Russian and Ukrainian Accents

Russian is perhaps the most important of the Slavic languages, in that it is spoken
by some 215 million people in Russia, of whom some 61 million people speak it as
their second language.
The first written records in Old Russian, presumably the language from which the
East Slavic languages Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian all evolved, date from
around 1000 C.E. They are written in the alphabet invented by the Orthodox Greek
Christian missionaries Cyril and Methodius, which is based largely on the Greek
alphabet. They devised it in order to write in Old Church Slavonic, which existed
alongside Old Russian, and which is the liturgical language of the Slavonic Orthodox
churches.
The differentiation of Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian into separate languages
parallels the course of history and the political separation of the countries, which
suffered under Lithuanian or Polish domination. All these areas were later reunited,
not happily, under the Romanov czars and in the Soviet Union.
Russian was standardized in the 18th century under the westernizing Peter the
Great. It is still written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in order to know the accurate
pronunciation of Russian words it is necessary to read this alphabet. The
transliteration of Russian words into the Roman alphabet is often problematic. For
instance, the Cyrillic letter e is usually transliterated as e, when in fact it stands
for the sound of the diphthong yaw, sometimes spelled yo. Among other things
this Russian letter tells the reader that the syllable containing it is always stressed.
For people who do not know what the letter is in the original Cyrillic, pronunciation
of Russian words can be inaccurate. For example, most English speakers would
pronounce the name of the battleship in Sergei Eisensteins 1925 film The
Battleship Potemkin (and of the prince for whom the ship is named) pretty much as
it appears in the Roman alphabet. In fact, in Cyrillic it contains the letter and is
therefore pronounced PA tyawm kin. The Cyrillic letter e represents the
diphthong ye and is therefore not in any case a pure vowel in the Cyrillic system,
despite its appearance in transliteration, so that the usual mispronunciation of
Prince Potemkins name is wrong on two counts.
Leningrad, Moscow and the various rural areas all have their own accents. The
major plays of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) take place in the Russian
provinces; provincial accents are used for certain characters in Russian productions.
Incidentally, Chekhovs house in Moscow is a wonderful museum: the first floor
recreates the rooms as they were when he and his family lived in them, while the
second floor is devoted to exhibitions about Stanislavskys original Moscow Art
Theatre productions of his plays, and the third floor is a small working theatre. The
three Prozoroff sisters dream of going to Moscow, where there is life and laughter,
but Vershinin calls it a gloomy city, and, indeed, Moscow has a dual aspect: On the
one hand, it is a city of light set on a broad river lined with pleasant green parks,
and on the other, it is overwhelmed by the awe-inspiring brooding fortress of the
Kremlin, whose high walls surrounding a complex of cathedrals and government

palaces, with Lenins impressive tomb at its base in Red Square, bespeak imperial
power.
The other major Russian city is St. Petersburg (Leningrad in Soviet days), built on
the Neva River (nyi vA) in the early 18th century by Peter the Great, and renowned
for its splendid architecture and broad avenues, such as the Nevsky Prospekt (nyef
ski: pro spyekt), famous in the books of Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In one of
the gloomiest of the citys numerous shaded canals the mad mystic monk Rasputin,
who held the Czarina in his thrall, was drowned in 1916, having been first poisoned,
and then shot by his aristocratic assassins. Near St. Petersburg, Pyetrodvoryets,
Peters palace (destroyed by the retreating Germans in World War Two, and rebuilt
and restored under the Soviets), is a monument to the folly and luxury of the czars,
heedless of the vast poverty and misery of their empire. The Russian Revolution of
1917 began in St. Petersburg with the siege of the Winter Palace, now the
Hermitage museum.
The Russian court spoke French; the czars daughters had English and French tutors,
and spoke both languages extremely well. The famous Anna Anderson, now proved
by DNA testing to have been an imposter, passed herself off as the Czars youngest
daughter Anastasia, who supposedly had survived the execution of her family by
the Bolsheviks. To me, she has the distinctly Polish accent of the factory worker she
is actually supposed to have been; anyway, there is nothing particularly Russian
about her accent, no palatalized consonants, etc. In any case, the real Anastasia
might have had a better accent than this woman, heard speaking English in the PBS
Nova documentary Anastasia Dead or Alive? (1995), which contains good examples
of Russian accents.
For more examples of Russian accents listen to Michael Chekhov, a great actor,
acting teacher and theorist and the playwright Anton Chekhovs nephew, as the
psychiatrist in Hitchcocks Spellbound (1945) and to the great ballet dancer Mikhail
Baryshnikov in White Nights (1985). Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man (1941) and
many other films is not to be missed, with her heavy Russian accent, as heavy as
Rudolf Nureyevs in Valentino (1977). Yul Brynner in The King and I (1956) does not
even try to do a Siamese accent, but sticks, as always, with his medium Russian
accent. Akim Tamiroff appears in dozens of Hollywood films; notable is his Oscarnominated performance in The General Dies at Dawn (1936) and For Whom the Bell
Tolls (1943). Incidentally, he studied with Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre.

A QUICK REFERENCE
1) Palatalize d, 1, n, and t, especially before the vowels i and e. See
below for an explanation.
2) Do a Russian L.
3) Substitute a soft KH for initial h.
4) Substitute the pure vowel aw for the diphthong O.
5) Substitute v for initial w, or pronounce w correctly: your choice:
6) For TH/th substitute d/t or v/f.
7) Substitute the intermediate vowel i: for both i and ee.

HOW TO DO A RUSSIAN ACCENT

(1)Position of the Vocal Apparatus

The position of the tongue is extremely important in doing a Russian accent. The
lips are slightly forward, and the tongue is often forward and up towards the upper,
or hard, palate (the roof of the mouth). The dark Russian I (as opposed to the
heavy L,; see below), is one of the keys to this accent: when articulating the I
the tip of the tongue should be up and forward,and should not touch the back of the
upper front teeth. Considering the information which follows, this general
positioning of the tongue makes a great deal of sense.

(2)The Most Important Sounds

Consonants

One of the phenomena which give the Russian accent its character and its music
and rhythm is that long vowels tend to be really long in stressed syllables, and short
vowels really short, almost schwas in fact, in unstressed syllables. Especially
important is the phenomenon known as palatalization, which is something quite
particular to Russian accents. Palatalization amounts to the insertion of the semivowel y after a consonant, as in Russian Nyet (No). This ubiquitous phenomenon
in Russian phonetics tends to be carried over into English, making words like duke
and newspaper easy to say in their palatalized versions, and intruding into words
like article, which becomes archikel or artyikel.
The consonants which are regularly palatalized in Russian are d, l, n, and t.
These consonants, in other words, are pronounced with the tongue near the hard
upper palate, with a glide into the y semi-vowel. The consonants ch, zh, and
ts are not palatalized when pronounced with y; the tongue is not raised to the
roof of the mouth when they are articulated. The consonants b, d, f, k, m,
n, p, t, v and z are substantially as they are in English, but they have
harder and softer versions than the English ones. The soft versions are pronounced
with the lips slightly parted. The soft version is always the one heard when
palatalized.
If you look at the practice exercises you will see how many consonants come
together in clusters, an important feature of the Russian language. Although some
of the consonants are preserved in spelling, they are dropped in pronunciation. Such
consonant clusters as occur regularly in English therefore present no problems to
the Russian speaker learning English. The clusters common to both languages are
bl gl, kl, pl, br, gr, kr, pr, tr, shr, st, and str. There are
consonant clusters in Russian which do not exist in English, such as zhr and
shch as in Khrushchev. The only time this combination occurs in English is
between two words: rush chair, flush cheek.

Final voiced consonants become voiceless (v shifts to f, etc.) For example:

Romanov (the Czars family name) is pronounced re mAn ef. The second
syllable is stressed.

h: There is no h in Russian. Substitute a soft version of the final sound in Scottish

loch, a sound which does exist in Russian. Its phonetic symbol is kh. In Russian
itself the h is often replaced by a g, so the name of Shakespeares play is
Gamlet.

r: r is frontally trilled (one flap) in initial position, and often much like an American
R in the middle of a word as in the authors name Turgenev (TooR gen yef).

L and l: The L is said with the tongue thickened slightly and with its tip

touching the back of the upper front teeth and the blade forward. You should feel its
point of resonance where the vowel o as in British RP not resonates. The l is
palatalized when soft, and should resonate where the vowel e resonates. Practice
these sounds by first saying the vowels, then saying L and l.

TH and th: There is no voiced TH in Russian and no voiceless th. Substitute v

and f for voiced and voiceless, or d and t. Not often heard is the substitution
of z and s. Say vis fing or dis ting for this thing.

v: Sometimes, although initial v exists in Russian, there is an overcompensatory

tendency to substitute an initial w in a very heavy Russian accent, so very is

pronounced we ree. Often v substitutes for initial w in words like what, where,
and when.

Vowels and Diphthongs

In Russian, vowels have short and long versions, depending on whether they are
stressed or unstressed. The system has: A, e, i: , o, u (oo). Notice that i is
lengthened. In Russian a short version of i is palatalized. The palatalized vowels,
called soft vowels, are really diphthongs with the semi-vowel y: ya, ye, yaw (the
sound aw is spelled o), yu (yoo), yi (as in Russian nichevo, meaning nothing,
pronounced nyi: chye vaw). This particular Russian sound of yi, with the tongue
raised to the roof of the mouth, does not exist natively in English, but is often heard
in a Russian accent.

A: A is sounded as in father.
e: The letter e in the Cyrillic alphabet represents the diphthong, or palatalized

vowel, ye as in yes. This is the sound one sometimes hears in words like that in a
heavy Russian accent: dyet or even dyets, with the final t dentalized; one also
hears the a in words like that and hat sounded like the A in father: dAt, khAt. On
the other hand, one also hears this vowel correctly pronounced, or pronounced in
words with an e, such as let, pronounced lat. Lets go can be alternatively lyets
gaw or lats gaw (The word let, pronounced lyet, means year in Russian,
incidentally, but the more usual word for year is god.)

i and ee The Russian unpalatalized i is the intermediate vowel i: between the

longer ee in meet and the shorter vowel i in bit. The tongue is in a position
literally part of the way between those two vowels.

o: This vowel does not exist in Russian. The usual substitutions are either o or
aw. Practice words: work, first, burn, turn, learn, churn, earn

O: The diphthong O does not exist in Russian. The letter o in the Cyrillic

alphabet represents the sound of the pure vowel aw in law, when stressed; when
unstressed it represents the sound of A in father. In a Russian accent in English it
is often the aw that is substituted for the O diphthong in words like go and
home: gaw khawm, or KHawm.

w: This semi-vowel is often pronounced correctly in initial position. However, v

often substitutes for w.

Stress

Stress patterns are random in the Russian language; therefore not a problem in
learning English.

Pitch

There is a rising intonation pattern in the Russian declarative sentence until the end
of the sentence, which ends on a falling tone. In a question there is often a falling
tone at the end, where we would use a rising tone in English:
But
why
not?

Different Russian Accents

For a light Russian accent, use the Russian versions of r and R and the vowel
and diphthong substitutions and follow the advice under Pitch.
For a heavier accent add to this the substitution of kh for h and substitutions for
TH and th and v for w.
For a really heavy accent add to this the full use of palatalization.

Practice

Note: Use the translation to practice the accent in English. Say the Russian, and
without changing the position of the vocal apparatus immediately say the English.
These sentences have been transliterated from the Cyrillic alphabet.

Ya khochu govorit po-Russki.

Literal translation: I want speak in-Russian.

Translation: I want to speak Russian.

Phonetic pronunciation: yA khaw choo gA vo reet po roo skee Possible Pitch
Pattern
Shto khochesh ot minya?
Literal translation: What want-you from me?Yelena to the Professor in Act Two of
Chekhovs Dyadya Vanya (dyA dyA vAn yA), Uncle Vanya.
Translation: What do you want from me?
Phonetic pronunciation: shtaw kho chish ut mi nyA
Ochevo vui vsyegda khoditye v chyornom?
Literal translation: Why you always go-around in black?from Chekhovs Chaika
(chI kA), The Seagull.
Translation: Why do you always go around dressed in black?
Phonetic pronunciation: u chye vaw vwee fsyeg dA kho dee tye v chyawr nem
Sit down and let me tell you how things are going with me. Im looking for
a job and I dont know if Ill find one. It depends.
Phonetic pronunciation: si: dAn en Lat mee taL yoo KHA fi:ngz AR gaw i:ng wi:f mee
Am Look i:n feR e dgAb, or dgawb, en I daw naw eef AL fInd wAn ee di: pandz
I like psychedelic and techno music.
Phonetic pronunciation: I LIk psi: KHe da Li:k en taKH naw myoo zi:k
The party was lasting all night. I had a wonderful time.
Phonetic pronunciation: vi pAR tyee vaws les tyi:ng, or tyi:ngg, awL, or eL, nIt I
khed e vAn der, or deR, or dyer, or dyeR, fool, or fooL, tIm
Excuse me, can you move? We want to sit down.
Phonetic pronunciation: ek skyooz mee ke:en yoo moov vee vawn too si: dAn
I had no control over it and I was thrown overboard, right over the side of
the ship into the water and the ship proceeded to sink. It was really
terrible.
Phonetic pronunciation: I khet naw kun trawl, or trawL, aw ve i:t ent I vaws srOn
aw ve bawt RIt aw ve ve sIt awf ve shi:p i:n too vi waw te en vi shi:p praw si: det
too si:nk i:t vaws ri: lee ta ryi beL
Well, you know, they call it Little Odessa out here in Brighton Beach,
because of all the Russians who now live here. And its great to walk on
the boardwalk.
Phonetic pronunciation: veL ye naw vay kawL i:t Li: teL A dyes e owt kheer i:n bRI
tn bi:ch bi kaws awf awL di RA shints khoo now Li:f kheeeR en i:ts gRayt too vawk
awn ve bawRd vawk
Did you ever read Chekhovs short story Lady with Lapdog, but, of
course, thats really completely different, and its take place in different
kind of resort town. He was great short story writer, besides plays.
Phonetic pronunciation: di:ed yoo av e Ri:d chye: khefs shawRt staw Ree Le: dee

vi:f Lep daw:g be def kaw:Rs dets Ri Lee kawm pLi: tLee dyi: ERant en i:ts te:k
pLe:s i:n dyi: fRant kIn awf Ri: zawR tAn khi: vaws gRe:t shawRt staw Ree RI deR
bi: sIts pLe:s, or plye:s
There were a lot of things that happened in those years that we dont like
to talk about, but eventually they must see the light of day.
Phonetic pronunciation: de:r ver ay Lawt awf fi:ngs vet khep ent i:n vaws yeeeRs
vet vee dawnt LIk too tawk e bowt bAt i van tyoo e lee vay mAst see vi LIt awf
day
Notes: All the TH and th sounds could be d and t instead of v and f. This
would make the accent a little lighter. Notice that both R and r are used here,
because, once again, people are inconsistent within their own accents.
You can say what you like, but its not going to happen. Of course not.
Phonetic pronunciation: yoo ken, or kyen, say vawt yoo Lik bA di:ts nawt gaw ing
too, or gaw ne, khe pen fkawRs nawt
Possible pitch pattern: