Question about accents in Russian...

[kasak.livejournal.com]

This is directed at native speakers of Russian.

What are some common charactaristics (stereotypes?) that tell you that someone is from a specific region/different country? For example, is there a specific accent to people who are native Ukrainian speakers? Kazakh speakers? Armenian speakers? etc...

Any input would be most helpful (and interesting?)

---

Людям, чей радной язык - русский.

Как Вы знаете, что кое-то говорящий человек не носитель русского языка? Есть детали, которые выделятся о том, как говорит украинец? Казах? Армянин? итд...

Я буду признателен за ответы и информацию.

Comments

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Sure there are -- there is actually a very well-developed dialectal system in Russian, which is a subject of extensive studies, and most areas have their own distinct dialect that is usually easily nosiceable. For example, Moscow residents tend to pronounce unstressed "o"s as "a"s much more expressively than standard pronunciation require, and eved draw them noticeably, while generally speaking very quickly -- thus a common slur for muscovites: "ма-а-аськвичИ". In Southern Russia the pronunciation is significantly affected by Ukrainian dialect, with soft "g"s, almost becoming "h"s and so on. There are also many lexical differences between dialects -- there are just too many of them. ^_^

[natalya-l.livejournal.com]

You mostly see it from accent. Like Ukranians use very different "g" sound. When they say "Глянь!" ("Glian!" - "Look!"), you see that it is the Ukranian. Hard to explane difference, but Ukranian "g" comes mostly from the throat while the Russian one comes from teeth. Armenians and Georgians have difficulties with Russian soft "ye" sound, they say "Дэвушка" instead of "Девушка" ("girl"). Both Georgians and Armenians sometimes say "ha?" at the end of a phrase, like: "Слушай, а?" ("Listen, ha?") and they use more soft "у", so it soundes like "Слюшай, а?"
Well, there are many examples...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Hard to explane difference

It is not too hard to explain in a linguistic community. Ukrainian (and thus Southern Russian dialectal) G is, technically, not a G, but a breathy-voiced glottal transition, commonly called a "voiced glottal fricative" (фрикативное Г In Russian tradition.) In International Phonetic Alphabet, it is ɦ ( if your browser does not show the sign correctly.)

[macros-a.livejournal.com]

Людям, чей родной язык - русский.
Как Вы узнаёте, что кто-то говорящий с Вами - не носитель русского языка?
Есть детали, которые выдают говорящего, что он украинец? Казах? Армянин? и т.д...
================

Armenians and Georgians also doesn't have on their own language such things as grammatical gender and in many cases plural form too.
So when they study russian language they don't even try to learn about these needful things. An mass.

[oryx_and_crake]

Please try to avoid nationalistic slurs. It is equally "true" that the Russians "an mass" when studying English don't even try to learn using verb forms and articles properly. It will be definitely an unjust generalization, though in your case it is undoubtedly true.

[macros-a.livejournal.com]

Dear opponent. I don't have any nationalistic thoughts?
I just tried to explain how Armenians and Georgians (and others nations from Caucasus) is spoken in my opinion.

I lived for 20 years at the Adler near Sochi and near Abkhazia/Georgia border.
I heard every day thousands non-russians caucasians and let me speak how I want it to speak, ok?

Thanx.

[macros-a.livejournal.com]

> thoughts?

oops, there is no need any question mark, sorry

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

The point is, you shouldn't say that "they don't even try" to learn these things, it's just that it's harder to learn things that don't occur in your own language so they're more likely to make mistakes. It has nothing to do with some mass Georgian boycott of Russian grammatical gender.

(en masse, btw. it's a french borrowing)

[oryx_and_crake]

How would you like it if I say that evidently you did not even try to learn English articles and verb forms?

[airini.livejournal.com]

So when they study russian language they don't even try to learn about these needful things. An mass.

Your arrogance is speaking now, not your desire to answer a question.

[inkittenus.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but Georgian do have plural.
A анекдот про помидор это совсем из другой области.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

Well - anyone whose first language isn't Russian is likely to have an accent, so look to the phonetic characteristics of the other language and see which sounds don't exist, the morphologic structure to see what mistakes are likely, etc., to get an idea.

As for common accents, there are three which most Russians will think of - North, South and Moscow.
North is characterized mainly by okan'e, that is, pronouncing unstressed O as O instead of A.
The southern accent (south Russia including Ukranian dialect of Russian) is characterized notably by a fricative Г. Instead of being a voiced velar stop, it is a voiced velar fricative, like the Х sound but voiced. Standard Russian still retains this sound in the pronunciation of Бог and the exclamation Господи!
A Moscow accent, as mentioned by the first commenter, pronounces the unstressed O as A "more expressively", meaning that the sound is closer to schwa in standard Russian. There's also less distinct articulation - вообще comes out sounding like "va:š:έ" (the two dots indicate lengthening, the final accent indicates stress).
There's an interesting study with the stereotypes associated with the north and south dialects (Andrews, David R. “Subjective Reactions to Two Regional Pronunciations of Great Russian: A Matched Guise Study.” Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 37, no. 1-2, pp. 89-106, Mar-June 1995.) Andrews compares the Northern Russian accent with the Southern American accent and the South Russian with the Brooklyn accent. He also gives a more detailed description of the dialect features.

Andrews, David R. “Subjective Reactions to Two Regional Pronunciations of Great Russian: A Matched Guise Study.” Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 37, no. 1-2, pp. 89-106, Mar-June 1995.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

This would be very nice, if we'd ever have an access to that paper. ^_^ Unfortunately, this journal doesn't even have it online -- even for paying subscribers, and not all of us has access to good linguistics libraries as well.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

If you'd really like to read it, I could scan it and email it to you.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

I would be much obliged.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mria/]

I'm actually interested, as well. :D

l.etat.cest.moi@gmail.com

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

People from the Ukraine usually neither devoice consonants nor reduce vowels as required. But the most crucial point is their intonation and speed, they use rising (instead of falling) tone in affirmative sentences yet they speak too fast (well, it's practically the same language so I cannot call 'em non-native speakers, «не носители».)
As for fricative г or bilabial approximant в, it may be characteristic of Southern Russians as well. By the way, Ukriainian г [ɦ] and Southern Russian г [γ] are different sounds, but most Russians that use standard [g] for г don't notice such subtle nuances.

[roman-v-m.livejournal.com]

>People from the Ukraine usually neither devoice consonants nor reduce vowels as required.

Actually it's the influence of Ukrainian which has very different principles of positional phonemic changes.

[datsmi.livejournal.com]

may be it's easier to show the differences using Skype
i might help you

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

You're not having luck finding a conversation buddy?

[datsmi.livejournal.com]

i've got one lately
but i'm shure i wanna talk to people with differnt backgrounds

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

What kind of "different"? Is American okay?

[datsmi.livejournal.com]

oh, yep
or I may say
I sure would be pleased of that ))

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Email me your Skype name - lovimoment at livejournal.com.

[datsmi.livejournal.com]

it is the same as LJ's -
alekoleg ))

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Well, that's easy enough.

[datsmi.livejournal.com]

лови момент ))

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

:)

[antalika.livejournal.com]

Я очень плохо знаю английский, поэтому отвечу на ваш вопрос на русском :-)
1) Есть такой термин , как "говор" ( манера говорить, интонации, особенности произношения). Для разных регионов России характерен свой говор.
2) Русский, украинский, белорусский - три разных языка имеющие общие корни. Так что руссский всегда поймет украинца и наоборот, но вот написание и произношение слов разные. Например : "кохать" по украински = "любить" на русском.Само собой отличаються и сами звуки. Так украинцам тяжело приучиться говорит звук "Г" вместо "Х". То есть русское "где" будет произноситься как "хде", более грубое звучание слов.
3) Казахский , армянский, грузинский и т.д. - языки иной языковой группы. Так что у этих людей будет акцент , как минимум.:-)

[oryx_and_crake]

Please note that the working language of this community is English. It is OK to post in Russian but you should provide an English translation every time.