Russian
IE:Slavic - Russia

Света - Дорога в аэропорт (feat. KRP)

(Sveta - Doroga v aeroport, ‘Approaching the airport’)

#crappypuns

I hate Russian stacking dolls. They’re so full of themselves.

Russian, Slavic, and the Beauty of Case

LING 1020 - Will Styler

Today’s Agenda

• Person and number labels

• Slavic Languages

• Russian

• Grammatical Relations

• The Beauty of Case

• Why translating Dostoevsky is really, really tough

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today!

• (Sorry!)

1sg? 3pl!? 2sg?!?!

WTF Linguists!!

Person and number labels

Linguistic shorthand to refer to participants in conversation

People are usually talking to somebody, about themselves and others.

First person

Refers to the speaker (and his/her group)

First person singular (1sg)

First person plural (1pl)

Second person

Referring to the listener(s)

Second person singular (2sg)

Second person singular (2pl)

Third person

Referring to somebody outside the conversation

Third person singular (3sg)

Third person plural (3pl)

Person and Number shows up everywhere!

• Pronouns

• Verb conjugations

• Case markers

• Adjectives (sometimes)

  • Changing something to match the person/number is called “agreement”

English pronouns

Spanish pronouns

English Verb forms for “Judge”

Spanish Verb forms for “Judge”

Person and number are really important!

So, when it’s marked, we linguists write it down.

• That’s why you’ll see “1sg”, “2pl”, “3sg” all over!

“Isn’t today about Russian?”

(OK, OK, let’s talk Slavic!)

Slavic

(in green)

Features of Slavic Languages

• Rich Case Systems

• Cyrillic Writing System

• Complex Consonant Clusters

Slavic Languages

• Polish
• Belorussian
• Ukrainian
• Czech
• Slovak
• Bulgarian
• Macedonian
• Sorbian
• Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian/Montenegrin
• Russian

Russian
IE:Slavic - Russia

Russian and I go way back…

Why I love Russian

The sound system is awesome

The writing system doesn’t suck

• (Yes, English, the truth hurts)

Cyrillic Writing System

Cyrillic is used in:

• Slavic - Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Ukrainian

• Non-Slavic - Abkhaz, Bashkir, Chuvash, Erzya, Kazakh, Kildin Sami, Komi, Kyrgyz, Mari, Moksha, Mongolian, Ossetic, Sakha/Yakut, Tajik, Tatar, Tuvan, Udmurt, Yuit

Transliteration

Writing a language using a non-native writing system

достопримечательности москвы

(dostoprimechatelnosti moskviy)

‘Places of interest in Moscow’

We will transliterate in this class, but we are bad people for doing it, and should feel bad

Different motion verbs depending on method of movement and return

• Ходить (hodit) - To go by walking (there and back)

• Идти (idti) - To go by walking (one way, progressive)

• Ездить (yezdit) - To go by transport (there and back)

• Ехать (yekhat) - To go by transport (one way, progressive)

Prefixes for motion verbs

• У- - “From, away”
  • ‘Я улетаю в ночь’ - “I’m flying away tonight”
  • ‘Уходить’ - “Go away”
• Об- - “Around”
  • ‘Я oблетаю’ - “I’m flying around (a city)”
  • ‘Oбходить’ - “To walk around”
• С- - “Down from”
  • ‘Я схожу с ума’ - “I’m going crazy”

Two words for “blue”

Синий

Голубой

The Case System!

“Case System?”

“Case System?”

Let’s back up for a second.

### “Jony chased Dieter”

“How do we know who did what to whom?”

Grammatical Relations

How a language marks who did what to whom

English uses word order to mark grammatical relations.

• “Jony chased Dieter”

• “Kevin waved to Niloo”

• “Niloo waved to Kevin”

• “Will ate his tofu wistfully”

… but that’s not the only way!

Morphemes

The smallest unit of a word which has meaning in a language

• Jony ate Dieter’s food pellets

• I am singing in the rain

Russian tacks morphemes onto words to mark grammatical relations

• We call these morphemes “case markers”

• Nominative Case - “The Subject”

• Accusative Case - “The Object”

Grammatical Case

Tacking morphemes onto words to indicate their role in the sentence

Russian Case Marking

• Soboka videt kochku

• dog-NOM see-3sg CAT-ACC

• “The dog saw the cat”

• Kochka videt sobaku

• cat-NOM see-3sg dog-ACC

• “The cat saw the dog”

Russian Case Marking

• Ya tebya vizhu

• I-NOM you-ACC-INF see-1sg

• “I see you”

• Ti menya videsh

• You-NOM I-ACC see-2sg

• “You see me”

If we put the sentence “Niloo hugged the turtle” into Russian, the proper cases would be…

1. Niloo - NOM, Turtle - ACC

2. Niloo - ACC, Turtle - NOM

3. Niloo - NOM, Turtle - NOM

4. Niloo - ACC, Turtle - ACC

If we put the sentence “Niloo hugged the turtle” into Russian, the proper cases would be…

A) Niloo - NOM, Turtle - ACC

2. Niloo - ACC, Turtle - NOM

3. Niloo - NOM, Turtle - NOM

4. Niloo - ACC, Turtle - ACC

Nominative and Accusative cases are really common!

German
IE:Germanic - Germany

• Der Hund beißt den Mann.

• The-NOM dog bite-3sg the-ACC man.

• ‘The dog bites the man.’

• Der Mann beißt den Hund.

• The-NOM man bite-3sg the-ACC dog.

• ‘The man bites the dog.’

English
IE:Germanic - All over

Geonosian
??? - Geonosis

So, Nominative and Accusative cases are really useful!

… but Russian has more cases!

The Russian Case System

• Nominative Case - “The Subject”

• Accusative Case - “The Direct Object”

• Dative Case - “The Indirect Object or Recipient”

• Genitive Case - “The Possessor”

• Locative Case - “The Location”

• Instrumental Case - “The Tool”

Dative Case

Marks the indirect object, or recipient of an item

Dative Case

• Kevin dayot tsveti Lisye

• Kevin-NOM give-3sg Flowers-ACC-PLUR Lisa-DAT

• “Kevin gave Lisa flowers”

• Enchiladi mne dala Niloo

• Enchilada-ACC-PLUR 1sg-DAT give-PAST-FEM Niloo-NOM

• “Niloo gave me Enchiladas”

Dative as “Goal”

• Ya pomogayu Kevinu

• 1sg-NOM help-present.1sg Kevin-DAT

• “I’m helping Kevin”

• Mne zvonil Barack Obama

• 1sg-DAT call-past.masc Barack Obama

• “Barack Obama called me”

If we put the sentence “Jony gave Dieter some pellets” into Russian, the proper cases would be…

1. Jony - ACC, Dieter - DAT, Pellets - NOM

2. Jony - NOM, Dieter - DAT, Pellets - ACC

3. Jony - NOM, Dieter - ACC, Pellets - DAT

4. Jony - DAT, Dieter - ACC, Pellets - NOM

If we put the sentence “Jony gave Dieter some pellets” into Russian, the proper cases would be…

1. Jony - ACC, Dieter - DAT, Pellets - NOM

B) Jony - NOM, Dieter - DAT, Pellets - ACC

3. Jony - NOM, Dieter - ACC, Pellets - DAT

4. Jony - DAT, Dieter - ACC, Pellets - NOM

Genitive Case

Marks possession

Genitive Case in Action

• Ya vizhu sharik Ponga

• 1sg-NOM see-1sg ball-ACC Pongo-GEN

• “I see Pongo’s ball”

• Michael Bay samaya bolshaya problema Amerikiy

• Michael Bay single-NOM large-NOM problem-NOM America-GEN

• “Michael Bay is America’s biggest problem”

If we put the sentence “Will stole the dragon’s iPad” into Russian, the proper cases would be…

1. Will - ACC, Dragon - NOM, iPad - GEN

2. Will - NOM, Dragon - GEN, iPad - ACC

3. Will - GEN, Dragon - ACC, iPad - NOM

4. Will - NOM, Dragon - ACC, iPad - GEN

Locative Case

Marks the location of events

• (this is also called the “Prepositional Case”)

Locative Case in action

• Ya zhivu v Broomfielde

• 1sg-NOM live-1sg in Broomfield-LOC

• “I live in Broomfield”

• Pongo hochet byt na dvore

• Pongo-NOM want-3sg be in outdoors-LOC

• “Pongo wants to be outside”

Instrumental Case

Marks an object being used

Instrumental Case in Action

• Niloo pishet karandashom

• Niloo-NOM write-3sg pencil-INST

• “Niloo writes with a pencil”

• Ya yem borscht so smetanoy

• 1sg-NOM eat borscht-ACC with sour.cream-INST

• “I eat borscht with sour cream”

So…

The Russian Case System

• Nominative Case - “The Subject”

• Accusative Case - “The Direct Object”

• Dative Case - “The Indirect Object or Recipient”

• Genitive Case - “The Possessor”

• Locative Case - “The Location”

• Instrumental Case - “The Tool”

(OK, relax, we’re done with the heavy stuff)

English can handle Nominative and Accusative.

• … but Dative? We just can’t even.

This is a problem for translators.

(“Crime and Punishment”)

“упокой господь мертвых, а живым еще жить!”

(Upokoy gospod myotvikh, a zhivim eshyo zhit!)

Upokoy gospod myotvikh, a zhivim eshyo zhit

• out-rest-IMP God-NOM dead-ACC, but living-DAT still to.live

• “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to live!” - Constance Garnett

• “May the Lord grant rest to the souls of the dead, and let life be the realm of the living!” - David McDuff

• “May the Lord grant rest to the dead, but the living have still got to live!” - Pevear and Volokhonsky

This isn’t just a problem for English

• “Que el Señor dé paz a los muertos y deje vivir a los vivos.” - No translation credit

  • “May God give peace to the dead and let the living live.”

Let’s go a bit deeper

Upokoy gospod myotvikh…

• out-rest-IMP God-NOM dead-ACC

• The “u-” means that the rest is “from here”.

• The verb is a command, to God.

• The dead are not “recieving” rest (dative), but they’re being rested (accusative).

• “Souls” are not mentioned

…a zhivim eshyo zhit

• but living-DAT still to.live

• The act of living is what continues

• The living are not doing the living.

  • Dative means they are “recieving” their living.

• Living isn’t obligation (“must still live”, “have to live”)

• “Let Life be the realm of the living?”

  • Really?

“упокой господь мертвых, а живым еще жить!”

• “God, take the dead away to rest, but those living still have the gift of a life to live”

• … but that’s a terrible English sentence.

Accuracy vs. Flow

• “God, take the dead away to rest, but those living still have the gift of a life to live” - Will

• “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to live!” - Garnett

• “May the Lord grant rest to the dead, but the living have still got to live!” - Pevear and Volokhonsky

Translation is an art, not a science

• You can’t capture Russian nuance in English, and vice versa

• All translations “favor” either the original or new language

  • Learn which you prefer, and use it.

“All translations are well-meaning lies”

Wrapping up!

• Person and number is really important in language

• The Cyrillic writing system doesn’t suck.

• Grammatical Relations mark who did what to whom

• Case is important, and will come up over and over

• Russian has an awesome case system

• Translation is really hard.

In Recitation:

Working with Case!

Next time: Niloo presents ‘Languages of Iran’

No reading

Thank you!

http://savethevowels.org/world/slides/lotw_5.html