User talk:Stephen G. Brown/нога

нога

So, like I said in my edit's "caption," I'm willing to learn.  Thanks for reverting without taking the time to explain your edits.  Anyway, I'll try to go into a bit more detail for mine, but really my original edit said why.  My experience while living in Russia is that the г in word final, in fact, is pronounced as х in many places and by most native speakers, but that is certainly not true of all of them and all places in Russia (although I lived there for quite some time, I, of course, didn't experience all regions, but I know many who have lived throughout the country).  Having the usage note that you placed on нога is somewhat misleading. — V-ball 20:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Russian is remarkably homogeneous across the expanse of the country, but there are regional accents. There are three major dialect areas: northern, central, and southern. Moscow in right in the center, and that is where the central dialect is spoken. This is the dialect that is studied by Russian students abroad and taught in Russian schools. The central dialect, although a rather thin strip between the north and the south, is the Standard Language, the Educated Usage. The central dialect is essentially a mixture of the north and south: the central dialect generally keeps the pronunciation of northern consonants and southern vowels. In a few words such as бог, ног, and господи, the Standand Language keeps the southern consonants. Yes, there will be some northerners who pronounce ног differently, but this is nonstandard and not taught in Russian language courses. The differences between the northern, southern and Standard pronunciations are really very small, but it is the central dialect that we teach as standard. —Stephen 20:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for intervening, but I must agree with V-ball. Pronouncing of ног as нох is hardly may be considered as a general standard. I'd say that it is somewhat old-fashioned and mostly peculiar to the so-called "old Muscovite pronunciation" (старомосковский выговор). And, perhaps, to some southern Russian accents (южнорусский выговор). I pronounce it as нок, and so do most of the people who live around me. However, I'm not from Moscow myself. Dart evader 21:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation.  It jolted me back to the days of Russian classes at the university (well, I say it like I'm so old, but even though that was only 3 or 4 years ago, it seems like a long time ago).  I remember learning about exactly what you described, and that would be fairly true-to-my-life experience in Russia, as many of the people from Rostov, Samara, or Armenia that I knew pronounced that word-final х instead of г, while those from St. Petersburg and farther north did not (and I can't recall one single instance of a St. Petersburger (sp?) pronouncing a word-initial г as х).  Anyway, for what it's worth . . .

I also wondered if we could simply add a pronunciation header like the бог page and include both pronunciations. — V-ball 21:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

We could, but the problem is that it affects one form only, the genitive plural. Actually, it’s also a problem with бог, since it affects that word only in the nominative singular. When there is a pronunciation irregularity or some other peculiarity that affects only one or certain forms, I think it’s probably going to be better to have a ===Usage notes=== section, or at least an "N.B." note placed somewhere in the article. —Stephen 21:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it old fashioned? Well, I’m not surprised, my Russian accent and usage is essentially from the World War II generation up until the Vietnam era. —Stephen 21:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am not a linguist, and so I rarely pay any attention to how people pronounce those consonants. But I believe that even a newscaster on a national TV channel would pronounce it as нок. Perhaps I should try to listen to the news sometimes. Dart evader 21:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with V-Ball and Dart evader, нога is commonly spelled нога (using sound 'г', not 'х'). --Jaroslavleff 09:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, no, we weren’t talking about the spelling, or about the nominative. We were talking about the pronunciation of the genitive plural, ног, and whether the Standard Russian spoken in Moscow pronounced it нох or нок. In my younger days, the standard pronunciation was нох, but Dart Evader thinks it’s now old-fashioned. —Stephen 13:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

He's right. I hear only нок. --Jaroslavleff 17:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)