taking poll on pronunciation

Fri Jul 2 18:22:24 UTC 2010

A thought: Anna Karenina's integrity might have been preserved by her  
first name, as the book's title is repeated more often than the text  
is read, making the seven-syllable collocation a single semantic unit.  
Sports stars (Sharapova) and professors (Shatalina) more often find  
themselves without their first names.

Bradley Gorski

On Jul 2, 2010, at 6:33 PM, Inna Caron <caron.4 at BUCKEYEMAIL.OSU.EDU>  
wrote:

> Richard Robin wrote:
>> So how did Anna Karenina survive with her name intact?
>
> Funny you should ask that. In Bernard Rose's film (1997), Anna,  
> courtesy of Sophie Marceau, asks Vronsky in a jealous fit: "Then why  
> was it delivered by Princess Soro-KIna?" (stress on "i" as opposed  
> to the second "o").
>
> Anyway, as the person responsible for the initial query I thank  
> everyone for confirming what I suspected from the beginning: a  
> general reader will be most comfortable with the pronunciation "Boro- 
> DIno." Good to know, and much easier to rhyme.
>
> IC
>
> ________________________________________
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures  
> list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] on behalf of Richard Robin  
> [rrobin at GWU.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 11:39 AM
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] taking poll on pronunciation
>
> Specialists in English phonology will correct me, but isn't the  
> English
> default stress on a four-syllable noun composed of open syllables on  
> the
> penultimate? As in
>
> Manitoba
> Colorado
> propaganda
> panorama
> emphysema
>   plus the assigned place of stress for most place names of native  
> American
> origin, regardless of language of origin.
>
> Exceptions to this tendency, like amygdala and Kalamazoo, *sound**  
> *like
> exceptions. So Sharapóva and Borodíno obey that rule.
>
> On the other hand, Americans have always had both stress and vowel  
> problems
> with Russian names containing ё, probably, as Hugh McLean said, beca 
> use of
> the transliteration, but also no doubt because word-final stress in  
> nouns
> (as in -ёв last names) is so rare in English. So Khrúshchev was  
> Khrushchóv
> only on the lips of President Kennedy and NBC's Chet Huntley.  
> Gorbachev
> defaulted to initial stress, although a few talking heads insisted on
> Gorbáchev.
>
> Finally, I would add that the hardest vocabulary item for my own  
> beginning
> students is the last name of our program's course coordinator,  
> Shatalina,
> which students insist on rhyming with Catalina, even well into  
> middle of
> first year.
>
> So how did Anna Karenina survive with her name intact?
>
> -Richard Robin
>
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Hugh McLean <hmclean at berkeley.edu>  
> wrote:
>
>> John Dunn is doubtless right that the Casanova model is responsible  
>> for
>> SharapOva, though I wonder why such English models as intErrogate,
>> regUrgitate, infUriate are ignored. In any case, the mindless  
>> provincialism
>> of American TV sports announcers is especially noticeable during the
>> Wimbledon broadcasts. Yesterday we had Berdych consistently  
>> pronounced
>> burr-ditch by the American announcers and commentators, even though  
>> the
>> official referee was doing a very good job of bear-dikh, with an  
>> excellent
>> velar fricative for the Czech ch.
>>
>> Shame! Let's infuriate!
>>
>> Hugh McLean
>>
>>> As it happens, I have of late been contemplating the rules by which
>>> English speakers assign stress to unfamiliar Russian names.  In  
>>> the instance
>>> of Borodino, two rules would seem to be relevant.
>>>
>>> The first is that final stress is generally avoided.  There are  
>>> exceptions
>>> to this with some two-syllable names, particularly if they are
>>> transliterated according to French norms (as used to be the  
>>> practice for
>>> passports and the like), but final stress does not appear to occur
>>> spontaneously with longer names.
>>>
>>> The second rule is that English prefers to avoid sequences of more  
>>> than
>>> two unstressed syllables.  With four-syllable names there are thus  
>>> two
>>> options, and while it is my impression that the second syllable is  
>>> the
>>> 'default' (if there is one), the actual assignment appears to  
>>> depend on the
>>> shape of the word.  I am sure that a previous correspondent is  
>>> correct in
>>> suggesting that BoroDIno is prompted by Italian patterns such as  
>>> ValenTIno,
>>> just as the pattern CasaNOva is probably responsible for stress  
>>> assignments
>>> of the SharaPOva type.
>>>
>>> John Dunn.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Kevin Windle <kevin.windle at ANU.EDU.AU>
>>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>>> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 13:27:33 +1000
>>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] taking poll on pronunciation
>>>
>>> In my experience as a Brit living in Australia, speakers in the UK  
>>> and
>>> Australia will pronounce BorodINo with exactly the stress  
>>> preferred in North
>>> America, i.e. primary stress on the third syllable and a weaker  
>>> one on the
>>> first. Stressing the last syllable seems unnatural to most  
>>> speakers of
>>> English. It may actually render the name unrecognizable to them,  
>>> forcing
>>> those who do know Russian to shift the stress to the penult when  
>>> speaking
>>> English. Much the same thing happens with Vladivostok. English- 
>>> speakers will
>>> generally place the stress on the penult.
>>>
>>> Kevin Windle,
>>>
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
> Director Russian Language Program
> The George Washington University
> Washington, DC 20052
> 202-994-7081
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Russkiy tekst v UTF-8
>
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