Scots/Scotch and Kozaks

[Will Ryan]

I would certainly normally defer to John's opinion on such matters. I
was speaking from memory that most Cossacks outside the Ukraine spoke
Russian with strong dialect elements. However, John's comment and a 
quick scamper around the internet and a book or two leaves me quite 
confused. I find positive statements in
reasonable sources that the Don, Kuban, Terek and Amur Cossacks
spoke/speak Russian, others that say that the Don and Kuban Cossacks
spoke a dialect which was a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian with other
elements, others again which assert that the Kuban Cossacks spoke
Ukrainian, and one which asserts that most Cossacks in the present day 
US speak Russian.
I am unable to consult my wife at present(she is sitting in an archive 
in Irkutsk) but I had a quick look at her recent book (Janet Hartley,
Russia 1762-1825, Military Power, the State and the People) which has 
quite a lot to say about Cossacks as part of the 'military estate' of 
the Russian empire in that period, especially in Siberia and the Russian 
Far East.
It is clear from this that Cossacks of whatever origin were moved around 
quite arbitrarily, and that surplus population (some state peasants ,
soldiers' sons, sons of the clergy, iamshchiki etc, probably mostly
Russians but possibly not) could be simply re-registered as
Cossacks and sent to underpopulated regions. There is not much evidence
of Ukrainian forms of names in the garrison or school records, but on
the other hand it is known that there were plenty of Ukrainian-speakers
in Siberia, and official records may have been Russianised. I suspect
that Cossacks in Siberia, even if some of them might originally have
been been Ukrainian-speaking would also have had to speak Russian, just 
to complicate the issue. Can anyone point to a serious study of the 
language issues in all this?.
Will Ryan


John Dunn wrote:
> My 20 centisimi's worth on certain topics that came up over the 
> week-end.
> 
> The adjective 'scotch' never qualifies the noun 'whiskey', only 
> 'whisky' (i.e. scotch whisky, but Irish whiskey.  Don't ask me why). 
> It also occurs in a few other phrases: scotch broth, scotch mist, 
> scotch snap, scotch pancake (the last rarely used in Scotland, where 
> the said item of food is known, logically enough, simply as a 
> pancake).  I suspect that the objection to the use of Scotch as a 
> general adjective arises from the perception that it is an Anglicism 
> and hence, more or less by definition, pejorative.  It may also be 
> connected to attempts by the Scots to rid themselves of a certain 
> image of 'Scotchness' portrayed by certain performers, such as Sir 
> Harry Lauder, in the early years of the last century.
> 
> In answer to Deborah Hoffman, there are (or were) several derogatory 
> phrases including the word Irish, e.g. Irish compliment (i.e. a 
> back-handed compliment), an Irishman's rise (an adjustment in pay 
> that turns out on close examination to amount to a reduction).  These
>  have largely fallen out of use, partly because they are offensive, 
> but also because of an increasing realisation in the age of the 
> 'Celtic tiger' that the stereotype they reproduce does not reflect 
> reality.
> 
> Will Ryan is, of course, wrong when he suggests that Yorkshiremen are
>  associated with meanness.  The Yorkshireman is throughout the known 
> universe a by-word for open-hearted generosity, as reflected in the 
> saying: See all, hear all, say nowt; Et all, sup all, pay nowt. And 
> if thi ivver does owt for nowt, do it for thisen.
> 
> I would also disagree, albeit more tentatively, with Will Ryan's 
> suggestion that the Don Cossacks were Russian-speaking.  Their 
> distinctive speech, as reproduced in, for example, Tikhij Don, and as
>  used at the beginning of the 1970s by the at least some of the older
>  generation of those who considered themselves Don Cossacks, seems to
>  me to be a heavily russified form of Ukrainian.  Presumably the 
> Cossacks of the Don and elsewhere were not required to and did not 
> define themselves (or their language) in terms of Russian and 
> Ukrainian until the implementation of the Soviet nationalities 
> policy, by which time it was probably more expedient, as well as 
> being administratively more convenient, to align their language with 
> Russian.
> 
> Finally, for an introductory course in New Moscow Russian, you may 
> care to look at:
> 
> <http://rutube.ru/tracks/823927.html?v15376c0f749e8147b6a1e8eb33fec1>
> 
> 
> 
> John Dunn.
> 
> John Dunn Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies) 
> University of Glasgow, Scotland
> 
> Address: Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6 40137 Bologna Italy Tel.: +39 
> 051/1889 8661 e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk 
> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your 
> subscription options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web 
> Interface at: http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/ 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------