Russian Civil War: NRA DVR & old maids

[Maryna Vinarska]

John Dunn <J.Dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK> wrote:My recollection, quite possibly dimmed by the passing decades, is that both forms were used by students of both sexes and all genders in Rostov University at the start of the 1970s.  
......................It is still like this, but only with "devchionki".  

all this makes me wonder whether девчата[devchata] is a South Russianism and whether this is what causes it to be perceived as a 'working class' feature.  
.......................I don't know. The first association I have in my mind when I hear the word is that old movie "Devchata", then the rest of those movies. All "devchata" in those movies are working class. But after you mentioned South Russia, sure, I started thinking about "Tikhii Don" and "Podniataia celina"... But if in that region the word is _still_ used as neutral, and thus may be treated simply as South Russianism, it may mean the influence of Ukrainian. In Ukrainian the word "divchata" is neutral, like "devushki". I don't have smth like "Strogovy", at where I am at the moment, to check if all young girls are "devchata" or "devushki" in Siberia of at least that time period, and I can't recall it... Maybe they used to be "devushki", but only before the movie "Devchata" was released... 

Lurking behind my question, however, was a totally different issue, namely that of whether девчата[devchata] functioned as a collective plural, essentially as the feminine of ребята[rebiata].  
..............................Yes and no. It is a collective plural. It may be actually treated as the feminine of "rebiata", but the fact is that "devchata" is not used this way nowadays. Addressing students of both sexes "rebiata" is used nowadays. "Devchata" is used only humorously nowadays. So, sure, you may say "Rebiata i devchata", but the students will understand it the way that you are in a good mood today and inclined to make plenty of jokes. 
And BTW, I remember that I was surprised when I realized that girls use "guys" when addressing their female friends. Just because for me "guys" was like the masculibe for "girls". So maybe it is somewhat similar in both languages.

There are certain situations where Russian distinguishes between 'ordinary' and collective plurals (e.g. три мужика[tri muzhika] vs трое мужиков[troe muzhikov]), and I was wondering if девчата[devchata]/девчонки[devchonki] was another example of this phenomenon.
.....................I think I understand what you mean, but I am not sure...  If you mean using collective numbers like dvoe, troe, etc., it is considered to be standard to combine them only with nouns denoting male persons. As to female persons, only  cardinal numerals are considered to be acceptable: dve devchionki, tri devushki, piat' zhenshchin, etc.  Yes, nowadays you may sometimes hear "dvoe devchionok", "troe devushek", etc. too, but it is better not to follow this example because it is colloquial. The correct is still "dve devchionki", "tri devushki", etc., as far as I know... 
As to "devchata", the word belongs to the group of the plural nouns like "rebiata", "deti", "bliznecy". And these are the words that are to be combined with the collective numbers: troe devchat, piatero rebiat, dvoe bliznecov.
So you can say, "tri muzhika", but you can't say "tri rebiat" or "tri devchat", because normally these are words that don't have a similar-looking singular form, although "bliznec" is an exception.
Well, it is pretty confusing...
Regards,
Maryna Vinarska


		
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