Russia 15

Listen to Russia 15, a 20-year-old man from Moscow, Russia, and the United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/06/1997

PLACE OF BIRTH: Moscow

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/Russian

OCCUPATION: full-time student (studying musical theater)

EDUCATION: current undergraduate

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The speaker has lived in the United States (in the Boston, Massachusetts, area) for 10 years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker maintains strong ties to the Russian-speaking community in the Boston area; he also participates fully in American daily life as a college student.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/05/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Moscow, and, uh, I have a village, which is like 350 kilometers from Moscow. It’s a beautiful place, um, very breathtaking. It’s, um, it’s about, like 50 kilometers from, uh, the city called Kasimov. It’s very peaceful; um, it is, it’s, it’s very different from the hustle and bustle of, um, Moscow City. And, uh, I long for that place because I am studying in an American Conservatory, and, uh, being so far away from that place makes it, um, very nos-, nostalgic. [Subject laughs.] [The subject recites a selection from Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, in Russian]:

Я помню море пред грозою:
Как я завидовал волнам,
Бегущим бурной чередою
С любовью лечь к ее ногам!
Как я желал тогда с волнами
Коснуться милых ног устами!
Нет, никогда средь пылких дней
Кипящей младости моей
Я не желал с таким мученьем
Лобзать уста младых Армид,
Иль розы пламенных ланит,
Иль перси, полные томленьем;
Нет, никогда порыв страстей
Так не терзал души моей!

 

[Roman Alphabet transliteration:
Ja pomnju more pred grozoju:
Kak ja zavidoval volnam,
Begushhim burnoj cheredoju
S ljubov’ju lech’ k ee nogam!
Kak ja zhelal togda s volnami
Kosnut’sja milyh nog ustami!
Nyet, nikogda sred’ pylkih dnej
Kipjashhej mladosti moej
Ja ne zhelal s takim muchen’em
Lobzat’ usta mladyh Armid,
Il’ rozy plamennyh lanit,
Il’ persi,polnye tomlen’em;
Nyet, nikogda poryv strastej
Tak ne terzal dushi moej!

 

English translation:
I see the sea before a tempest:
How jealous I was of the waves,
Running in their ferocious series
To lie by her feet with a grace!
How wished I with the waters’ splashes,
To touch them with my lips in flashes!
No, never, midst the ardent days
Of my enraptured yore, else,
With such a torture, I desired
To kiss the lips of young Armids,
Or roses of their cheeks, sweet,
Or breasts, full of the hidden fire;
No, never loving passions, hard,
Such tortured, else, my poor heart!]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/05/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This recording is of a native speaker of Russian who has achieved strong fluency in English. Also, he is training to work as an actor in the professional American theater, so he has consciously worked to soften his accent for performance situations.

The sample invites the listener to note elements of the Russian accent which can linger, even with a high level of fluency and training in English. These elements include the focus/placement of sound near the rear of the oral cavity, the relative lack of unstressed syllables, which subtly affects the overall cadence, and the use of a slightly velarized “darker” /l/ in initial position of certain words. Examples of this include “liking,” “lunatic,” and “lower.”

COMMENTARY BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/06/2018

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.