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Hypercorrection in Russian?
In American English sometimes people pronounce a word a certain way or use a particularly grammatical construction to assert their social status, even though technically the pronunciation or construction is incorrect. Two examples come immediately to mind: pronouncing the ‘t’ in ‘often’ and saying things like “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.”
Are there any similar things in Russian? That is, pronunciations or grammatical constructions that are not technically correct, but people say them anyway in an attempt to prove they are educated?
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by doninphxaz
In American English sometimes people pronounce a word a certain way or use a particularly grammatical construction to assert their social status, even though technically the pronunciation or construction is incorrect. Two examples come immediately to mind: pronouncing the ‘t’ in ‘often’ and saying things like “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.”
Are there any similar things in Russian? That is, pronunciations or grammatical constructions that are not technically correct, but people say them anyway in an attempt to prove they are educated?
The only example I can think of offhand is when some people (including educated ones) pronounce "юный" as "юнный".
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
It’s when I hear творОг with the second syllable stressed. They say the two stresses are okay these days but the original творOг is more okay than its more recent counterpart. Maybe my upbringing was not up to the standard, not that I care much about it, but I can’t or rather am not able to say the word the other way around. For me it’s just like you said: “people say them in an attempt to prove they are educated”. My wife, though, says it in a what’s considered to be an educated manner, invariably so when she’s aware I’m nearby and can hear her saying it like that. :) We had a facetious argument concerning the word once, which made her previously vague position on the matter adamant and quite opposite of mine. :o :D
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by doninphxaz
That is, pronunciations or grammatical constructions that are not technically correct, but people say them anyway in an attempt to prove they are educated?
No. In Russian it's the other way around.
For example, everybody says "апОстроф". And everybody knows that everybody says "апОстроф". But some people would look it up in a dictionary and say "апoстрOф", and when confronted with the question "Why?" they would say, "Because every educated person knows that this is the correct pronunciation; just look it up in a dictionary."
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by почемучка
ЗвонИть или звОнить?
:evil: Когда кто-то говорит "звОнить" я перестаю рассматривать этого человека как грамотного и вообще перестаю относиться к нему серьёзно. Может я и не прав, но ничего не могу с собой поделать.
Те же самые чувства я испытываю, когда слышу "деньрожденье" в одно слово среднего рода (например, "на моё деньрожденье" вместо "на мой день рождения" )
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Ramil
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Originally Posted by почемучка
ЗвонИть или звОнить?
:evil: Когда кто-то говорит "звОнить" я перестаю рассматривать этого человека как грамотного и вообще перестаю относиться к нему серьёзно. Может я и не прав, но ничего не могу с собой поделать.
Те же самые чувства я испытываю, когда слышу "деньрожденье" в одно слово среднего рода (например, "на моё деньрожденье" вместо "на мой день рождения" )
Мой совет: не посещайте мою часть Казахстана! Вы сошли бы с ума. Я только что был в гостях и кто-то исправил меня когда я сказал "звонИть". Но винить его нельзя, потому что русский не его родной язык (он говорит по-пуштунски). Это понятно, что он так думал - в этом городе люди чаше говорят "звОнить".
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
So there is no "chic" pronounciation in Russian at all?
Then how are people able to be snobbish?! :spiteful:
I know all Russians say that there are no dialects and that is absolutely mind-boggling to me... Honestly, I think dialects/accents will come back, gradually. It must just be that all those years of socialism erased it, or? But every other country in Europe has that, to some degree. It's just abnormal not to have any accents/dialects. Or??
In UK English you only have to listen to someone speaking for about 10 seconds before you can tell what kind of school (or university) he went to, where in the country he comes from and what his social background (=class..) is. It's very creepy and bad in many ways... but it's a STRONG part of society here and people feel a sense of community with others who speak the same way as they do. Sweden is not a strongly class based society, but there are some words and grammar that can give it away. But they are relatively easy to change, whereas in British English it's MAJOR change to switch ones accent.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Ramil
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Originally Posted by почемучка
ЗвонИть или звОнить?
Когда кто-то говорит "звОнить"
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Originally Posted by почемучка
в этом городе люди чаше говорят "звОнить".
Насколько я знаю, никто не говорит «зво́нить». Ударение на первый слог многие ставят в личных формах: зво́нишь, зво́нит, зво́ним, зво́ните, зво́нят. В инфинитиве, в первом лице единственного числа и в прошедшем времени ударение всегда на втором слоге: звони́ть, звоню́, звони́л(а,о,и). (То есть, по типу глаголов «возить», «варить» и т. п.)
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Originally Posted by Ramil
:evil: Когда кто-то говорит "звОнить" я перестаю рассматривать этого человека как грамотного и вообще перестаю относиться к нему серьёзно. Может я и не прав, но ничего не могу с собой поделать.
Те же самые чувства я испытываю, когда слышу "деньрожденье" в одно слово среднего рода (например, "на моё деньрожденье" вместо "на мой день рождения" )
Да, очень многие люди испытывают подобные чувства, делают замечания, заставляют говорить «правильно». И многие ранее говорившие «зво́нит» или употреблявшие глагол «ложи́ть» (или «ло́жить») под напором таких замечаний переучиваются говорить «правильно» и сами начинают переучивать всех окружающих со страшной скоростью.
Но несмотря на всё это, данные формы спокойно живут в речи почти половины носителей и не думают оттуда исчезать. Это значит, что, видимо, пора уже успокоится и перестать позиционировать «звони́т» и «класть» как единственно правильные варианты.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by doninphxaz
pronouncing the ‘t’ in ‘often’
I thought both variants were correct. :upset: I mean, earlier I didn't know t can be pronounced in "often" but then I heard a lot of people do so...
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Originally Posted by муравей
Да, очень многие люди испытывают подобные чувства, делают замечания, заставляют говорить «правильно». И многие ранее говорившие «зво́нит» или употреблявшие глагол «ложи́ть» (или «ло́жить») под напором таких замечаний переучиваются говорить «правильно» и сами начинают переучивать всех окружающих со страшной скоростью.
Но несмотря на всё это, данные формы спокойно живут в речи почти половины носителей и не думают оттуда исчезать. Это значит, что, видимо, пора уже успокоится и перестать позиционировать «звони́т» и «класть» как единственно правильные варианты.
Я где-то читала, что "звОнит" вполне может скоро стать нормой. Потому что, да, это оправдано по типу многих глаголов: ходИть -- хОдит, курИть -- кУрит и т.д. Это же орфоэпия -- самая быстро меняющаяся часть языка. ТворОг/твОрог, например, уже оба варианта правильные и давно, хотя я предпочитаю творОг.
The only thing that irritates me a bit is when people say "снех" instead of "снег [снек]". I know one woman who pronounces it like that.
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Originally Posted by translationsnmru
The only example I can think of offhand is when some people (including educated ones) pronounce "юный" as "юнный".
Maybe also "поэт" instead of [паэт] in non-official, everyday speech. Though if I ever heard it pronounced like that, it was jokingly.
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Originally Posted by Hanna
So there is no "chic" pronounciation in Russian at all?
Then how are people able to be snobbish?!
Being snobbish in that way is rather difficult. The only thing to do is to pronounce stuff correctly and scoff at those who don't. But you'll always find that you get at least some words wrong, so your snobbishness goes out the window. :mosking:
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
"алгорифм" vs "алгоритм": Petersburg vs Moscow mathematical scientific school
"Майкрософт" vs "Микрософт".
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
As for social status ancient elite add "-s" to every last word of a sentence: "Что скажете-с", "Ну-с".
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Pedelveis
As for social status ancient elite add "-s" to every last word of a sentence: "Что скажете-с", "Ну-с".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but was this really what the "elite" did? As I understand it, it was a sign of slavishness. I remember Dostoyevsky mocking it somewhere in his writing.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Hanna
In UK English you only have to listen to someone speaking for about 10 seconds before you can tell what kind of school (or university) he went to, where in the country he comes from and what his social background (=class..) is.
Quite the other way around, I fail to understand how could so many dialects and accents have been produced historically in England. It would have required unbelievable level of separation among people for their way of speaking to remain distinctive.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by quartz
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Originally Posted by Pedelveis
As for social status ancient elite add "-s" to every last word of a sentence: "Что скажете-с", "Ну-с".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but was this really what the "elite" did? As I understand it, it was a sign of slavishness. I remember Dostoyevsky mocking it somewhere in his writing.
It was used in polite conversations by representatives of a higher class and by all people to address a person of a higher rank.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0% ... 1%80%D1%81
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Hanna
So there is no "chic" pronounciation in Russian at all?
Then how are people able to be snobbish?! :spiteful:
They use a different vocabulary in which as many words as possible are long and/or borrowed from the other languages (usually Latin). Also, the complexity of the sentences usually adds to the impression.
For example:
Сугубо индивидуальные преференции, сопутствующие индивидуумам в процессе многоцелевой межличностной когнитивной дискуссии, активно и безконфликтно сосуществуют, в первую очередь, именно благодаря глубокой эрудиционной базе и многокультурным взаимопроникновениям, свойственным, главным образом, академически ориентированным кругам и культурнo-просветительским прослойкам общества де-факто заинтересованным, за немногочисленными очевидными исключениями, в поднятии и поддержании собственного формального и экспериментально приобретённого статуса, зависящего, в числе прочего, и от магнитуды самодистанцирования от объективно существующих жизненных реалий. (c)
http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/artists...JC_cookies.gif
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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So there is no "chic" pronounciation in Russian at all?
It is considered the best pronunciation is in St. Petersburg.
It would sound chic if you completely pronounce 'чт',' гк' not as 'ш', 'х' and don't reduce 'o' to schwa in unstressed syllables.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Сугубо индивидуальные преференции, сопутствующие индивидуумам в процессе многоцелевой межличностной когнитивной дискуссии, активно и безконфликтно сосуществуют, в первую очередь, именно благодаря глубокой эрудиционной базе и многокультурным взаимопроникновениям, свойственным, главным образом, академически ориентированным кругам и культурнo-просветительским прослойкам общества де-факто заинтересованным, за немногочисленными очевидными исключениями, в поднятии и поддержании собственного формального и экспериментально приобретённого статуса, зависящего, в числе прочего, и от магнитуды самодистанцирования от объективно существующих жизненных реалий. (c)
Can anybody translate it into Russian? :unknown:
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Vadim Mo
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Сугубо индивидуальные преференции, сопутствующие индивидуумам в процессе многоцелевой межличностной когнитивной дискуссии, активно и безконфликтно сосуществуют, в первую очередь, именно благодаря глубокой эрудиционной базе и многокультурным взаимопроникновениям, свойственным, главным образом, академически ориентированным кругам и культурнo-просветительским прослойкам общества де-факто заинтересованным, за немногочисленными очевидными исключениями, в поднятии и поддержании собственного формального и экспериментально приобретённого статуса, зависящего, в числе прочего, и от магнитуды самодистанцирования от объективно существующих жизненных реалий. (c)
Can anybody translate it into Russian? :unknown:
Охотно. :angel:
"Это они образованность свою хочут показать, и потому завсегда говорят по-непонятному."
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by deker
It is considered the best pronunciation is in St. Petersburg.
Considered by whom?
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It would sound chic if you completely pronounce 'чт',' гк' not as 'ш', 'х' and don't reduce 'o' to schwa in unstressed syllables.
Uh oh. It does not sound "chick" to me at all. :bad: I cringe every time when I hear something like that. Sounds absolutely horrible and even illiterate (remote villages come to mind). I can't imagine anybody imitating this kind of pronunciation on purpose to sound "smart" or highbred. Does anyone here really thinks that it sounds better than a standard pronunciation???? :-o
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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So there is no "chic" pronounciation in Russian at all?
Then how are people able to be snobbish?!
I don't see why they have to...
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I know all Russians say that there are no dialects and that is absolutely mind-boggling to me...
It's not entirely correct, those who live in the East can easily distinguish some Moskovites or people from central regions by their dialect. Besides, some of those who live in the South have very clearly distinguishable accent (somewhat funny at times).
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Honestly, I think dialects/accents will come back, gradually.
No, they won't, just because there weren't any, except those cases I mentioned above.
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It must just be that all those years of socialism erased it, or?
It's absolutely amazing how you, westerners, can blame anything on "all those years of socialism".
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Selexin
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It must just be that all those years of socialism erased it, or?
It's absolutely amazing how you, westerners, can blame anything on "all those years of socialism".
Yes "us" westerners because the West consists of a homogenous monolithic mass of people who blame everything on socialism:
typical western dialogue:
"WTF we just got a flat tire"
"I blame socialism"
... anyway the statement was neutral ... is the absence of regional accents something that must be "blamed" on something?
And are you suggesting that before the "years of socialism" instituted compulsory standardised mass education there were absolutely no regional or class accents in the vast Russian Empire?
cheers :)
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
Russian linguists in the 19th century named two well-formed dialects in Russian Empire - Ukrainian and Belorussian. Unfortunately, they are different languages now. :mosking:
But there were (and to some extent still are) three more dialect groups on the territory of modern Russia: Nothern, middle-Russian, and Southern. The difference between them was rather superficial. Moreover, elite and educated people spoke mostly in middle-Russian or in French, while "dialect-speakers" were peasants, Cossacks, hunters, etc.
The most noticable differences (apart from some local "slang") were:
а) Nothern - "оканье" and sometimes "еканье" (i.e. unstressed "o"/"e" were not reduced, and were enunciated clearly). Now you'll hardly meet anyone who talks like that.
b) middle-Russian aka modern Russian - "аканье" (i.e. unstressed "o" was pronounced as "a" - according to modern rules). Some people insist that Moscovites exaggerate their "a"s too much ("акают"), but it depends. Some do, but most don't in my opinion.
c) Southern - fricative "Г" and some other little things.This one is still alive and kicking and generally it sounds like a Ukrainian accent (which is not surprising, since Ukraine is close to these parts of Russia).
I'm not sure if you can seriously call it a dialect, based on this little quirks in pronounciation, because vocabulary people use throughout Russia and most former Soviet republicks) is the same, due to media and standard education.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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...is the absence of regional accents something that must be "blamed" on something?
I'd rephrase the question: "is the PRESENCE of regional accents something that must be blamed on something?"
Because I don't see natural reasons for difference in accents across one and the same country (especially a relatively small one as England), other than intentionally created conditions for that.
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And are you suggesting that before the "years of socialism" instituted compulsory standardised mass education there were absolutely no regional or class accents in the vast Russian Empire?
There certainly were differences, but vernacular rather than dialectal, the kind of difference that exists between educated and uneducated speech. But it can't be called "accent" or "dialect".
In fact, to be honest, there are a lot of distinguisable accents in Russia, because the country comprises a lot of nationalities with their own native tongues, but those accents are not socially induced, so, I think, this aspect doesn't count.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
Interesting discussion, and I have nothing to add. I just wanted to say that, in English, people from Moscow are referred to as Muscovites.
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Re: Hypercorrection in Russian?
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Originally Posted by Selexin
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...is the absence of regional accents something that must be "blamed" on something?
I'd rephrase the question: "is the PRESENCE of regional accents something that must be blamed on something?"
Because I don't see natural reasons for difference in accents across one and the same country (especially a relatively small one as England), other than intentionally created conditions for that.
??
I fail to see what you mean.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
starrysky 
I thought both variants were correct. :upset: I mean, earlier I didn't know t can be pronounced in "often" but then I heard a lot of people do so...
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Это правильно. Оба варианта правильны.
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Originally Posted by
doninphxaz ...even though technically the pronunciation or construction is incorrect. Two examples come immediately to mind: ... and saying things like “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.”
Pronunciation or construction of "you and I" is technically incorrect (???). I always thought that "me" instead "I" is the colloquial speech.
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AFAIK "Me" is objective case.
roughly:
"you and I" = "ты и я" (subject)
"you and me" = "тебя и меня", "тебе и мне", "тобой и мной" (object)
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Hm... What about this:
- Who is it?
- It's me.
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Originally Posted by
delog Hm... What about this:
- Who is it?
- It's me.
It's all right. :)
It - subject (подлежащее)
is - predicate (сказуемое)
me - object (дополнение)
Object requires objective case.
Let English linguists correct me if I am wrong.
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Thank you. Yes, you are right that pronouns in object position must be objective case. I just have a problem with impersonal sentences. :)
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Originally Posted by
it-ogo It's all right. :)
It - subject (подлежащее)
is - predicate (сказуемое)
me - object (дополнение)
Object requires objective case.
Let English linguists correct me if I am wrong.
I believe in this case "me" is not an object but a predicate nominative, so the objective case cannot be justified with that. It is perfectly alright though. I'll quote an article that puts it very well:
"What should you say on the phone: “It is me?” or “It is I?” Maybe you should just hang up the phone and send a fax.
The rivalry between “It is me” and “It is I” is right up there with Pepsi and Coke battling for market shares.
The “It is I” camp argues that forms of the verb to be, such as is and was, should be followed by pronouns in the nominative case. Therefore, here the pronoun would be I.
On the other hand, the “It is me” camp counters with the argument that noun case in English has disappeared. Further, they contend that the pronoun case has become so weakened that the force of word order now overrides the force of case.
The placement of the pronoun in the object part of the sentence “It is me” and “It is us” has become increasingly acceptable as standard usage even in boardrooms. But if you're speaking with a language purist who is likely to become offended by today's more relaxed standards of speech and writing, use the time-honored “It is I” instead of “It is me.”
As for hypercorrection in Russian, it makes me think of elderly ladies from St. Petersburg who look like they have been working as librarians for a hundred years, and teach ballet lessons on Fridays, and faint if they hear someone say "жопа". :) They pronounce "э" instead of "е" in words like "пионэр", "музэй", "крэм", which sounds hilariously posh to me. There are also elderly Muscovites who would say "маленькый" and "умылса" rather than "маленький" and "умылся". See old Soviet movies and cartoons like "Аленькый (tee hee) цветочек".
Hypercorrection is also common in wording and grammar. If you read some semi-formal texts like memos or explanatory statements you will see what I mean: the author usually has this idea that long, complicated and indecipherable equals correct and educated, hence the overuse of commas, chains of consecutive nouns in genitive case, page-long sentences that would make Leo Tolstoy weep (much like this one), and freakishly awkward derivatives like "просрачивать".
Plus, there is a recent trend to stick to hyper-accurate pronunciation as opposed to lazy pronunciation. I admit that gobbling up half of the syllables sounds awful, but hearing "здравствуйте" (with the first "в" voiced) instead of "здрасте" or "сегодня" (yep, not "сиводня" or "сёдня" but actually "сегодня") from a person is just plain creepy. And wrong. :)
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Originally Posted by
mrs dalliard I believe in this case "me" is not an object but a predicate nominative
I see. Though looks like the very idea of predicate nominative is obsolete in English.
In Russian, however, nominative is used in such constructions indeed.
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Originally Posted by
mrs dalliard Hypercorrection is also common in wording and grammar. If you read some semi-formal texts like memos or explanatory statements you will see what I mean: the author usually has this idea that long, complicated and indecipherable equals correct and educated, hence the overuse of commas, chains of consecutive nouns in genitive case, page-long sentences that would make Leo Tolstoy weep (much like this one), and freakishly awkward derivatives like "просрачивать".
Hmmm... Didn't you mean "просрочивать", or?..
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Originally Posted by
it-ogo Hmmm... Didn't you mean "просрочивать", or?..
Well, that would be the correct form, not hyper-correct. ;)
Просрачивать, приурачивать, распогаживаться follow the existing phonetic pattern and therefore are sort of more correct than просрочивать etc... but being non-euphonious ruins it all. Although this is probably not really hypercorrection, merely a common mistake.
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Hmm... And here we come to the problem "Who is guilty?" "What to do?" "What is correct?" Why following pattern is correct?
Hypercorrection means neglecting natural language laws in favor of formal rules (forced or cooked-up). For example, masculine кофе. Natural laws follows from practicability (which is often intuitive) and tradition while hyper-rules come from oversimplified model of the language when it is considered absolute.
For example someone may insist that "в лесе" is correct just because he learned at school only six cases.
So. The keyword is purpose. If someone wants to make fun and said "просрачить все полимеры", then "просрочить" is hypercorrection. If someone writes an official paper "просрачить" (because of the pattern) would be hypercorrection again. Everything is relative. :instruct:
I don't think that chains of genitives or complicated sentences are the same phenomena. It is just a different style which is made for specific purposes. If someone write research report or legal paper in a colloquial manner, that will cause great problems not because of the snobbery of other people, but because such papers will be unusable - not enough exact. Still wrong style can be considered as hypercorrection sometimes...
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Originally Posted by
it-ogo Everything is relative. :instruct:
I second that. :)
Quote:
I don't think that chains of genitives or complicated sentences are the same phenomena. It is just a different style which is made for specific purposes. If someone write research report or legal paper in a colloquial manner, that will cause great problems not because of the snobbery of other people, but because such papers will be unusable - not enough exact. Still wrong style can be considered as hypercorrection sometimes...
I guess I have to agree: the канцелярит I wrote about is more pseudo than hyper-correction. "Согласно приказа" is not correct but people often think it is and make it look like it is. I just jumped at the possibility of listing all my pet peeves. ;) And, yes, it is a different style but it doesn't take to be wrong to be special.
