When do people use Runglish?: The impact of life in the USSR.

Runglish speakers use English words to speak about modern topics.

English words are especially common in Runglish when speaking to the topics of technology, business, or employment.

It’s important to understand that many of the people who originally came to America and began the phenomenon of Runglish were citizens of the USSR. As the communist USSR was slow to modernize, life in the USSR varied drastically from life in America, meaning the words common in everyday life did as well. Many of the devices, jobs, and ideas Russian immigrants found in the U.S. were novel and had no direct translation in Russian. Thus, immigrants used English words to describe things like technology, business fields, legal transactions, and medical treatment. By contrast, things that were common in the USSR had no need for an English description. Walking down Brighton Beach Ave probably the most common Russian words you will see is “Аптека” meaning pharmacy. Since pharmacies were common in Soviet Russian there is no need to use an English word to describe it.

Here we see an example of borrowing English words for modern topics. The signs reads “Мосвидеофильм” [masvIdɛofilm]. In this video store name there are two English words: видео (video) and фильм (film) . Meanwhile below the store name, on the yellow banner, is the word for books- “книги” [knigi], a Russian word, since books have long existed in Russia.

Here is an example of an “Аптека”