which are all valid, but each in different situation, since near and about have similar meanings in English).
Such much? Так много? So late? Using such in place of so is yet another example of the paradigm illustrated above. The words are clearly similar in English, yet are used in different ways; however, Russian employs one word in some instances of both cases (although there is a different word with meaning more similar to such). Using much in place of late becomes more understandable as the consequence of phrasing the question in the way it was phrased (i.e., asking for the hour rather than about time).
To whom how... Кому как... Perhaps for some [but not for others]. This is a literal translation of the Russian phrase which has no English analogue that is similarly short.
MGIMO finished? МГИМО кончал? Have you graduated from MGIMO? MGIMO is a famous Moscow university of international relations, which has a reputation for being elitist (for example, it is usually considered common knowledge in post-USSR countries that, at least during the USSR times, admission to MGIMO was mostly reserved to children of the Party and government nomenklatura). The joke plays on a MGIMO graduate immediately recognizing the bird of a feather by their usage of English, and further mocks the quality of English language education that was given in USSR schools. On the grammar part, finish is a wrong option to translate кончать; the correct one (to denote completing studies) would be graduate.
Ask! Спрашиваешь! But of course! This one-word finisher literally means "[You] ask!" i.e., "You don't even have to ask". Also, he could say "Он еще спрашивает!", i.e. "He still asks!". The third-person form of the verb when addressing to the second person is a Russian language device of emphasising the irony.
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