What is Runglish?
Runglish is the mixture of Russian and English created through the interference of the two languages in areas with large Russian immigrant populations like Brighton Beach.
Runglish was first associated with the language of space as Russian and American astronauts communicated using both languages. In 2000, Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalyov said: "We say jokingly that we communicate in 'Runglish,' a mixture of Russian and English languages, so that when we are short of words in one language we can use the other, because all the crew members speak both languages well." Over time the term was used to describe the phenomenon of the Russian/English mix in Russian immigrant areas.
Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalyov
Runglish consists of mixture of Russian and English grammar, words, syntax and sounds:
Oftentimes, Runglish speakers, especially those more familiar with English than Russian, “Englishize” Russian words by employing sounds and stresses found in English but not Russian. This often involves denasalizing and depalletizing sounds. For example, speakers replace the Russian [ɾ] with the English [ɹ], a sound you’d never find in native Russian. Speakers also change stresses in Russian words like "ко́ротко” which is usually pronounced [ˈkorətkə], but Runglish speakers may say [ˈkərətkə] ignoring the stress on the first “o” and pronouncing all the o’s as unstressed.
Runglish also borrows phrases from English while using original Russian verbs. For example a Native speaker may say “Я полетела на самелёте в Вашигтон” (I flew on a plane to Washington) where as a Runglish speaker may say “Я взяла самелёт в Вашингтон” (I took a plane to Washington”. The Runglish speaker uses the English construction of “taking” a plane to say she flew on the plane, not that she grabbed the plane, while using the Russian verb “взять- to take”. A Runglish speaker may do the same to refer to taking a class or taking medication. “Take” is not used like this is native Russian, and a Russian unfamiliar with the English phrase would likely not understand the speaker’s meaning.
Studies find that young Runglish speakers also tend to avoid more complicated grammatical constructions or drop case endings if not vital to meaning of the sentence. For example, using numbers in Russian can necessitate jumping between multiple case forms of genitive and prepositional, especially when using adjectives and prepositions. So Runglish speakers will either drop case endings or avoid using adjectives and prepositions to modify numbers. The same is apparent in situations like when using genitive case to emphasize negatives or using partitive genitive to say “some” of something. Here speakers can drop case endings because while use of genitive is tradition, it is not necessary to the meaning of the sentence.
As you may expect, Runglish also entails using a mix of Russian and English words and sometimes grammar. A speaker may use more English-typical sentence structure with Russian words or vice versa. This creates very unique sentences as English and Russian can function very different syntactically. Russian uses five cases to denote thing like indirect object, direct object, tools, possession, and lots more. A Runglish speaker may even apply these case endings to English words to convey meaning.
Runglish speakers also use English words spelled out in Russian letters and given Russian sounds. These are transliterations using the Cyrillic alphabet to rewrite English words, resulting in what sounds like the English word said with a heavy Russian accent. These words may take on Russian noun/adjective/verb endings or diverge from typical Russian word endings, keeping the original English. The picture below is an example of this.
The reverse of the above is also true. Some signs use English letter to spell out Russian words. This is helpful to those who had no formal Russian study and do not read or white Russian well but speak it among family or family. Again, an example is provided below
Here we see a sign reading “медикал суплай” - /mɛdɪkal/ /suplai/. Neither of these words on the sign are Russian words you could find in a dictionary. In fact, “al” is not ever an adjective ending in Russian, and “ai” is an uncommon noun ending only found in words recently borrowed from other languages.
In the bottom left corner of the picture is a sign reading “Travyanaya Apteka” which uses a Latin Alphabet to spell out the Cyrillic “Травяная Аптека”.
How do people use Runglish?
As apparent above, Runglish is seen on street signs, especially in Brighton beach. But Runglish is also spoken among family and friends and written in less formal settings like a letter to a friend or notes to yourself.
