Talk:Russian language

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Russian language is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

Early discussion

Well, I would like to say something about making articles in Wikipedia using this example. As it is now -- the article about Russian is a terrible one. What can I learn from it? Mostly nothing. As Russian is probably among the oldest (or perhaps the oldest language) of Slavic languages, it is quite idiotic just to mention how the Russian language was spoken in the areas of the Warsaw Pact and such. Yes, this is a sad (or not) fact, but here politics can't take its place, because we would like to learn something about this great language. In the same manner we would also have to check how English language became the world's most popular language (but without politics, right). It shurely was detrimental for those languages which were suppressed in the Soviet Union's times -- so they were German language, Italian language and Hungarian language to my native one -- and I don't blame them for that... My many fellow citizens think that Russian language is simple, because it sounds (sometimes) like the Slovene language, but hey, try to translate something from the Russian literature, poetry or technical field. There are many words in Russian and in Slovene, which are completely the same, but there are even more which are not. I can't also figure how non-Slavic person can learn Russian language. For me it is like someone would want to learn Chinese language or Japanese language or even the hardest one (if it really exists...) Another fact is to say that in a way Russian language represents in full the whole Earth's civilization, because of the Russian successes in Space. We all remember astronauts wearing CCCP signature on their helmets, don't we? This was simply because Russian cosmonauts mostly land on a solid ground and they have to have those markings not to be confused by local inhabitants. (I think so). If you ever have seen any Russian computer programme, you would know that they are quite extraordinary. If I'll have time I'll add something more to the present article and prevent myself from criticizing all over. I am doing my best already in filling gaps regarding Russian people... We Slovenes sometimes joke that there are approx. 220 millions Slovenes and Russians together (...so the others should be afraid of Slovenes... :-)) Well again, these were some of my thoughts at a glance. Any response is very wellcome. Best regards and, yes, not to forget, Happy New Year 2003 to all ya... --XJamRastafire 16:04 Jan 8, 2003 (UTC)

Well, Happy New 2004 also... --XJamRastafire 15:30, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Dialect or language

Can someone give some explanation or references as to why Belarusyn and Ukrainian are portrayed as dialects? What linguist holds that theory today? Isn't the only reason to hold that political?

Well, as a Russian I can understand pretty much everything in Belarussian or Ukrainian... So yes, the reason is mostly political. --Alikhtarov 01:48, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Could you please tell us when and where you heard or read something in Belarusan? rydel 15:19, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[1] (http://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) :-) Mind you, I can understand about 90% of what is written there. Ditto [2] (http://uk.wikipedia.org/). Then again, I have had somewhat "above average" exposure to the Ukrainian language for a Russian (my mother is Ukrainian), so I guess it cannot be considered a pure experiment... Alikhtarov 06:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, as Russian and Ukrianian speaker I can understand a lot of Polish; you wouldn't consider Polish as a dialect of Russian or Ukrainian language, would you? WebDome Aug.18 2004

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. That's what linguists say (only half-jokingly). I'd say there's a dialect continuum there. --i@k5 15:45, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

What uh... continuum? Dear, i@k5 can you please name the villages on Belarusan-Russian and Ukrainian-Russian border you have visited? -- rydel 16:05, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I speak Russian and Ukrainian. I've visited and/or talked with people from all over Ukraine, and some from Russian regions like Belgorod and Rostov. That was quite a few years ago, and those people were mostly city dwellers. Still it is my impression that there's a continuum. As for Belarusan, I used to listen to radio in that language (the standard I'd imagine) and it was mostly intelligible. Those are just my limited personal observations.Does someone have a copy of Chambers and Trudgill, or something? --i@k5 17:04, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

I see. Well, there is very little doubt that Ukrainian and Belarusan are mutually intelligible to a high degree. I can testify that based on my own personal experience. Once we were going by bus from Bulgaria to Belarus via Ukraine and we stopped to buy some apples and pears, and I talked in Belarusan with the old Ukrainian lady, and at the end she said: "Boy, you speak Ukrainian with a very funny accent". And then I had exactly the same thing happening to me when I visited Lviv and I was talking to a waitress in Belarusan, and at the end she said: "You speak a strange dialect of Ukrainian". ;) As for the Russian - Ukrainian, and Russian - Belarusan, more often than not I heard stories that people don't really get much at all. And again my own experience proves that. When I am in a company of Russian speakers, and someone calls me up on a mobile, and I start speaking in Belarusan, after I hang up most of the time Russians say something like: "Wow, I didn't get anything." Again, just personal experience. And I also noted that Polish speakers and Belarusan speakers in Western Belarus can understand each other pretty well, there is a relatively high degree of mutual understanding. I don't know how it helps though in this discussion about "continuum". For example, Czech and Slovak are almost 100% mutually intelligible, yet they are considered different languages, not dialects. Also, I don't quite get why you mention Chambers and Trudgill. I heard it's a great theoretical text on dialectology, but I didn't know whether there was any practical information regarding East Slavic languages in that book. -- rydel 17:42, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Chambers and Trudgill is supposed to have a map of European dialects which may be of some help.

Dear Rydel, I think it's just because you talked to certain Russians, probably from Moscow or St.Petersburg. Please take in consideration that Russian Federation is a large country, and Russian language has many dialects. There is a dialect continuum, i.e. some dialects of Russian language have much more differences than some dialects of Russian and Ukrainian languages. Decision whether to call them dialects or separate languages is political. Ditto with Ukrainian vs Belorussian. You confirmed that they are very close languages (linguistically), nonetheless, we consider them as different languages (politically) Dr Bug (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Drbug&action=edit&section=new) (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 07:41, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Revision time!!!

I have revised most of the article, basically writing it anew, although I tried to preserve everything that had not been poisoned by inter-Slavonic recriminations.

A. Shetsen, June 28, 2004

My work on this is now done (for now). Looking over it, I think the following areas may require more work:

phonology. Especially, standardize the transcription. A note to Wiki developers: is there any way properly to generate IPA of the fly based on a custom input markup language, rather than SAMPA or something else? For Russian standardized transcription is difficult, because Slavic specialists in the West often appear to insist on a custom, vaguely Czech-based, transcription system.
dialectology. Since my interest is almost entirely from the point of view of the literary language and its history, it would be nice if someone who knows enough about the maze of Russian dialects could fill in this section.
history. I've deliberately left a lot unsaid here, including:
- historical grammar
- writing system (this too is not as straighforward as often supposed: черты и резы? глаголица? тайнопись? типография и орфография?)
- LITERATURE. My main interest, actually, but since another article exists and does a good job providing a summary (a real critic could quibble with everything, but that's hardly the point), I'm not sure at this point how the two articles should relate to each other. More input would be highly appreciated.
pictures. Only scans of documents: books, posters, manuscripts, etc., properly illustrate the language, as opposed to its bearers or the place they inhabit. Of course, copyright violation is thus extremely difficult. At any rate, I've provided none for now.

A. Shetsen 04:07, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)=

NB Since writing the above, I've tried to convert all the transcriptions to SAMPA and added a few notes on the writing system, split between the "Notes on the alphabet" and "History". I've also provided a few notes about pre-eighteenth century literature under "History", but in such a way that this article's should remain on the language. A. Shetsen 07:33, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

One last kick at the can on the Russian/Ukrainian thing. Nothing whatever has convinced me that the national, as opposed to dialectal, distinction existed until the Muscovite period. In times of the Russian Empire there appear to have been more than a few хохлы (no disrespect intended!) who functioned well among the москали (no disrespect intended!): Gogol comes to mind. I would never quarrel with a modern Ukrainian's emotional attachment to the term Русь, and I would hope that the same Ukrainian would not contest the equivalent Russian's feelings. A. Shetsen 07:42, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Peer review

Requested comments at Wikipedia:Peer Review

Just some random comments on what seems to be an informative article! A couple of comments from a non-linguist layperson. 1) The "Alphabet and Phonology" section is quite long and technical, but the rest of the article is quite accessible to a general reader. For this reason could I recommend moving the "Alphabet and Phonology" section either to a page of its own (perhaps, Alphabet and Phonology of the Russian language) and summarising here, or maybe just move it to the end of the article? 2) Layout-wise, in the "Alphabet and Phonology" section, the pictures don't sit too well to the left of the table; perhaps they could be interspersed later in the section? 3) Could a map be made for the "Geographic distribution" section? 4) For some of the technical sections, it might help if the technical terms were linked to the relevant article, e.g. linking the dative case, and so on. — Matt 03:45, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pictures and maps. I do have TWO maps planned: geographic distribution and dialects. As regards the existing pictures: I have about three more candidates for history, but putting them in takes time (several more days). Vocabulary and grammar are very difficult to illustrate. The three pictures next to the alphabet are all ABC. That's why I put them there. I've rearranged the existing pictures, and now have several more candidates. Scanning will take a while.

Technical. Yes, I see what you mean. I'll think about how to simplify it. ~~The difficulty is that to create a separate article would require a lot of work, since there is a lot I have NOT said that really should go into a separate article.~~ I've created a sub-article for the notes, and now display only the modern alphabet and the sampa values in the main text.

Links: ~~yes, I'll try~~ (if you don't do it first :)!) ---I've now put in a bunch.

A. Shetsen 06:52, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate that a lot of interesting and valuable information was added to this article, but I'm not entirely certain why the Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages format has been foregone in favor of a new organizational scheme. At one point, this article conformed to the WikiProject's template, but it has since diverged substantially. Unless anyone can give a good reason why I shouldn't, I think I will reorganize so the article conforms to that format. Nohat 04:07, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My reasoning was as follows. If you know nothing about a language, you might ask questions in the following order:

Where is is spoken?

Where is it official?

What's the alphabet?

How does it sound?

What's the grammar?

And vocabulary?

Any deviations from the norm? (i.e. dialects?)

And how did it get to be what it is?

So, how to learn it?

That's the order everything's in.

I realize that perhaps the vocabulary should precede the grammar. However, the alphabet must come before, and the sounds naturally follow. The descriptions of any deviations from the standard, i.e. dialects, really make sense only if you already know something about the language (alphabet, sounds, vocabulary, grammar).

Finally, history. I know very well Wikistyle puts history AT THE VERY FRONT. I consider that very flawed. Unless you already know the language, its history must be preceded by as full a description as possible. That's what sets the context.

Since this is a Wiki, I'm certainly not going to prevent you from doing anything. I'd like to point out, however, that since the article was arranged in such a way that every section built on the one preceding, rearranging would, I think, take more work than just cutting and pasting, and might require a fairly good knowledge of the language. If you feel you're up to the task, enjoy!

A. Shetsen 06:52, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I hadn't heard before that putting history first is a bad idea. I haven't really thought about it. Perhaps it should be moved to a later part of the template. Other than that, the order of the questions you come up with seems just as arbitrary as any other order. However, we already have a set order for describing languages, so unless there is a compelling reason for deviating from it I figure we should stick with it. Nohat 07:57, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate the changes to remove "technical" words from the headings. However, the alphabet should come before the sounds, since the sounds are given in Cyrillic, and the history after grammar and vocabulary, since that's what gives the context. Remember that phonetic symbols are absolute in their pronunciation; letters of an alphabet are not. That's the main advantage to using the native alphabet. I've changed it back. Templates are templates, not cages. A. Shetsen 17:07, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

ж or жж...

Quick comment about readability. Two quotes from the consonants section. I don't know enough (read, any) russian to properly fix this, so if someone wouldn't mind, please try your hand at it. --128.175.100.74 16:44, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"The ж/Z/ is similar to the English [s] in pleasure, but considerably harder."

"The consonant ж is palatalized if doubled in writing, e.g. жжёшь/Z'oS/, "you (sg) burn", and in the single word жюри/Z'uri´/ "jury". A palatalized жж is similar to the English [s] in pleasure. A soft sign ь is written after the ж/Z/ as historical tradition in feminine nouns and in some inflexional forms, but the sound remains hard."

I've revised the entire consonants section, defining ccarefully the distinction between hard and soft consonants, and going from there. Does that make it easier to follow? A. Shetsen 19:05, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

article size

This article is rather huge as it is but it set up in a such a way that this could be minimized. For example Russian grammar is a stub, yet the ==Russian grammar== section in this article is really complete - with perhaps too much detail for a survey article. Moving that detail to the separate article and leaving a good summary of that article here (several paragraphs or maybe a few short sub-sections), would serve users who just want the summary and those that want the detail about that aspect. This makes the article more useful to more people. See Wikipedia:Summary style. --mav 06:53, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Phenya or Fenya (Ôåíÿ)

I removed the following section.

Russian crypto language, criminal slang. Word "Phenya" delivered from name of Phoenician Language. Phoenician Merchants use special dialect to communicate with each other, that no one will understand price negotiation. Despite, that early phenya was popular among criminals, now it is consider to be a Russian dialect. Phenya consist of usual russian words, but with different meaning, and also words borrowed from different languages, for example Yiddish. Some Examples: Áàöèëëà (Batsilla) - ñàëî, âûñîêîêàëîðèéíûå ïðîäóêòû, ïåðåäà÷à (Bacon, high calories products). Áîáû (Bob'y)- ïàòðîíû(cartridges, patrons).

The topic is interesting and it deserves even a separate article, but unfortunately this text is helplessly bad. I will try to write a stub. Mikkalai 23:21, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

From Vladimir Dal's vocabulary

(Public domain now)

As a preliminary reference, to be the base of the Fenya article.

ОФЕНЯ, офенская речь, см. афеня.

АФЕНЯ, офеня об. ходебщик, кантюжник, разносчик с извозом, коробейник, щепетильник, мелочной торгаш вразноску и вразвозку по малым городам, селам, деревням, с книгами, бумагой, шелком, иглами, с сыром и колбасой, с серьгами и колечками и пр. Корень афеней влад. губ., ковровск. уезд, есть и костромские и тверские. Чтобы афеня взято было от Афин, невероятно; от г. Офен (Пешт) и венгерских ходебщиков (словаков) - также; о мнимом афенском народе VII века летописи молчат; сами офени зовут себя масыками и обзетильниками (мас - я; масы - мы; масыги - мы, свои, наши; обзетить - обмануть, сплутовать; обзетильник, плут); но офениться, знач. молиться, креститься; офест, крест; посему офеня значило бы просто крещеный, православный. Коли в языке офеней, кроме хирга, рука, нахиреги, рукавицы, и частью счета, есть греческие слова, то они искони занесены ими с Сурожья, т. е. с азовского поморья и из-за Дуная. Для беседы между собою, при торговле, офенями искони придуман свой офенский, кантюжный, ламанский, аламанский или галивонский язык; это частью переиначенные русские слова: масья, мать, мастырить, делать; или им дано иное значение: косать, бить; костер, город; или вновь составленные, по русскому складу: шерсно, сукно; скрыпы, двери; пащенок, дитя; или вовсе вымышленные: юсы, деньги; воксари, дрова; Стод, Бог и пр. Грамматика русская, склад речи также. На этом же языке австрийские (белокриницкие) раскольники переписываются с нашими. Похожий, но менее полный язык есть у костромских шерстобитов, у тверских и др. нищих, где нищенство составляет промысел; также у конских барышников, из татарских и немногих цыганских слов; у воров или мазуриков в столицах (см. бабковый язык) и пр. Счет офеней: екой, взю (кокур), кумар (стрем, стема), кисера (дщера, чивак), пинда (пенда, вычур), шонда, сезюм, вондара, девера (кивера), декан. Вот образчик офенской беседы: Ропа кимать, полумеркот, рыхло закурещат ворыханы. Пора спать, полночь; скоро запоют петухи. Да позагорбил басве слемзить: астона басвинска ухалила дряботницей. Да позабыл тебе сказать: жена твоя померла весною.

Bravo! By the way, is Fenya still alive? The last crypto-reference I know off the top of my head is the "Афонский рекрут" character in "Кондуит и Швамбрания"... Does anyone know anything more? A. Shetsen 06:38, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Transliteration

Please! Lets talk at Talk:Transliteration of Russian into English! Mikkalai 22:33, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

ODP

This article appears to be appropriate for ODP Russian Language category (http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Natural/Indo-European/Slavic/Russian/).

Wikipedia - Russian Language - A collaboratively edited article covering classification,
geographic distribution, writing system, sounds, grammar, vocabulary and history of the language.

-- sabre23t 04:00, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

word counts

It would be nice to have a source and/or precise details about the following, removed from the "Vocabulary" section:

However, if you buy a CD-ROM English-Russian or Russian-English dictionary you will be able to translate about 800,000 English words into Russian and about 1,000,000 Russian words into English. Thus, one may conclude that Russian contains at least one million words.

A. Shetsen 05:21, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bulgarian the closest relative of Russian?

This is the first time I'm stumbling upon such a statement, and I'd like to see some sources. I reverted that. --i@k5 23:45, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Where spoken

Sizable Russian-speaking communities (totalling in the hundreds of thousands) also exist in North America and, to a lesser extent, in Western Europe.

Should there be extra mention of Germany? AFAIK there is a considerable number of speakers, partly due to Germany immigration policy. There are several Russian-language German newspapers, and it is not uncommon to here Russian spoken in Berlin at least. This would set the situation apart of the rest of 'Western Europe' (whatever that may be).

IPA

I've reverted the IPA back to the version that had spaces between the syllables. That is the common way syllabification is marked in phonetic dictionaries. Especially because Russian syllabification is (a) different from the English one and (b) inherits the ancient Slavonic open-syllable structure, I believe that the extra information provided by the syllables being marked should be preserved. If there are display problems with the transcriptions going across line breaks, non-breaking spaces can be used. A. Shetsen 22:10, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit difficult to spot the word breaks in such a long string of separated syllables, but I'm not strongly opposed. Definitely use non-breaking spaces in the middle of words. But wouldn't it be better to be consistent with other IPA usage?

The IPA references say to mark syllable breaks with periods, and put a vertical line at the start of stressed syllables (high for main stress, low for secondary). But I've seen people use periods to mark word breaks, so I don't know if this is a universal convention. How does this look (~~with & without~~without and with template:IPA)? —Michael Z. 22:35, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

/dʲə.ʌˌlʲe.ktə.lʌˈgʲi.tʲʆə.skʲəj ˈa.tləs ˈʀu.skə.və jə.zɨˈka/

OK. periods it can be. The stress marks are also sometimes put at the end of the syllable, but that can also be changed. A. Shetsen 23:23, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC) On IE the second one only is readable. A. Shetsen 23:24, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I was confused when I first saw the IPA stress marks, but you get used to it quickly—one more reason to remain consistent. Yup, I checked it in IE, but I wanted to see how the two looked in other browsers. I'm getting more convinced that an IE-specific stylesheet is a good way to deal with this. Have to get to work right now, but I'll write up a little proposal later. —Michael Z. 23:45, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

Why is the Russian 'р' rendered as the uvular trill in the IPA transcriptions throughout the article? Alikhtarov 22:27, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok, since nobody responded, I am going to replace all the 'ʀ's with 'r's. Alikhtarov 03:21, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Removal

I remove the following sentence:

Some Russian historians hold that the southern Russian dialect is self-sustaining, while Ukrainian philologists assert that the southern Russian dialect results from the influence of Ukrainian or the Old language of Rus'.

What is a "self-sustaining" dialect? Or, conversely, one that is not? Who are the historians and the philologists? What does influence have to do with sustainability? The sentence seems meaningless, at least until explained. A. Shetsen 05:04, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'd love to know! The southern Russian dialect is developed from the influence of the older Ukrainian language! Rusian Imperialists find this hard to take! Genyo 05:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Does that mean you can't explain your own sentence ("I'd love to know")? OK, out it goes... A. Shetsen 06:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Translation Request

I am in need of a Russian speaker to translate a quote from Cloak and Dagger. I have the quote on sound file and can send it via e-mail. Please visit my User Page if anyone is able to translate this. Thank you! -Husnock 15Jan05

"the language of abuse and invective"

Apparently, the ability to curse effectively has always been recognized as a form of art not only in certain quarters of society, but even by the more liberal-minded literati.

shouldn't that be "conservative" instead of "liberal"? conservative thought is characterized by an aversion of extremes, of which invective language is one type.

i actually think that entire sentence should be removed, unless there's a real source for it... and "conservative/liberal" has a strong political connotation today, inappropriate for use in language discussion.

Sign Language

The sign used in this region is not derived from or in any other way connected with spoken Russian so I removed it from the related languages list. Qaz 04:48, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reading of Pushkin

Ok, we now have a sound file for pronunciation of the language!

I also recorded a snippet of Pushkin that i found at History of the Russian language and put it up there by the poem, but then I realized; why stash the only proper sample of Russian that we have right now in a subcategory. How about putting it here instead? It's a tad shameless promoting one's own reading so blatantly, but I think we should really let people become aware of the Audio Template, and this is a good way to do it.

Oh, and do let me know if I mispronounced anything. My Russian can be rusty at times, especially when it comes to word stress.

From "Winter Evening" (Зимний вечер), 1825. Modern spelling. Template:Audio

Буря мглою небо кроет,
Вихри снежные крутя;
То, как зверь, она завоет,
То заплачет, как дитя,
То по кровле обветшалой
Вдруг соломой зашумит,
То, как путник запоздалый,
К нам в окошко застучит.

Tempest covers sky in haze[s],
Twisting whirls [in driven] snow,
Like a beast begins to howl,
Like a child it wails [anew].
On the worn-out roof it clamours
Suddenly upon the thatch,
Then, as though a traveller tardy
Starts to knock upon our hatch. (lit., window)

Well, since no one has objected, I'll just put it up in the History and Examples-section. Peter Isotalo 13:33, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! That's the way we are taught to read poetry at school. Although few people do it that way, it is a representative example of pronunciation except one mispronounced consonant. In the 5th line the word "обветшалой" sounded like "ответшалой".

IPA note

Hi.

The palatalized fricatives with curly tails are no longer standard IPA. They were in previous IPA publications, but the current recommendation is that palatalization be symbolized with a [j] superscript. Perhaps you should make a note concerning this? Thats it. Peace. - Ish ishwar 07:33, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Pronounciation Request

If someone can tell me how to pronounce the following text (In English phonetic thinkgs, like dictionaries have) I will be eternally grateful (I know you have a IPA guide and everything but I don't get it, yet...):
Я не знаю его имя
Thanks very much if you can tell me.

N.B. I do know what it means (well, I Babelfished it from English to Russian. It should mean: 'I do not know his name')

Roughly, it's "Yah Neh-Znayoo evo emya". It does infact mean "I do not know his name". I've recorded a small audio sample with my pronounciation. I'm a native Russian speaker, but since I've been talking mostly in English most of my life, I'm sure I have a bit of an accent now in Russian, so someone could probably do a better job: [3] (http://rapidshare.de/files/1301817/Russian-IDontKnowHisName.mp3.html) Scroll down, click "Free", wait about 30 seconds, and then the download link will come up. Rc251 04:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm not that bothered about it being completely accurate, just so long as it means and sounds vaguely like it. Once again, thank you very much! --80.229.152.246 09:51, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Latvia

"Russian speaking" vs. "Russian" minorities in the context of classroom: Mother tongue ans ethnicity are not the same. Balarusians and Ukrainians in Lithuania, Latvia and Russia speak predominantly Russian. What is more, in Belarus in the context of classsrooms the majority of parents speak against the itroduction of Belarussian language as main language of education, sad as it is. Mikkalai 17:18, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

"Russian speaking" implies "main communication language" rather then "mother tongue", I'm not sure how this is reflected by the actual statistics. Also there aren't just Balarusians and Ukrainians in the the Russian-speaking minority, but also Poles, Lithuanians and others. The term alone can be considered (passive) Russification.

Slavicist's input required

I've started a page on The verb "to be" in Indo-European languages, which is intended to place the irregular paradigms in a historical context. Left to my own devices I will no doubt eventually get round to filling in the info on a broad range of languages, but I really can't do Slavonic. It would be good if one of you who know this field could go over there, check everything, add a table of Slavonic paradigms and make any necessary comments underneath it. And then, if and when you are happy that it is useful to you, link it from the various Slavonic language sites. (My own area of competence, and the necessesity for starting the page in the first place, lie on the Germanic side!) --Doric Loon 21:07, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Millions of speakers

Where was the number 285 million speakers obtained? This would make Russian one of the top 7 most spoken languages (it is usually reported to have more or less the same number of million speakers as Portuguese)... Paulo Oliveira 11:28, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

IPA symbol for ш

Is the proper IPA for <ш> really ? I'm a native speaker of Swedish (and Russian, more or less) and to me it definetly sounds like the retroflex , which is a very common assimilation of /rs/ in Swedish. I've also studied Mandarin, which also features this sound, and like the Swedish and Russian sounds, they all sound more like one another than , which is used for the English sound ususally spelled with <sh>. Is this some sort of compromise involving phonemic analysis or something similar?

Peter ^Isotalo 17:20, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Tables

Thank goodness this article has sensibly designed tables: minimalist borders or none at all. Well done. ✈ James C. 20:52, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

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