Languages in the Big Apple

There have been a few articles lately about the popularity of Anglicisms among the Russian youth. English words are apparently finding their way into conversations, text messages, even politics in Russia more so than ever before.

Here’s an example of a young Russian girl’s text message to a friend:

“Hi, Katya. Ne poiti li nam drink coffee? Call asap! Cheers, Masha.”

If you don’t count the two names, that’s six English words to four Russian words.

Still, not that unusual — the language of text messaging and email is an art. Every country has its own methods of shortening and embellishing informal written language. When I was living in Italy, for example, the word per, or for, was written as x in SMS language — taken from the language of math. Sei, as in you are was written as the number 6, which in Italian is pronounced the same way.

Borrowing words from foreign languages also seems to be a habit of the text-messaging youth everywhere — the texts I get from friends often appear as a strange mélange of Spanish, English, and French, with an occasional moshi-moshi thrown in for good measure. And since Anglo-American culture is so visible all over the world, it’s not surprising that Russians are using the slang they’ve heard in movies for years in their text-messages and conversations. But what’s interesting about the way they use it, according to one of the articles, is the way that they’ve shaped it to fit their linguistic needs:

Russians increasingly do more than borrow English words. They bend them to their own grammar, combine them with native words, and generally twist them beyond recognition.

For example, an exciting football match could be described as “drivovy.”

The words stems from the English words “drive,” but has been turned into an adjective. Add to that a strong Russian accent and your average native English speaker would probably not guess that his language was being used at all.”

No explanation for why they’d pick “drive” to mean “exciting,” but you get the idea.

Links to a few articles: here and there.