Slavs and nemtsy

[David Kaiser]

At 06:35 PM 9/21/00 -0400, you wrote:
>A personal sidelight: I visited Russia for a couple of weeks last year while
>studying in Brno.  Not speaking more than a few phrases of Russian and
>reading a little Cyrillic, when I got lost or stuck and appealed to some
>passerby...
>
>I'd try first Czech, then English, French and the tattered remnants of
>Italian.  If the Russian didn't speak any of these, s/he would inevitable
>reply, "No speak English."  This struck me as odd--conflating three different
>KINDS of non-Russian language into "English."  Explanation, anyone?
>
It is entirely possible you just look like what an English speaker looks
like to the average person in Russia. I noticed while living there that it
was often, though not always, possible to guess someone's nationality based
on clothing, body language, hair, etc, long before a word of any language
was heard. Perhaps those you speak with notice something about you that
just screams "I am American!" and they don't listen to your words.

Dave Kaiser
UChicago

"A shared purpose did not claim my identity.
On the contrary, it enlarged my sense of myself."
        Senator John McCain

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