Ukrainian pronunciation?

[Robert De Lossa]

It's Galician pronunciation from Kresy areas and very common in the U.S.
and Canadian diaspora groups (the older groups mainly came from Galicia).
Analagous to what happens in Polish dialect speech. It definitely is _not_
considered a standard feature of contemporary literary Ukrainian. It also
does not represent incomplete learning from the older generations. The ones
that don't listen to how babus'a [babush'a] says it are the ones that treat
the sibilants as sibilants (and say [babus'a])... In the dialect of the
good little boys and girls, though, you _should_ be able to hear a
difference in the pitch of the hushings in s'omyi and shostyi.

Best, Robert De Lossa


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       "SEELangs: Slavic & E. European Languages & literatures list"
>              <SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
>Poster:       Wayles Browne <ewb2 at cornell.edu>
>Subject:      Ukrainian pronunciation?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Dear colleagues,
>At Cornell University, students can get a certain number of credits for
>being a literate speaker of a language other than English, even
>if it's a language which we don't regularly teach.
>I give tests to interested students in various Slavic languages.
>Part of the test involves reading a passage aloud in the language.
>I get some young Ukrainian speakers from the U.S. and Canada
>who pronounce soft s as in s'omyj very similar to sh as in shostyj
>(perhaps even identical to it); likewise they say soft ts as in
>misjatsja very much like ch as in chas. Should I consider this
>to be
>1) correct pronunciation of one variety of Standard Ukrainian
>or
>2) an accurate reproduction of the dialect pronunciation of
>part of the Ukrainian speech area
>or
>3) the result of incomplete learning by the younger generation?
>Comments and advice would be much appreciated.
>
>
>Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics
>Morrill Hall 321, Cornell University
>Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
>
>tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
>fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
>e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu


____________________________________________________
Robert De Lossa
Director of Publications
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-8768; fax. 617-495-8097
reply to: rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu
http://www.sabre.org/huri/