Changes in Russian pronunciation

[Paul B. Gallagher]

[Overriding Mr. Robin's private Reply-to setting and redirecting my 
reply to the list]

Richard Robin wrote:

> ... But as for the original comment, my take is that scripted movies,
> especially those made under Soviet conditions, technical and
> political, can probably not be taken as a model of everyday speech,
> just as few people in the 1930s in the US spoke like Katherine
> Hepburn.

Nor looked like her, either. ;-)

There's been an evolution in the cinematographic art that I find highly 
relevant here. In the early days, both actors and directors seemed very 
aware that they were appearing in public, and it was essential to put on 
one's best "face," including language. So we got highly artificial 
portrayals in which "all the women were strong, all the men were 
good-looking, and all the children were above average," to coin a 
phrase. All these superhuman beings dressed in evening gowns and tuxes 
and spoke in stuffy, artificial forms up to which the man in the street 
could gaze in awe and amazement. It took decades for mainstream 
cinematographers to even admit the possibility that human beings engaged 
in activities such as personal hygiene, not to mention sex, or cleaned 
their own houses. (Of course, there was an underground film industry 
that explored all forms of depravity, but that's beside the point.)

Multiply this by the Soviet propaganda machine and it's easy to see how 
movies from the 1930s would not accurately depict everyday life in Russia.

-- 
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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