Languages in Contact || THE ISOLATED RUSSIAN DIALECTAL SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS LANGUAGES IN SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST

THE ISOLATED RUSSIAN DIALECTAL SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS LANGUAGES INSIBERIA AND THE FAR EASTAuthor(s): ALEKSANDR KRASOVICKY and CHRISTIAN SAPPOKSource: Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, Vol. 28, Languages in Contact (2000), pp. 199-207Published by: Editions Rodopi B.V.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40997165 .

Accessed: 02/06/2014 02:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Editions Rodopi B.V. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studies in Slavicand General Linguistics.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 85.64.181.216 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 02:42:20 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=rodopi

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40997165?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Languages in Contact, edited by D.G. Gilbers, J. Nerbonne, and J. Schaeken (= Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, vol. 28), 199-207. Amsterdam - Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000.

THE ISOLATED RUSSIAN DIALECTAL SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS LANGUAGES IN SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST

ALEKSANDR KRASOVICKY AND CHRISTIAN SAPPOK

The language varieties we are presenting here have their historical origin in a mi- gration process taking place in the early 17th century. From that time on these language communities have been isolated from the Russian homeland, but in intense contact with several non-Russian languages, mainly Even. Before the linguistic facts (mostly phonemic) are presented indicating far-reaching contact between Russian and Tungus languages, a short overview of the present situation shall be given, restricted to the following information: - Do we have names for these isolated communities that will make it possible

to ask for more detailed information and not to have them mixed with other communities of Russian origin?

- Do we have official statistics counting the number of the members of these communities, which are informative about their societies and the tendencies of development?

- The third aim is to give a first subjective auditory impression that makes it possible to discriminate the specific features of the varieties as compared to standard Russian and to Russian dialects in the proper sense. This auditory demonstration can be heard on the Internet:

http^/www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/LiLab/Landeskunde

At the beginning a look at Picture 1 will be helpful, a map prepared by Ozerova and Petrova (1979), depicting the situation as it was a hundred years ago but still valid. Old settlers (starozily) with a strong influence from Tungus are presented as Nrs. 13, 14, 15, and 16. The first group, Nr. 13, are the Russkoustincy on the up- per Indigirka River, settling in Russkoye Ust'ye (intermediately called Poljarnyj) and in Chokurdakh. Farther East there are the Kolymchane (Nr. 14) on the Kolyma River, now to be found mostly in Pokhodsk. Bogoraz (1901) describes their sladkojazycie, i. e. their replacing Ixl and IV by the glide /j/. Nr. 15 is farther to the East, in the Chukotka district, in a settlement called Markovo, where the Markovcy (or, as they call themselves now, the Cuvancy 'Chuvans') are living. Nr. 16, the Kamchadals, is to be found in several places, not only on the Kam-



200 ALEXANDR KRASOVICKY AND CHRISTIAN SAPPOK

chatka peninsula, but also on the shore of the Okhotsk Sea, in Okhotsk, Tauysk, and in Gizhiga.

nojiexH, 3 - ropiOHLi, 4 - caflHH, 5 - Memepa, 6 - oahohbopijh, b A3HaTCKoa nacTH Pocchh: 7 - ypuibmt, * - nojiflKH, 9 -

KaMeHinHKH, 10 - ceaieöcKHe, 11 - HKyTHHe, 12 - aaTyiiapeH- CKiie KpecTbHHe, 13 - pyccKoycTiraiíM, U - KOJiuwriaHe, 1$ -

MapKOBiiw, 16 - KaMiaffajiw;

Picture 1 is from Ozerova and Petrova 1979, showing the places where old Russian settlers (starozily) were to be found at about 1900.

The first statistical information on Russian colonists was given by Ataman Kol'co when he visited Moscow in 1622. The data he reported to Czar Mikhail Romanov were approximate; he spoke of 4,000 Cossacks, 1,000 people of the transporting business (jamsciki), and so on. As to women, he continues (cited after Sceglov 1893), they are very few, so that Russian Cossacks and traders are forced to choose foreign partners, Tatar, Tungus and others. Patriarch Filaret criticizes this practice, not because of the foreign origin, but because of those women not being baptized. This is interesting information as to the ethnic mixture of standard families. The father was, as a rule, of Slavic origin and of orthodox faith, the mother non-Russian and non-orthodox.

What is the statistical situation today? The last census was done in 1989, cf. Goskomstat Rossii 1992, where one can find quantitative information about the Kamchadals and the Chuvans, mostly qualified as 'Russian speaking'. So the old Russian settlers have inherited the names of non-Russian ethnic unities which have almost disappeared. Kamchadals are russified Itelmens, Chuvans are russi-



THE RUSSIAN DIALECT SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS 20 1

fied Yukagirs. There is no statistical information available as to the Kolymchane and the Russkoustincy.

In June 1997 we made an expedition to Russkoye Ust'ye, and we made about 20 hours of high quality tape recordings. Samples of the material, together with background information, are presented on our homepage (address above), and an auditory anthology will come out in the near future. The first auditory impression will reveal a striking intonation, possibly stemming from the North Russian dialects spoken by some of the forefathers of the present community (cf. Kasatkina 1996). This intonation can be described as an extra high rise. This contour could be attributed to an extra degree of emotionality, but evidently this is not the case, as was shown elsewhere, cf. Sappok 1999 with an interpretation of this and nu- merous other examples as verification and explanation. Speakers of an oral type of culture tend not to focus on the informational content of their utterances to op- pose old and new. They tend to emphasize things that are regarded as common knowledge to all partners within the discourse situation.

We now come to a more detailed analysis of the phoneme system of the Russ- koustincy. It may be assumed that the language of Russkoye Ust'ye was strongly affected by the language of the Even, who were the nearest neighbors of Russian colonists there. The focus of our research was the consonantal system, which went through considerable modification. The following most significant features distinguish the consonantal system óf Russkoye Ust'ye from itp mother (Arkhan- gel'sk) dialect: h

- Destruction of the original distribution of soft and hard consonants and the merging of phonemes - members of contrastive sets. This type of modification covers labials and trills.

- Regular replacements of consonants by those of an adjacent place of articulation and displacement of old distinctive features. Sibilants and hushing fricatives are involved in this process.

- Collapse of some 'soft-hard' distinctions as a result of merger with Even consonants and restructuring of phonological relations as a consequence of this phonetic change. For example, the transition [f] -> [c] destroyed the correlation IXl - IVI since the right member of the phonological opposition merged with another phoneme.

There were presumably 1 1 contrastive sets in the mother dialect based on the feature 'soft-hard' (Table 1).

Pol I /p/ I Nl I Imi I /n/ I l'l I I si I IzJ I IM I lai I It/ XXX X X X X X X X X

/b7 I /p7 1 /v7 1 /m7 [ /n'/ 1 IVI | /s'/ 1 /z7 | IVI ' /dV 1 If I Table 1. Oppositions of hard and soft phonemes in the mother dialect.




As a result of various sound changes in the language of Russkoye Ust'ye nine of the eleven sets (leaving only the two pairs III - IVI and Ini - In' I) were either lost or they acquired new distinctive features. Hereby one of the basic Russian phonological categories - pairing of soft and hard phonemes - was almost destroyed.

Labials and trills

Sound changes: [C] -> [C] (before HI) [C] -> [C] (in final and prevocalic positions, except for HI)

Phonemic change: /C7 ICI

'/ ICI

Phonological contrast lost: 'soft-hard' Phonological contrast acquired: none

For the labials and trills this process resulted in the merger of phonemes opposed as soft and hard. The mother dialect should have 4 pairs of labials: /p - p7, /b -

bV, /v - vV, /m - m7 and a pair of trills /r - r7. They were opposed in final position (except for M - /v7 that apparently were not presented in this position) and in four prevocalic positions (Table 2) - before phonemes /a/, loi, lui and /il (the phoneme III is presented by the allophone [i] after hard consonants and by the allophone [i] in the rest of the positions): [tsep] 'beater' - [tsep'] 'chain', [spor] 'ar- gument' - [spor'] 'argue (imperai.)', [zabíf] 'to forget' - [zab'it] 'to bang down', [zavál] 'abatis' - [zav'ál] 'miff off , [mal] 'small' - [m'al] 'creased', [post] 'post' -

[p'os] 'dog', [góri] 'hills' - [gor'it] 'burns', [v'éru] 'credence (ace.)' - [v'ér'u] 'I believe'.

["CÃ CO CU Ci I I I I I

PC'A CO CU CI 1 Table 2. The system of oppositions of labials and trills, based on the distinctive feature 'soft-hard', in the mother dialect.

In the language of RU soft labials and trills were replaced in final position by their hard counterparts: [glup'] 'depth' -> [glup], [dver'] 'door' -> [dver]. This sound shift destroyed one of the two positions of maximum differentiation for the two groups of the consonants. At once the language began eliminating a number of combinations which conflicted with the interfering (i.e. Even) phonetic system. The process of elimination of inadmissible combinations covered all the four prevocalic positions (Table 3). As a result soft labials and trills could no longer stand



THE RUSSIAN DIALECT SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS 203

before /a/, loi and lui. This determined transitions like [upr'áfka] -> [uprájka], 'rig, span', [k mór'u] -> [k móni] 'to the sea', [vir'ófka] -> [virófka] 'cord', [teb'á] -> [tebá] 'you (ace.)'.

Table 3. Lost (in crossed squares) and remaining combinations of labials and trills with vowels in the language of Russkoye Ust'ye.

Of the two combinations - Ci and CI - the choice was to the advantage of the latter, that was apparently a consequence of the [i] - [i] merger and the displacement of [i]: [mi] -» [m'i] 'we', [lápi] -» [láp'i] 'feet, paws', [golubie] -> [golub'ie] 'blue (pl.)', [ríba] -* [r'íba] 'fish'. Hereby the language lost all of the distinctions in which soft and hard labials and trills were opposed. The feature 'soft-hard' stopped being phonologically relevant and turned to be a context- sensitive characteristic in these two groups of the consonants. A new phoneme which emerged in accordance with each of the correlative pairs is presented by soft allophones before front vowels and by hard allophones in the rest of the positions.

Stops It - 17 and /d - dV

Sound change: [t"]1 -> [Tf] [d"] -> [dg]

Phonemic change: IVI -> / tJV /dV -► /äy

Phonological contrast lost: 'soft-hard' Phonological contrast acquired: 'stops-affricates'

Sometimes a soft consonant could find a counterpart in the Even language. Then it acquired a new phonological quality and formed a new opposition with its cor- relate based on another phonological characteristic. This type of modification covers stops IM - IVI and Idi - /d'/.

In the language ofRusskoye Ust'ye palatal stops [t"] and [d"] were replaced by palatal affricates [tfl and [d3]. To date palatal [t"] and [d"] occur in the Ar- khangelsk dialects as allophones of IM and Idi (Russkie narodnye govory 1991: 198), and it is likely that they were even more common earlier. It may be also assumed that originally the soft members in each pair had more or less distinctive hushing fricative element in the release. According to the Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language (Dialektologiceshij atlas 1986, map 56) this type of articu-

1 The double apostroph in our paper is used to denote a palatal (not a palatalized) sound, as is common practice in Russian phonetics.




lation of soft stops is presented in small districts diffused all over the Russian speaking territory. The nearest counterpart of this type of [f] in the Even jystem is palatal [Tf] as well as palatal [cÇ] is nearest to [d"]. The Even sounds [tj] and [cÇ] may be characterized as affricates or "close to affricates" (Jazyki narodov SSSR 1968: 90). However, the difference between the Russian soft stops and the Even aftricates was not significant enough to become an obstacle to the sound shifts [f '] -> [Tf] and [d"] -> [eg] (Tables 4 and 5).

Parent form Derived form 3'it"el'i 'inhabitants' îFfiTi do p'it"i 'till five' do p'iílí t"ánut

' drag (3rd pers.pl.)' ffànut karf'ína 'picture' karFfína f'ur'má ^jaiT tlur'má fóplaj 'warm' Ffóplaj otm'ét"it" 'to celebrate' otnTeQiii 3'it" 'to live' 3 'iti t " é x n ' i k a 'mechanism' Fféxn'ika

Table 4. The [f] -> [tfl transition.

Parent form Derived form rod"ít'il'i 'parents' roçTîflil'i molod"ój 'young people' m o 1 o d 5 ó J xod"íli 'walked' xodTvli ugod"ít' 'to win favour' u g 0 d 5 jjì p o b ' e d " í 1 'overcame' pob'jscT^íl d"ád"a 'uncle' (T^ádâ I' u d " m ' í I 'people (instr.)' | 1' u d 3 m ' í

Table 5. The [d"] -> [(Í3] transition.

The result of the [t"] -> [tj] transition concurs wjtìi the original phoneme Ici which was also presented by the palatal affricate [tj]: [tjásto] 'often', [tjïstaja] 'clean], [Tfu3Ój] 'alien', [tjórnij] 'black', [notj] 'night', [pé tjlca] 'stove'. The [d"] -^ [d3] transition gave a new phoneme AÍ3/ which did not exist in the mother dialect. The phonological opposition 'soft-hard' was displaced by the opposition 'stops-affricates'.

Fricatives /s/ - /s7 and /z/ - /z7 Sound change: [s"] -+ [p]

[s] -> LH




[z"]-> [3"] [z] -> [3]

Phonemic change: /s7 -» /JV /zV -► /3/

Phonological contrast lost: 'soft-hard' Phonological contrast acquired: 'alveolar - post-alveolar'

There is a strong tendency in the language of Russkoye Ust'ye to replace soft (palatal) sibilants [s"], [z"] with hushing sounds, soft and hard according to the position. The general rule of this sound change is the following: soft hushing sounds are pronounced instead of soft sibilants if the position provides palatalization (for example before front vowels or palatal consonants); hard hushing sounds may appear in accordance with soft sibilants in positions which do not support palatalization (for example before back vowels or in final position). Table 5 pres- ents transitions [s"] -> |J'] and [z"] -> [3"].

Parent form Derived form pés"enka 'song' péf'enka s"ín'ij 'blue' í"ín'i,j p'ís"ma 'letters' p'íf "ma z"imá 'winter' 5

" i m á z"el'ón9j 'green' ^''el'ónaj pr'iv'ez"ón9j | 'brought' [ p r ' i v ' e 3 ó n 9 j Table 6. Examples of the phonetic change [s"] -> [f '], [z"] -* [3"].

It should be pointed out that in a number of Russian dialects phonemes /s V and /zV have allophones with lisping or even more or less distinctive hushing quality (Dialectologiceskij atlas 1986, map 56). Sound systems with lisping or hushing allophones for /s V and /zV are found all over the Russian speaking territory and in the Arkhangelsk region in particular (Russkie narodnye govory 1991: 36-39). On the other side the only Even sibilant I si is also presented by the lisping allophone {Jazyki mira 1997: 286). Hence this feature in the language of Russkoye Ust'ye could be inherited from the mother dialect and supported by the affecting system. Palatal [["] and [3"] represent soft members of oppositions I si - Is' I and Izl - /zV. These oppositions were realized in prevocalic positions and voiceless consonants were also opposed in final position (normally voiced consonants do not occur there): [sáxar] 'sugar' - [f'ádu] 'sit (1st pers. sing.)', [3árko] 'hot' - b"ábko] 'chilly', [nos] 'nose' - [brof] 'drop (imperai.)'. On the contrary, the sound shift ts"] -» Lf] and [z"] -> [3] (Table 7) may be interpreted neither as an old, original feature, nor as a result of an internal self-supporting process since this change comes in conflict with one of the most significant categories of the Russian phonological system - correlation of soft and hard consonants.




Parent form Derived form pos"ólak 'township' pojolak p o - f s

" á k o m u in any way' po-fjákomu unós"at 'they take away un ó J at v'ernús" 'will come back' v ' e r n ú j* privóz"at 'they bring' privÓ39t vz"alá 'took, past, fern. '

( v ) 3 a 1 á práz"nik 'holiday' ' prá3nik

Table 7. Examples of the phonetic change [s"] -► [f], [z"] -> [3].

It is quite evident that the change [s"] -> [fl and [z"] -+ [3] (with [f] and [3"] as an intermediate step, i. e. [z"] -> [f] -> [fl and [z"] -> [3"] -> [3]) was initiated by the Even system, which did not demand positions of differentiation for soft and hard phonemes. Soft [["] and [3"] were displaced if they were not supported by the context (by front vowels for example). The 'new' LT']/Lf] and fo'7[3] merged with the original LT']/[J] ^d [3"M3] that represented the phonemes /JV and /y respectively. These two phonemes did not participate in the pairing of soft and hard phonemes since soft and hard hushing sounds did not occur in the same context. After the phoneme /s7 merged with /JV and /z'/ merged with A3/ the phonological contrast between hard and soft sibilants was lost. It was replaced by a contrast based on the feature 'place of articulation'. Alveolar /s/, Izl formed oppositions with post-alveolar /JV, A5/: /s/ - /J7 and 111 - I**J.

Conclusion

Durable contacts between the Russian and the Even languages resulted in considerable modification of the phonological system in the language of Russkoye Ust'ye. Ignoring the two pairs IV - IVI and Ini - /nV, the contrastive sets based on the feature 'soft-hard' were destroyed. The opposed phonemes either merged or acquired new distinctive features, and formed new contrastive sets. The correlation of hard and soft consonants is one of the highly marked features in Russian. It covers the majority of Russian consonants. Regular alternations and neutraliza- tions of hard and soft consonants make the bond between members in each set particularly strong.

The fact that the language of Russian colonists underwent such fundamental changes should be interpreted as evidence of the strong cultural influence of the neighboring Even population over the Russian community at the mouth of the Indigirka.

Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences Ruhr Universität Bochum




REFERENCES

Bogoraz, V.G. 1 90 1 Oblastnoj slovar ' kolymskago russkago narecija. Sankt-Peterburg.

Dialektologiceskij atlas 1986 Dialektologiceskij atlas russkogo jazyka. Fonetika. Moskva.

Goskomstat Rossii 1 992 Cislennost '

naselenija otdel 'nyx etniceskix grupp. Moskva. Jazyki mira

1997 Jazyki mira. Mongolskie. jazyki. Tunguso-man'czurskie jazyki. Japons kij jazyk. Korejskij iazyk. Moskva.

Jazyki narodov SSSR 1968 Jazyki narodov SSSR. 5: Mongolskie, tunguso-man'czurskie i paleoaziatskie ja-

zyki. Leningrad. Kasatkina, R.F.

1996 "Prosodija russkix govorov", in: T.M. Nikolaeva (ed.), Prosodiceskij stroj rus- skoj redi, 207-235. Moskva.

Ozerova, G.N., and T.M. Petrova 1979 "O kartografirovanii grupp russkogo naroda na naõalo XX v.", Sovetskaja ètno-

graflja 1979/1, 72-79. Russkie narodnye govory

1991 Russkie narodnye govory. Zvucascaja xrestomatija. Severnorusskie govory. Moskva-Bochum.

Sappok, Ch. 1999 "Beobachtungen zur Intonation und Informationsstruktur in russischen Dia-

lekttexten", in: R. Rathmayr and W. Weitlaner (eds.), Slavistische Linguistik 1998, 233-256. München.

Sõeglov, I.V. 1 893 Xronologiceskij perecen

' vaznejsix dannyx iz istorii Sibiri ( 1 032- 1 882). Surgut.



Documents

Languages in Contact || THE ISOLATED RUSSIAN DIALECTAL SYSTEM IN CONTACT WITH TUNGUS LANGUAGES IN SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST