Smerdyakov the snake?

[zombie-laika.livejournal.com]

In Brothers Karamazov, why does Smerdyakov end many of his words with "-с"? Example:

Все это самое и весь разговор наш предыдущий с вами-с,
накануне того дня вечером у ворот-с, как я вам тогда мой страх сообщил, и
про погреб-с - все это я в подробности открыл господину доктору Герценштубе
и следователю Николаю Парфеновичу, и все они в протокол записали-с.

Is this a speech impediment?

Comments

[idealforcolors.livejournal.com]

That shows up in a lot of older Russian literature, I was told it is a way a person of lower status would show respect to a person of higher status.

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Yes, it shows up a lot. Not exactly sure about the status thing, though.

[lady-spring.livejournal.com]

My English isn't well enough, but I'll try to explain..

It's rather old-fashioned manner of speech. "С" - is a part of the reduced word "сударь" (sir). So such manner of speech was the feature of servants or people who were talking with somebody of higher rank. It gives a shade of politness to the conversation.

PS You have my admiration: you're reading Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov..
PPS Please correct me if I'm wrong in using articles, or misuse words or smth :)

[zombie-laika.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the help!

for who could be more lowly than a snake?...

[giftchild.livejournal.com]

plus, it has the added benefit of sounding like the hising of a snake...


; ^ )

Re: for who could be more lowly than a snake?...

[je-me-forcis.livejournal.com]

you crack me up. i feel like i'm the only person who usually thinks and says things like that.

Re: for who could be more lowly than a snake?...

[giftchild.livejournal.com]

not the only, i'm just often one of the only ones i know who will say silly/'clever/witty' things like that out loud.

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

Lady_spring above is absolutely right. A little additional info: this particle, now almost completely fallen out of use, is called "словоерс" or "словоерик" (stress on the "e") and is discussed in the very novel you're reading, when later on Captain Snegirev talks about his subservient demeanor to Alyosha Karamazov:

— Николай Ильич Снегирёв-с, русской пехоты бывший штабс-капитан-с, хоть и посрамлённый своими пороками, но всё же штабс-капитан. Скорее бы надо сказать: штабс-капитан Словоерсов, а не Снегирёв, ибо лишь со второй половины жизни стал говорить словоерсами. Слово-ер-с приобретается в унижении.
— Это так точно, — усмехнулся Алёша, — только невольно приобретается или нарочно?
— Видит бог, невольно. Всё не говорил, целую жизнь не говорил словоерсами, вдруг упал и встал с словоерсами.

[platonicus.livejournal.com]

And the word "словоерс" comes from the old Russian spelling: "слово" (the name of the letter С) + "ер" (the name of the letter Ъ) = "-съ" [-s]

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It is explained above correctly; I just wanted to explain that slovoyers in Smerdyakov's speech would add a lot of "nasty servant" air to his character, according to Dostoyesky's idea.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Why "nasty servant" if it's used with someone of higher rank? Is he using it sarcastically?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

By that time, 1860s-1880s, the -s style was migrating from universal "lower to higher" speech feature to mostly low-class and even low-life slang, becoming mostly the feature of the speech of servants, barbers, sales clerks, waiters etc. Dostoyevsky's aforementioned story about the Army officer who never used this style of speech before he "fell" (i.e. lost his more or less high class position, was fired from the Army, and moved to a lower class) is very typical. Smerdyakov is a cook, but he is also a noble's bastard, and the fact that he speaks not like any noble and not even like a cook, but like a servant, adds, according to Dostoyevsky's idea, the smell of low-life, low-class attitude to his character. Speaking about Smerdyakov, Dostoyevsky wrote in his 1876 diary: "малообразованные, но уже успевшие окультуриться люди, окультуриться хотя бы только слабо и наружно, всего только в каких-нибудь привычках своих, в новых предрассудках, в новом костюме, — вот эти-то всегда и начинают именно с того, что презирают прежнюю среду свою, свой народ и даже веру его, иногда даже до ненависти" (people with not much education who happened to grab some culture, at least just from the surface, just in some of their habits, in new prejudices, in new clothes -- those exact people always start precisely with despising their former class, their own people and even their people's faith, sometimes to the degree of hate." This is exactly Smerdyakov: a noble father's bastard who hates his own people, who says that "it's a pity that smart Frenchmen did not conquer the silly Russians," and yet speaks like a low-class servant.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

How do you guess in which way people mean it? Date of the text? Use in context?

I'm assuming that these days most people are using it sort of humorously.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

If I understand you correctly, THESE days (i.e. NOW) people do not use it at all, the -s speech completely went out of use after the Revolution.
How do I guess? In this case, I don't guess, I know. The question was about Dostoyevsky's "Karamazov Brothers." I know when it was written, I have read the book itself many times (three, at least,) and I also have read what Dostoyevsky was writing about this book in his diaries. I have also read quite a lot of other Russian literature from that period, besides Dostoyevsky. And I wrote a quite an extensive paper on speech and dialogue in "Karamazov Brothers" in the university some 20 years ago. I think that's more or less enough to say that I know a little bit on the subject :)

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Not completely out...I've seen LJ people use it in comments - so it seems they are literary types who assume that the reader knows literature, and they would be using it sort of jokingly, right?

As to how authors in the past were using it - I've never assumed I would understand everything about the Russian language. I'll put this on my "maybe someday" list, I guess. :)