[w] for [v] in the speech of Russians speaking English

[Piper Wheeler]

I've often wondered about this, due not least to my first Russian teacher
substituting the "w" in English *only* in the word "village" (=willage).
Because I've since noticed this particular pronunciation in a number of
Russians whose English is otherwise very correct, I've thought the "w"
cropped up due to the short "ih" sound that's so foreign to native Russian
speakers. This isn't a rigorously, linguistically informed opinion, and I'm
interested to hear more reasoned answers.
It does seem, though, that the "w" appears before phonemes that are rare or
nonexistent in Russian-- so we see "wery" and "willage." I don't think any
Slavic native speaker would say woracious, Kurt Wonnegut, woodoo, or wandal
(=vandal). For example.
PW


On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Jules Levin <ameliede at earthlink.net>wrote:

> There are Russian speakers and Russian speakers.
> A clearly articulated labio-dental [v] like in English is a NGR, CGR, and
> normative pronunciation (although as I recall--and I am doing all this from
> memory), with less lip-spreading than in English.  As you move to the
> South, it weakens.  Cf. Ukr., BR, SGR.  Gorbachev retained SGR features--is
> he on UTube?--so I am sure there are many other SGR speakers of standard
> who are a little weak with the labio-dentals.  Demographically the majority
> of Russian speakers are SGR speakers for whom Standard Russian, like
> Standard English for many of us, is a mix of native and what we learned in
> school.
> Jules Levin
>
>
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