Old Believers, Greta Garbo, etc.

[Holdeman, Jeffrey D.]

Dear Prof. Hill,

I don't think we really need to bring Old Believers into this (as much 
as I would like to).

My first guess is that the -GIJ pronunciation might just be Garbo's 
perception (or maybe even yours?) of the rising of stressed -é- between 
two soft consonants: IPA [e], perceptually between [E] (Eng. eh) and 
[i] (Eng. ee).  In some speakers it rises enough to be far enough even 
from [e] to be perceived as [i].

Some Russian names have doublet forms: Russian (secular) Sergéi and 
Slavonic (church/calendrical) Sérgii (compare Tolstoy's "Otets Sergii", 
not Sergei).  We also have Alekséi/Aléksii and Andréi/Ándrii.  Old 
Believers have their baptismal names from the church calendar, but they 
(at least those Old Believers in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and the US 
with whom I work) usually use secular forms (and usually diminutives of 
those) in daily use.  (And some--especially in the US--are given 
secular names that have little or nothing to do with their baptismal 
names.)  If Garbo were using a church form (which would be strange), 
then the stress would be on the first syllable, not on the second 
(ser-GIJ), as you have indicated.

Jeff

Dr. Jeffrey D. Holdeman
Indiana University, Bloomington
jeffhold at indiana.edu



> Date:    Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:05:33 -0600
> From:    Prof Steven P Hill <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU>
> Subject: Old Believers, Greta Garbo, etc.
>
> 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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