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From: rmt51@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Accent Elimination
Message-ID: <1994Dec8.155514.4931@chemabs.uucp>
Sender: usenet@chemabs.uucp
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
References: <D0BFoI.B8J@news.cis.umn.edu> <3bvo5v$7di@uwm.edu> <3bvt16$j62@mizar.usc.edu>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 15:55:14 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <3bvt16$j62@mizar.usc.edu>,
Eric Mankin <mankin@mizar.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>One peculiarity of the Russian accent in English bewilders me:
>the substitution of the "w" sound for a "v" in words like
>"valve."  Since Russian has a perfectly good "v" of its own,
>which it actually substitutes for "w" when transliterating
>English names (i.e.,"Vashington") I'm mystified. Any thoughts?
>  Eric Mankin
>
It's a hypercorrection, probably resulting from the fact that few (if any)
native Slavic words begin with two consecutive vowels.  My late grandmother,
whose native language was Yiddish but also spoke Polish, Russian and German,
used to say "wacuum cleaner."  And my late father-in-law was trying to teach
English to an Eastern-European immigrant many years ago.  He had him say
"u---ashington, u--ashington, u-ashington," but the next step was invariably
"uVashington."
-- 
Rick Turkel         (___  _____  _  _  _  _  __     _  ___   _   _  _  ___
rturkel@freenet.columbus)oh.us|   |  \  )  |/  \     |    |   |   \__)    |
rturkel@cas.org        /      |  _| __)/   | ___)    | ___|_  |  _(  \    |
Rich or poor, it's good to have money.  Ko rano rani | u jamu pada.
