Runglish is a neologism increasingly used to denote at least three different interferences of Russian and English languages: pidgin, spoken manner, and informal latinizations of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Pidgin
As a term for describing the Russian-English pidgin language, it was popularized in 2000, when the language aboard the International Space Station was described as "Runglish". Although less widespread than other pidgins and creoles, such as Spanglish, Runglish is spoken in a number of English-Russian communities, most notably that of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York.
Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2010: Odyssey Two had a micro-plot involving a similarly named phenomenon, Russlish. See "Russlish in 2010".
Spoken manner
"Runglish" is also used informally to describe the variety of English spoken by native Russian speakers. Distinctive features of Runglish may be noticed in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
Pronunciation
See also: Non-native pronunciations of English: Russian.
1. Runglish speakers make no distinction between closed and open vowels: (heat) and /ɪ/ (hit), /ɔ/ (port) and /ɒ/ (pot), /ɑ/ (heart) and /ʌ/ (hut), etc.
2. Runglish /æ/ (bad) sounds as /ɛ/ (bed).
3. Final voiced consonants are pronounced as voiceless ones, that is dog sounds as dock, hard as heart, etc.
Vocabulary
There are quite a few "false friends" in the English language for a native Russian speaker i.e. words which appear very similar to their Russian counterparts, but which are possessed of completely different meanings.
Also, the following changes are common:
- underground → metro,
- year (in university) → course,
- handsome → beautiful,
- unfair → dishonest,
- to do sport → to go in for sports (the latter expression was suggested in school textbooks of the former Soviet Union)
Grammar
1. The Russian language has no articles ("a, an, the") (see zero article). The question: Do you know the man who is standing there? can take the Runglish form of:
- Do you know man standing there?
- Do you know a man standing there?
- Do you know the man standing there?
It is perhaps also worth noting that Russian uses its verb for "to be" differently, explaining why in these examples the "who is" part of the sentence has disappeared.
2. Collective nouns take a singular verb in Russian, which can lead to Runglish results like:
- Our people is suffering.
(instead of Our people are suffering)
Notice that even for native English speakers collective nouns may present problems or produce inconsistent results in usage e.g.
- There are a number of people in the hall.
vs.
- The number of people in the hall is small.
3. Perfect tenses are rarely used (in Russian language, the notion of "perfect form of verb" (e.g., "otkryt" vs. "otkryvat") differs from that of "perfect tense" in English).
I lost my key, did you see it?
(instead of I've lost my key, have you seen it?)
4. There is poorly perceived difference in the use of English modal verbs (modality is expressed differently in Russian).
- I must go now.
- I have to go now.
- I gotta go now.
- I will go now.
- I would go now.
- I shall go now.
- I should go now.
- I ought to go now.
5. Runglish speakers often use Yes, I don't or No, I do in response to negative questions ("Yes, I don't see it" is a correct construct in Russian):
- Either as a misunderstanding of the intention in the question.
- Don't you like it? - Yes, I don't (or: 'Yes, I don't like it').
- (instead of No, I don't.)
- Or as a misinterpretation of the grammar construct.
-
You don't like it, do you?
- (An attempt to confirm the assumption of the question.)
- (An attempt to negate the assumption of the question.)
Transliteration
Since the term "Runglish" entered circulation, it has been increasingly used to denote what was earlier known as Volapuk encoding: the rendering of Russian-language texts using the Latin alphabet.
Russlish in 2010
A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2010 concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a Stamp Out Russlish!! campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present.
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