Old Believers, Greta Garbo, etc.

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues:

A couple days ago I raised a question about actress Greta Garbo's 
pronunciation of the Russian name Sergei, which she distinctly 
articulated as " ser-GHEE " [ s'er G'IJ ].

I just happened to think about Russian OLD-BELIEVERS (starovery,
staroobriadtsy).    If anyone out there is familiar with spellings and 
pronunciations of those conservative worshippers in our own day,
maybe you could enlighten us whether Old Believers (some or all) 
would still use old-style forms like "svia-TYI" [sv'a-TYJ] (rather than 
contemporary Russian "svia-TOY"),   "ale-KSEE" [al'e-KS'IJ]  (rather 
than contemp. Russ.  "ale-KSAY"), "an-DREE" [an-DR'IJ] (rather than 
"an-DRAY"), etc.  Including also "ser-GHEE" (rather than "ser-GAY").  
Is it possible that Miss Garbo could have picked up somewhere an 
"Old Believer" type of spelling/pronunciation...?  

By the way,    please pardon my impressionistic anglicized 
spellings (in " ... "),    along with simplified phonemic 
transcriptions ( in [ ... ] ).   My query is addressed to all readers 
of SEELANGS,   not only to linguists.

Best wishes to all,
Steven P. Hill,
University of Illinois.
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