Odesan Russian
| Odesan Russian | |
|---|---|
| Region | Odesa |
| Ethnicity | Various |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
| Cyrillic script (Russian alphabet) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| IETF | ru-u-sd-ua51 |
Odesan Russian (Russian: Одесский язык, romanized: Odessky yazyk, lit. 'Odesan language' is a vernacular contact variety of the Russian language originated in and around the city of Odesa, Ukraine. It is characterized by significant substrates of Ukrainian and Yiddish, as well as Polish, with lexical borrowings French, Greek, and Turkish – coming from the interactions of the notable ethnicities of Odesan residents. It was well identified at the break of the 20th century, but its prominence gradually decreased over time, especialy in the 21st century, with its considerable influx of the ethnic Ukrainians in the city.[1]
By the Russian Empire census of 1897, Yiddish was the second largest language in Odesa, spoken by about 30% of the population.[2] In addition, Jews of Odesa were not confined to ghettos, took active part in economic and cultural life of the city, and they were much more secularized compared to the Jews in the rest of the Russian Empire. This resulted in considerable amount of contacts between the Jewish and non-Jewish common populations and may explain a significant substrate of Yiddish in Odesan Russian.[1] This fact allows linguist Anna Verschik to consider Odesan Russian to be one of the Jewish languages.[3] Lenore Grenoble remarks that scholarly linguistic analysis of Odesan Russian is scarce despite the fact that it constitutes a notable part of the Russian culture.[1]
Inna Kabanen writes that "Odesan language" with its apparent "incorrectness" has become a staple of Russian-language Jewish humor, and as such has it has become mythologized. Many "Odesan" expressions are not recognized as such by the native speakers.[4]
A 1895 sampler of Odesan speech may be found in the feuilleton "Odesan Language" by journalist Vlas Doroshevich.[5] Yevgeny Golubovsky credits Doroshevich with the invention of the term "Odesan language".[6]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Lenore Grenoble, The Sociolinguistics of Variation in Odessan Russian
- ^ Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. - a table for Odesa by language
- ^ Anna Verschik, "О русском языке евреев" [About the Russian Language of the Jews], Die Welt der Slaven XLVIII, 2003: 135-148.
- ^ Inna Kabanen, Russian Language in Odessa: Outside Perspective
- ^ s:ru:Одесский язык (Дорошевич)
- ^ Влас Дорошевич, Одесса, одесситы, 2013, Odessa, p. 6.