A terrible disease that threatens 'ours' after moving to the USA
Author of the Telegram channel "Over the hill" shared his observation about the strangeness of some Russian-speaking immigrants in the United States. Someone was terribly outraged and offended, saying that only one who had never lived in America could write such a thing. And someone, looking truth in the eyes, agreed: this trouble covers up with his head after a couple of months of life in the United States.
Фото: Depositphotos
A terrible disease, devouring from within some Russians after moving to the United States, from which there is no cure or even tolerable prevention, is the desire to insert English words into Russian speech. Perhaps a stun shock to the solar plexus would be an effective therapy, but American laws prevent me from testing the hypothesis.
Language deformation is what I call the irreversible process that occurs with compatriots who have been living in the United States for a long time. At some point, a “piece of turkey” becomes a “Turkish slice”, taking out the garbage forever turns into taking out the garbage, and no matter how hard you try, a one-room apartment can only be called a vanbedroom apartment.
Long ago, before moving to the USA, I was convinced that such a mixture of languages is an extremely kitschy phenomenon when a person wants to emphasize his deep integration into a new culture and for this purpose builds sentences in equal proportion consisting of Russian and English words. Now I must admit: no, it just happens, regardless of our desire.
This terrifying mixture of languages is called runglish, and this is an adverb spoken by a significant part of Russians in America.
Mixing two languages into one is a mental work that a person wouldn’t do without a goal. And the goal here is simple: to appear more “local” against the background of more “visitors”. It seems to such people - linguistic cripples, as I call them - that pure Russian without accent and inappropriate borrowing is a sign of a newly arrived, inexperienced immigrant.
But actually the most immigrants living in the US over 20 – 40 for years retain the perfect Russian; and on the contrary, a person could come to the country a month ago with already perfect English. Neither is a measure of the “terrain” or wealth of the immigrant.
A person using two languages at the same time looks funny and inappropriate. Even a polyglot that knows half the languages of the world can easily switch between them - and always knows the boundaries. So why can't the people of Brooklyn? Since when speaking the native language has become harder than the second?
The term "runglish", they say, appeared by chance. In 2000, the year in the Russian-American cosmonaut team. And the word stuck. It is easy to guess that it denotes a mixture of Russian and English.
Innocuous explanations are invented for this disease - “it's easier for him”, “he already forgets Russian,” “more precisely in English”. I use the good old duck test: if a person looks like an idiot, he walks like an idiot and speaks like an idiot ... Then you probably have an idiot.
Can I protect myself from Runglish? This is possible, but for this you will have to eliminate any communication with Russian-speaking immigrants. There is almost no pure Russian left in America, but here there is English and a Russian version of English. If your social circle is made up of Americans, within ten years you will develop a sufficient language skill to be almost a carrier. If you communicate with the Russians, the prospects are not so joyful - you not only do not improve English, but also bury your native alive. Slysik Turks buy. Fry on the backyard. And then vaekishen same.
I called these changes irreversible not for a beautiful word, but because I checked the diagnosis on myself. A person who has all his life advocated the absolute purity of a language is so mired in linguistic mixology that sometimes he cannot say a single sentence without idiotic borrowings.
Фото: Depositphotos
And two more real life stories.
Do we remember that once in our vocabulary there were such words as “turkey”, “shrimp”, “trash”, “taxes” and touching, in one word “register!” It is these, and not “Turk” , “Shrimpy”, “garbich”, “dachshunds” and “oh may gash”, - shares his observations in his livejournal, MONGWU.
An American who has not forgotten Russian - a former Leningrad citizen (yes, it’s written on his Instagram - Born in Leningrad), who lives in San Francisco, keeps a diary in LiveJournal. He describes with humor the life situations that he observes around.
Know yourself? Before you get offended - better just take note.
History №1 Shops, sales, betting
- Kohl, help!
Our new employee Larisa came up to my desk.
- Listen - printa, printa here, and not doprintala. Printer out of paper. Where is the paper you have?
I went to the printer and showed.
- Oh thank you! And then I was looking for, completely tortured. Monday is a hard day. Yes, even those weekends were!
I understood that the story about a hard weekend would follow, and suggested:
- Maybe sit down? There is another chair next to my seat.
- Yes, I will not be long, only I will tell ... So yesterday ... - can you imagine - at first I shopped all day [1 - see approx. at the end], there were so many [2] sales, and then I went to my friends to go on a [3] bet. They recently bought a three-room [4] apartment from the USH. Nice [5] ... But dear. They complain that the [6] dachshunds have become big with them.
I decided to joke.
- Maybe it's actually rottweilers?
Larisa looked at me blankly.
“You don't know English?” Dachshunds - well ... like this ... taxes, lo! So imagine - the two of them live in a three-bedroom apartment, and they want to send the mother to an anselkay!
- Where??
I really did not understand.
- It seems that you really have problems with English ... Well, the house where the elderly live, there the nurses look after them. Nursing home!
- BUT! Nursing home!
- Yes. Narselkom. And the apartment is good, such as upgradeable bezrum, wolkin klozets [7], would live there with your mother. Hottab [8] they have.
- Gassan Abdurrahman?
- What? What is Gassan? So, they both work, and the hamatenda comes to the mother during the day.
I did not understand again.
- What a cad comes ??
Larisa looked at me with obvious regret.
- Hamatenda. Well, looking behind her, gives medication.
- Home attendant?
- Here, you know, you know! So they say that it is expensive to pay Hamatende, it is easier to send the mother to the selves. What kind of people ... Okay, I'll go work. Well, no longer need to print, and then the printer is so low, you have to bend all the time ...
Larisa went to her workplace, but returned halfway through.
- Nick - so you have bad English, it turns out! I thought that you were good - I won talks with the Americans at meetings and in the afternoon with might and main, but now I see that you don’t know so many words. You need to do ...
I wondered how to answer.
“Well ... it is not easy to understand when you are so fluent in English words.”
- Freak! - Larisa laughed. - All because they say so! It's easier. Well, I will go.
- Larissa!
Larisa turned around. - What?
- And when you speak with Americans, do you insert Russian words? So it should be easier.
- Well, you're weird! - Larisa laughed again. - They do not speak Russian! Only you and I speak Russian here!
A month later, she was fired ... The main reason was the massive complaints of English-speaking employees about mutual misunderstanding. I hope that she is doing well now.
1 - go shopping - shopping, shopping, from to shop
2 - sale - sale
3 - birthday party - birthday
4 - from the three bedroom, i.e. three bedroom
5 - nice area - good area
6 - taxes - taxes
7 - upgraded bathrooms, walk-in closets - improved bathrooms; large storage areas that you can enter
8 - hot tub, i.e. jacuzzi
History №2 You bought a Turk?
The words “turkey” and “turkey” are absent in the lexicon of the average Russian American. In any case, this concerns those Russian Americans whom I met.
In English, “turkey” - “turkey”. Pronounced like “graters”. In American Ruglish, this word was somehow transformed into “Turk”.
I remember the first time I heard this word. I just came to California to work, and a Russian colleague asked me:
“Thanksgiving is coming soon!” Did you buy a Turk?
I was confused. I knew the two meanings of the word “Turk” - 1) an outdated version of the word “Turk” (see Kozma Prutkov. Naturally colloquial representation of “Rash Turk, or: Is it nice to be a grandson?”); 2) is a special tableware for making coffee, it is also jazz.
The interviewee interpreted my confusion as a sign that I had never before seen this bird and did not know what it was. Slapped me on the shoulder and said:
- Welcome to America! Here all the Turk eat!
Why do Russian Americans say “Turk”, although in Russian there is the word “turkey”? There are English words that are really hard to find the equivalent in Russian, but not in this case.
I myself, being a purist and a fighter for the purity of the Russian language, speak exclusively “turkey”. Several times I met a puzzled look: what does he say differently than everyone else?
Yesterday I heard a new version of this word. We were visiting - very nice people, by the way, and the hostess, bringing the dish into the dining room, said:
- And here is the grater!
In the future, this word was pronounced several more times. Is the grater successful, do you need more graters ?, etc. Now I think - what is the name of a kitchen appliance in this house with a grind of cheese? It will be necessary to rub the cheese, ask for a grater, so you still do not know what will bring.
Read also on ForumDaily:
How to learn English words: simple and effective techniques
Can I forget my native language in emigration
Go to the USA and not get lost: how to learn English for emigration
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