Two questions

[slovami.livejournal.com]

One: is this sentence correct?

Женщины кыргызской национальности оценивают свое положение в обществе положительно, нежели мужчины (37,9% против 33,8%).
More women of Kyrgyz ethnicity rate their position in society positively than do men (37.9% versus 33.8%).

(Edit: Just to clarify, I didn't write this sentence, it's from http://www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4538/)

If you were using чем, you would have to say больще женщин. Does нежели really not require this? I thought чем and нежели were exactly the same. Is it simply a mistake in the sentence?

(While we’re at it: is there a stylistic difference between чем and нежели?)

Two: for some research I did this semester, I ended up reading a lot of things (laws, political speeches, academic works, etc.) written by Central Asians in Russian. I noticed one interesting thing about their Russian that seemed different from the standard I learned. I always learned that in formations of (general noun class) + (proper noun belonging to that class), such as девочка Маруся (the girl Marusya) or город Москва (the city of Moscow), both parts decline according to function in the sentence. For example:

Уважаемые жители и гости города Таганрога!
Respected residents and guests of the city of Taganrog!

Both город and Таганрог are in the genitive case. But in Central Asian Russian, it seems more standard to decline only the first noun of the pair. For example:

В городе Самарканд
in the city of Samarkand

закон Республики Казахстан
a law of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Is anyone in this community from Central Asia? Do you know if this is generally true of the Central Asian variety of Russian? And can this be found in standard Russian inside Russia, as well?

Thanks, guys! Sorry for the long post!

Comments

[romik-g.livejournal.com]

> Женщины кыргызской национальности оценивают свое положение в обществе положительно, нежели мужчины (37,9% против 33,8%).
should be
Женщины кыргызской национальности оценивают свое положение в обществе более положительно, нежели мужчины (37,9% против 33,8%).
or
Женщины кыргызской национальности оценивают свое положение в обществе лучше, чем мужчины (37,9% против 33,8%).

больще - больше

As far as I understand the general form is used instead of `proper noun belonging to that class` when name/city/etc. is non-native Russian word. These are кофе, башня Сююмбике (notice that башня changes the form and Сююмбике does not), etc.

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

In regards to the first sentence, I was under the impression that English speakers use constructions like "Women of Kyrgyz ethnicity" whereas Russians would be more inclined to say "Kyrgyz women", preferring an adjective. I could be wrong.

I don't know enough about Central Asian Russian to comment on the second part.

[zoa-mel-gustar.livejournal.com]

"ПоложительнЕЕ", not "положительно". In other respects the sentence is correct.
About "закон Республики Казахстан" - well, I never thought about it... It sounds normal for me (an I'm not from Central Asia), but I can't explain, why. I'm not so sure about "В городе Самарканд"...

[slovami.livejournal.com]

I didn't write the sentence, it's from an article (here: http://www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4538/). My impression is that constructions like "women of Kyrgyz ethnicity" in Russian (and in English, too, perhaps) are something you'd use in academic or official writing but not in speech. Thanks, though!

[dinasty.livejournal.com]

About the second question: I've learnt at school that the rule is to say "жители города Таганрог", "гости города Москва", "закон Республики Казахстан" i.e. with only one word declined when you speak about cities. (and it was only 10 years ago)
But it seems that norms are different now: you can read the actual rule (http://www.gramota.ru/spravka/letters/?rub=rubric_90) (sorry, russian) on gramota.ru which says to decline both words.
Probably, Central Asia regions use the old version of the rule, that's where the difference comes from.

What for the first your question, I would say that нежели needs some comparative form as well as чем does and, actually, it changes a constuction a bit. To me нежели sounds more like old, archaic Russian. I'd recommend you to use чем in your example, but may be someone else will suggest a good sentence with нежели.

[slovami.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks! I really think it should be больше женщин, though, and not более положительно. They aren't actually ranking it higher, but more of them are ranking it highly. If that makes sense.

Anyway, not important, the main thing is that the sentence as it is written is incorrect. :)

As for the second, that makes a certain amount of sense... thank you!

[slovami.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That is really interesting that the norms would change so quickly. I wonder how such things happen... who decides what is correct? Does Russia have a "Language Academy" that makes up these rules, like some other European countries?

As for the sentence, it's not mine. :) It's from an article I was reading (http://www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4538/). I read it and it twisted my brain a bit, so I thought I would ask about it.

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

The rule about cities is not at all strict. I would decline cities with Russian or strongly russified names ("в славном городе Киеве", "в городе Москве", "из города Минска", "под городом Парижем"), but I cannot say so about, for example, Western cities ("в городе Нью-Орлеан", "из города Монреаль", "до города Салвадор").
But the rule is VERY strict about republics. It is completely incorrect to say "*из Республики Мордовии", "*рядом с Республикой Якутией", "*в Республике Китае".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Not a mere Academy, it's a whole Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences (humanities and letters in Russia also count as sciences, you see.)

:)

[slovami.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks, I had no idea! I will never decline the name of a republic again. :)

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have just read in your journal "Республики Алтая", this is exactly what I was talking about. Of course, that is an example of a rule of the very advanced level, and I doubt there are manuals for foreign people which tell about that :)
I didn't know before now :)

[zauberer.livejournal.com]

Looking at your explanation, it seems that what author of the sentence really intended to say is that

Женщины кыргызской национальности чаще оценивают свое положение в обществе положительно, нежели мужчины (37,9% против 33,8%).

May be that was just a typo, because it sounds illiterate in the form you gave us. Anyway, using нежели instead of чем is somewhat out of style here, it looks weird.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

About "в городе Москве":
Here is the rule from the Reference book on Orthography and Style edited by D.I. Rozental (that's like, the most authoritative reference book on Russian there is)http://booference.pochta.ru/styli_xliv.html#sect197 (in Russian). The rule is quite complex, but summing it up it looks as follows:
Names of cities are usuallly declined after город, unless there can be a confusion about what the name is in the Nominative case, or unless it is a military or news report, or unless the city name consists of two words.
Names of republics are declined after the word республика if the name itself is feminine, and are not declined if the name is masculine or neuter.

[isca-lox.livejournal.com]

The official spelling is "киргизской", not "кыргызской", I think (see gramota.ru). The later is used quite often nowdays, but I think the former is still considered the corrent form.

[slovami.livejournal.com]

Oh, hmm, yeah, чаще seems even more likely. Thanks!

[dinasty.livejournal.com]

Well, I thought so as well, but that article I gave a link to shows that it is no more the case...

[dinasty.livejournal.com]

According to the article on gramota.ru, this rule is strict for russian republics only. But you still can say "...Республики Кореи" etc.

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

Well, Kazakhstan does obey this rule, whatever gramota.ru says. "Республики Казахстана" is not acceptable, as you see

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm originally from Central Asia but, as the people above have said, the usage you found is not a feature of some Central Asian dialect. In fact, there is not such dialect. You either speak proper Russian or you don't. There are, of course, accents and distortions by people for whom Russian is a second or auxiliary language, but I don't think they count (they are not homogeneous and thus cannot be codified, for one thing).