language query

[Edward M Dumanis]

On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Alexandra Sosnowski wrote:

> Emily's question about the correctness of "ia govoriu na russkom iazyke"
> reminded me of my late father who always encouraged me to use precisely this
> form rather than "ia govoriu po-russki".  His argument was - "Sachen'ka, a kak
> by ty sprosila?"  Obviously "Na kakom iazyke vy govorite" and not "Kak vy
> govorite?"  Stories apart, as far as I know both forms are grammatically
> correct, only one is used more frequently than the other.
>
> Alexandra Sosnowski
> Dept. of German and Slavic Studies
> University of Manitoba
> Winnipeg, Canada
> (asosnow at cc.umanitoba.ca)
>

With all respect to your late father, "Na kakom iazyke Vy govorite?"
can correspond to a slightly offensive situation, when one perfectly
knows that the person to whom his question was addressed had been speaking
Russian but the reason for the question was to call attention to the
pronunciation, or to a not very intelligent style.  And in this case the
response "Ia govoriu na russkom iazyke!" is absolutely correct.  It
emphasizes the name of the language used. But normally you do not
emphasize this. So, the response "Ia govoriu po-russki" is also absolutely
correct in this situation but does not carry any emotional stress.  As you
can see from this example, your father was not correct teaching you what
form to use, but normally his approach is a good one, it just does not
work here. As you know, a very rigid mechanistic approach is not the best
way to describe the rules of any natural language including Russian.
However, many grammar rules are based on this method, and as they like to
say it in Russian, there is an exemption for any rule.  Probably, we are
dealing with one of those exemptions right now.


Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>