[lg policy] Russia: The Runglish Cocktail

[Harold Schiffman]

The Runglish Cocktail
September 13, 2007 by aishwariya


LONDON: First there was Franglais, a mangled combination of English
and French. Then came Spanglish and subsequently Denglish, a mixure of
German and English. Don’t fret. Just start getting used to Runglish —
the the English-laced argot of young Russians — especially if you are
planning a visit to the erstwhile Soviet Union. Yes, the English
language has finally invaded the land of Pushkin as much to the horror
of their parents, Russia’s ‘Koka-Kola’ generation has developed a
vocabulary that has more to do with MTV, ‘The Daily Telegraph’
reported on Wednesday.

In fact, young Russians invite their “friendessi” (female friends) for
a “drrink” at the “Pab” by cell phone text message or while chatting
on the internet. “The internet brought a lot of words from foreign
languages. But the jargon is now moving into the press and
advertising. This is the way language develops and it is a process
that can’t be stopped,” Head of Google Russia Vladimir Dolgov was
quoted as saying.

But, Runglish — first coined by cosmonauts in 2000 to communicate with
their American counterparts on International Space Station — is
increasingly viewed by nationalists as a Western assault on the purity
of one of the world’s great languages.
“Young people always develop fashionable ways of communicating. (But)
it is Russian words used incorrectly that damages the purity of the
language not the introduction of foreign words,” Yuri Prokhorov, the
head of the Russian State Institute of Foreign Language, told the
media. It may also be mentioned that concerned by the growing
influence of English in Russia, the Kremlin had recently declared 2007
as the ‘Year of the Russian Language’.

Source: The Economic Times

http://aishwariya.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/the-runglish-cocktail/
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