dialect

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Recently, I've been reading a novel by Boris Akunin for practice and for pleasure. I know he's Georgian, but I've heard he writes in a rather elegant Russian (for a mystery writer, anyway). However, the more I read, the more words I come across that sound like... Ukrainian? I know Slavic languages have a lot of spillover, with words that are modern in one language sounding laughably archaic in another (e.g. очи, персть). That said, how many of the following words or phrases are understood by native speakers of Russian in that country? And are they understood to be standard language, old-fashioned, country dialect, or foreign?

чуять
до дому
хлопчик
коли
смачный

There are surely others, but these are the ones that stand out in my memory.

Comments

[natha1ie.livejournal.com]

Чуять = чувствовать - to feel
До дому = домой - (to come) back home
Хлопчик (Ukrainian) - парень - a kind of guy or so.
Коли - если - if.
Смачный - it's hard to find a word with an exact meaning.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the translation, but I know what the words mean. I want to know how they sound to native ears. Old fashioned, normal, foreign?

[mr-uef.livejournal.com]

"чуять" = in Russian: to smell someth., also idiomatically: "нутром чую, что-то здесь не так!"
in Ukrainian: to hear smth.

"до дому" = домой, Ukrainian origin, also used in Russia's South (Don, Kuban' regions, esp. bordering Ukraine and with predom. Cossack population)

"хлопчик" - Ukrainian origin, but easily understood by any Russian speaker.

"коли" = in Russian: archaic "if"
in Ukrainian: "when"

"смачный" = orig. from Ukrainian "смак" = taste
"смачно", "со смаком" = "with gusto", used in the same context (see M.-W.: gusto: b: enthusiastic and vigorous enjoyment or appreciation)

[no-access.livejournal.com]

You are right, it is Slavic words. "Хлопчик" and "смачный" are used in contemporary Ukrainian, nevertheless every russian will understand them. Furthermore, "чуять", "до дому", "коли" could be used in contemporary Russian, in spite of the fact that they look some archaic.

[mr-uef.livejournal.com]

It's the DECORATOR you are reading, right? ;))

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Азазель, actually.

[palti.livejournal.com]

чуять (Russian) ~= scent
йти додому (Ukrainian) = to go home
хлопчик (Ukrainian) = boy
коли (Ukrainian) = when
смачный (Ukrainian) = tasty, palatable, savoury, appetizing;

[thespinningone.livejournal.com]

All of these words are understood perfectly well by native Russian speakers. Some of them ("до дому", "хлопчик") do sound like country dialect, actually, "до дому" could be attributed to a rather illiterate persom because it is not gramatically correct.
As for the other 3 words, they are a bit old-fashoined but still widely used in literature.

By the way, Akunin (Chkhartishvili) is only Georgian by blood - his mother tongue is Russian and he has grown up in Moscow. He is known and respected for his real mastery of the Russian language, each word that he uses is carefully chosen. Akunin himself says that in his novels, he tries to imitate the language of famous Russian writers, such as Dostoevsky or Gogol - and you can feel it when you read his books. So, his Russian is even better than just elegant. =)

By the way, he is a famous specialist in Japanese studies and has done a lot of translations from Japanese..

[caramellla.livejournal.com]

they r more old-fashioned, and russian-speaking people understand but seldom use them
at least i live in Uzbekistan among russian-speaking people, and they and me use more modern words and phrases
may be in Russia the situation is different

[pzrk.livejournal.com]

All these words definitely are understood by native speakers of Eastern-Slavic languages (Byelorussian, Russian and Ukrainian). As for Russian, they are:
"чуять" - old-fashioned form for "чувствовать";
"до дому" - old-fashioned form for "домой";
"хлопчик" - country dialect, common for South-European part of Russia and for Ukraine;
"коли" - old-fashioned word for "если";
"смачный" - may be either old-fashioned word for "вкусный" ("yummy") or mean "perfect" ("смачный пинок" == "perfect butt-kick").

[gnomobile.livejournal.com]

i thought about "decorator", too :)

[natha1ie.livejournal.com]

They don't sound foreign at all, may be a little strange or vernacular. I suppose any adult native speaker can understand them all, but I doubt whether he would use them in his own speech.

[centralasian.livejournal.com]

All these words will sound perfectly 'native' for any Russian speaking person. Two of them (хлопчик and смачный) have Ukranian origin, which might be recognized by some (but not all) speakers.

All of these words but the first one (чуять) are certainly from colloquial, country, and in general, lower levels of the language. I am sure Akunin is using them to describe his hero as belonging to that particular social group.

Чуять when used in relation to a dog or any other animal (Собака почуяла чужого) is a perfectly conventional use. When attributed to people, this may be again a sigh of colloquial language or, strangely enough, a refer to a poetic, old (as of 18-19 centuries) use of the word.

In general, I would agree that Akunin writes excellent texts, in particular, he does pay attention to the 'historical contexts' of the times he describes. The speech of his heroes is not perhaps as authentic as the ones of Dostoevsky or Saltykov-Schedrin, but good enough an approximation.

[moola.livejournal.com]

They sound normal to me, but their overuse makes a speech little bit old fashioned.

Few links to show that these words are widely used in standard language:

http://blogs.yandex.ru/search_comments.xml?text=%F7%F3%FF%F2%FC
http://blogs.yandex.ru/search_comments.xml?text=%22%C4%EE+%E4%EE%EC%F3%22
http://blogs.yandex.ru/search_comments.xml?text=%F5%EB%EE%EF%F7%E8%EA (a lot of Ukrainian found there)
http://blogs.yandex.ru/search_comments.xml?text=%22%EA%EE%EB%E8%22
http://blogs.yandex.ru/search_comments.xml?text=%F1%EC%E0%F7%ED%FB%E9

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Actually, all of them are ukrainisms (however couple of them are indeed present in Russian, if obsolete), but still easily understandable by most Russians -- Ukrainian and Russian are for the most part mutually understandable as well. There's still very active language interaction between, and a mized dialect (so called суржик) exists.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Well, Gogol, being an Ukrainian landowner, peppers his prose (much of which is set around Poltava) with ukrainisms rather liberally, and Akunin sometimes tries to imitate him in that.

[thespinningone.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't deny that. Neither does Akunin)) Anyway, everything is made or said on purpose in his books))

[quizzical-view.livejournal.com]

All these words are normal for native russian speakers. There is a stylization, but it's a part of literature and language. There is no such an impression that you suddenly jump to another language, actually, it's quite an opposite - Akunin specially uses different styles to emphasize the characters in his novels.

[eugenetersky.livejournal.com]

I'd never say "хлопчик". But the rest sound OK to me. Might use them in some funny context.

[cherniavska.livejournal.com]

I would call them dialect words when used in a Russian book. They could be easily attributed to the southern dialect of Russian.

[kunaifusu.livejournal.com]

These are not a dialect, just colloquial words or meanings (say чуять is the standard word for animal sense of smell or human sense of premonition, used for human sense of smell would be colloquial). All the words are proper Russian words. "До дому" meaning "к дому" would be the only one that stands out however if used for "домой" it's proper Russian again.

[cherity-ev.livejournal.com]

I use this words in my usual speech except Хлопчик. Not very often, and the are a little bit old-fashioned, but rhey are useful in modern Russian.

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

If we take them together they do an impression of Ukranian speach. Or south Russian.

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

BTW, "смачный" borrowed from German "schmack" - in the meaning "taste".