Old Believers, Greta Garbo, etc.

[Margarita Orlova]

I second the explanation wholeheartedly. It is the most complete  
treatment of the subject.

Thanks, Dr. Holdeman!

Margarita A Orlova
Graduate Student in Linguistics at SJSU
PhD in Russian


On Feb 24, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Holdeman, Jeffrey D. wrote:

> 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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