Rusglish

[Alina Israeli]

Well, before calling something hideous, in this case Runglish, the  
referent, not the word, it has to be well defined. If it's just off  
the boat English, that's one thing, if we are talking about the  
borrowings — and nowadays Russian is full of English phrases —  
раскачивать лодку, мы все в одной лодке etc. well, that's a different  
story altogether. In the past phrases came from French, German,  
Polish (какая муха тебя укусила, шито белыми нитками, штука в том  
etc.), now they come from English. Some even object to individual  
words, but any linguist knows that borrowings are one of the main  
sources of vocabulary. Russians who object to киллер have no idea  
that кровать and собака are also borrowed.

Or take code-switching. This is a whole branch of linguistics. So  
which part is hideous?

On Dec 27, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote:

> Stuart Goldberg wrote:
>
>> I've always heard "Ringlish" (though here a problem arises with  
>> confusing spelling).  Rusglish is indeed hideous.
>
> For my money, the fact that it's hideous is a point in its favor. A  
> word should reflect its referent, and this one does.
>
> -- 
> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> --
> Paul B. Gallagher
> pbg translations, inc.
> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> http://pbg-translations.com
>
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Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





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