Abstract
The history of the Russian emigration to Western Europe has always been a interesting topic for scholars, and this is especially true today, when old prohibitions have been lifted. The language used by these Russian emigrants has been little studied, however, which is particularly regrettable, since such research offers immense possibilities for socio-linguists. Only very recently have some interesting studies dealing with the evolution of the language of Russian emigrants been published.1
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Notes
The following recent publications are of particular interest: Ju. N. Karaulov, ‘Nekotorye nabljudenija nad russkim jazykom Zarubež’ja, La Revue russe, 1992, No. 3, pp. 31–53; N.I. Golubeva-Monatkina, ‘Ob osobennostjax russkoj reči potomkov pervoj russkoj èmigracii vo Francii’, Russkij jazyk za rube ž om, 1993, No. 2, pp. 100–105; N.I. Golubeva-Monatkina, ‘Russkaja èmigracija o russkom jazyke, Russkaja slovesnost’, 1994, No. 3, pp. 73–7; N.I. Golubeva-Monatkina, ‘Grammatičeskie osobennosti russkoj reči potomkov èmigrantov “pervoj volny” vo Francii’, Filologičeskie nauki, 1994, No. 4, pp. 104–11; X.[H] Pfandl, ‘Russkojazyčnyj èmigrant tret’ej i četvertoj volny: neskol’ko razmyšlenij’, Russkaja reč, 1994, No. 3, pp. 70–74; X.[H] Pfandl, ‘Russkij jazyk v sovremennoj èmigracii’, Russkij jazyk za rubežom, 1994, No. 5/6, pp. 101–8.
In a previous article the present writer has examined the phenomenon known as ‘borrowing transfer’, which has been observed in the circle of Russian emigrants in France and in Francophone Belgium: N. Stangé-Zhirovova, ‘Similitude et différence des procédés de calque dans les transferts de substrat et d’emprunt entre le français et le russe’, Rapport d’activités de l’Institut de Phonétique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Nº29 (1993), pp. 85–96.
Statistics on this wave of emigration are available in G.Ja. Tarle, ‘Istorija rossijskogo zarubež’ja: terminy, principy, periodizacii’, in Kul’turnoe nasledie russkoj èmigracii. 1917–1940, Kniga pervaja (Moscow: Nasledie, 1994), pp. 16–24.
These emigrants (or at least the majority of them) are especially shocked by the new orthography, which they often refuse to adopt, by neologisms introduced by the new regime and, in general, by innovations in the Russian language which they consider to be familiar, vulgar and degenerate. In order to combat this degeneration, a Union for the defence or the purity of the Russian language was created in France at the end of the 1950s: see Golubeva-Monatkina, ‘Russkaja èmigracija’, p. 76.
H. Baetens Beardsmore, Bilingualism: Basic Principles (Clevedon: Tieto, 1982), p.46.
Changes in gender of this kind can be found with words borrowed into standard Russian: the lexemes банан (from French banane — banana), барак (from French baraque — hut) are masculine, though the equivalent words in the source language are both feminine (M. Fasmer [Vasmer], Ètimologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka (Moscow: Progress, 1986), Vol. I., pp. 120, 123).
The innovations камьон and авьон (avion — aeroplane) are so obviously integrated that we also find them in émigré literature. For an example we can quote Tèffi (the pseudonym of the Russian writer N.A. Loxvickaja (1876–1952), who wrote: ‘Приезжала миллионерша из Сан-Франциско. Спрашивала совета — купить ей маленький авион… или же большой’ (A millionaire lady came from San Francisco. She asked my advice: should she buy a small plane … or a large one?) — N.A. Tèffi, Rasskazy (Moscow: Xudožestvennaja literature, 1971), p. 15.
A list of such terms can be found in M. Duc Goninaz and O. Grabovsky, Le mot et l’idée. Révision vivante du vocabulaire russe (Paris: Ophrys, 1972), p. 140.
An example of the confusion provoked by Russian terms expressing kinship appears in Tèffi’s story ‘A Conversation’, in which two Russian émigrés in Paris try to remember the precise meaning of the words шурин and деверь but do not succeed, in spite of their joint efforts (N.A. Tèffi, Gorodok (New York: Russica Publishers, 1982), p. 41.
A. Rennikov, ‘Mogučij jazyk’, Vozroždenie (Paris), 38 (February 1955), pp. 89–90.
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Stangé-Zhirovova, N. (1999). French Loan-words in the Idiolects of Russian Immigrants in Francophone Belgium. In: Dunn, J.A. (eds) Language and Society in Post-Communist Europe. International Council for Central and East European Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14505-8_10
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