Usage tips

[gera.livejournal.com]

For the benefit of the learners I'll repeat here a comment that several people found useful (it's gone along with the post).
The recent incident may be a good opportunity to learn some subtleties of Russian usage so that you'll avoid inadvertent offense and confusion.

In Russia the word "русский" in reference to a person usually implies ethnicity. So, words like "не русский", "не для русских" have an offensive ring. Think of something like "no Hispanics". The intent may be "not for native Spanish speakers" but the way it's stated it may sound offensive.

The words "россиянин", "россияне" may be a good alternative only in some contexts. For example, "президента поддерживают X% россиян". (The word "русских" here would imply that citizens of other ethnicities are not counted).
On the other hand, you wouldn't want to ask "Как употребляют это слово россияне?", unless you have a reason to believe that native Russian speakers elsewhere use the word differently (normally it's not the case).
Basically, you wouldn't use "россияне" to imply "native Russian speakers" pretty much for the same reason you wouldn't say "the British" instead of "native English speakers". A lot of native Russian speakers live in the former Soviet republics and other countries.
So, when you want to refer to "native Russian speakers" you should say "носители (русского) языка", "русскоговорящие", "русскоязычные".

There is a remarkable exception, however, that you should be aware of. Russian speaking emigrants outside of the former Soviet Union (in the US, Canada, Israel, Germany, Britain, Australia etc) do use the word "русские" to imply "native Russian speakers" regardless of their ethnicity in reference to fellow emigrants. This usage is actually borrowed from the surrounding cultures. Keep in mind, that it strikes people living in the former USSR as odd. This oddity has been widely mocked, sometimes in offensive ways.
You may, however, encounter this usage in your own country if you get to hang out with Russian speakers.

Comments

Re: More usage tips

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

The reason non-ethnic-Russians would resent being called Russians is that they would like to have their background acknowledged whatever it may be.

THIS. I can't count the number of times in my childhood (it is somewhat better now) that people would say, "oh, you're Latvian? So you speak Russian, right?", and my response would typically be "No, you , I speak Latvian." Just because Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union does not mean that I am Russian or even speak Russian (and all this ignoring the fact that my grandparents came to Canada in the first place because they left Latvia as refugees fleeing the Soviet invasion during the Second World War).

It isn't just non-Russians that do it, my Russian teacher in university (who was Russian) would frequently lump me, the Ukrainian students and the Estonian lady in our class with "people connected to Russia". We weren't particularly pleased about that.

Re: More usage tips

[oryx_and_crake]

Actually, Russian was a mandatory school subject in all the USSR republics, besides being an official language of the USSR, so there is a good possibility that someone from Latvia will, indeed, speak Russian. Of course it depends on when you left, but you cannot expect an average North-American to know all the subtleties of European history.

Re: More usage tips

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

I know that. But I was born and grew up in Canada. And when people make assumptions about the languages I speak, they already have that information (the conversation typically goes like this: even though I have an "ethnic" name, yes, I was born and raised in Canada, my grandparents came to Canada from Latvia during WW2, and then people make the language assumption), and assume that because my family background is Latvian, that I speak Russian as a result. They don't realize we have our own language.

Re: More usage tips

[gera.livejournal.com]

If your grandparents left the area during WW2 I would assume they didn't know any (or much) Russian. Is that right?

Re: More usage tips

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

That would be right. The only member of my family that knows a halfway decent amount of Russian besides me (and I only know it because I had to study it in university for my major - well, it or German, and Russian was easier) is my great-aunt (my grandmother's sister), because she was born before the First World War, and spent her early childhood living near Moscow while the front lines of the First World War were raging through the Baltics. Upon Latvian independence from the Russian Empire, her family promptly moved back to Latvia, where my grandmother was born not long afterwards. She hasn't really used it since that early childhood, but that knowledge is still there in the back of her mind.

Re: More usage tips

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

The flip side of it is that everyone I've met who is a Latvian immigrant (all three people, so a small sample size), doesn't speak Latvian because they are later generation than your family. Same with Lithuanian immigrants. I've met people who didn't know that people in the Baltic states had to speak Russian compulsorarily. No one can know everything, and consequently people like you get stuck answering the same questions over and over again. Which of course, must be very very frustrating.

Re: More usage tips

[gera.livejournal.com]

Were they ethnic Latvians, though?

Re: More usage tips

[evaluna68.livejournal.com]

I knew a Latvian family with 4 kids about my age, all of whom spoke Latvian fluently. But there is a Latvian Saturday school here, which helps. I'm not sure when the family arrived in the U.S., but I got the impression that the kids were the first generation born here, which would have made it the late 1960s or earlier.