pushkin's nanny
Alina Israeli
aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU
Wed Sep 15 03:36:33 UTC 2004
>Arina Rodionovna is sometimes referred to as Anna Rodionovna (I've run
>across it in a couple of essays and brief bios of Pushkin).
This is the first time I hear of it. Who were the authors, did they know
Russian well?
>Wondering if Anna can be a short form of Arina,
Never. Anna was Christ's grandmother, so to speak, and the name Anna cannot
be a diminutive for anything that does not include it to begin with (like
Marianna, for ex. and even then it wouldn't.)
> or vice versa,
The sound R does not appear in names as a diminutive element unless in a
suffix -ur-: Shura, for ex.
> or if this is simply a wrong substitution that somehow got currency in
>English.
Sounds like it.
__________________________
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Mass. Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20016
phone: (202) 885-2387
fax: (202) 885-1076
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