[mova] Yushchenko's command of Russian, as well as characteristics of his Ukrainian

[baranetsky at pol.net]

I don't know how well Yushchenko speaks Russian vis-à-vis Putin, but
noticed in the same comparative vein an interesting observation in the
latest NY Review of Books (www.nybooks.com/articles/17957)that:
"Yushchenko and Tymoshenko speak better Ukrainian than Kuchma and
Yanukovych do. They also speak better Russian."!

As a personal observation, I am amazed at the variety and quality of the
Ukrainian language that is posted on the various web journals, including
Den', Zerkalo Nedili, Postup, Lviv Gazette etc. Paradoxically, even many
of the "central" and "eastern" authors are more easily understood by me
than some of the "western" ones.

I would guess that the speaking knowledge of Russian by Ukrainian citizens
runs even a larger gamut and would be hard-pressed to be understood by St.
Petersburg residents.

Adrian B.



> Greetings,
>
> On January 24th Yushchenko traveled to Moscow to meet with Vladimir
> Putin.
>  After their meeting, they held a joint news conference, standing
> side-by-side (if anyone wants a copy of a video file of the news
> conference I can email it to you - 11 MBs).  During the conference I
> couldn't help noticing a qualitative difference between Putin's Russian
> and that of Yushchenko's.  Not being at all fluent in Russian and just
> resorting to some heuristics to comprehend it, I understand that Russian
> as spoken in St. Petersburg is considered to be the de facto standard
> (much as the English spoken by middle-class Chicagoans is taken to be
> the example of the purest variant of American English).  I would assume
> then, that Putin's speech would be considered to fall in line with the
> standard.
>
> However, I noticed that Yushchenko's use of Russian (unlike his
> Ukrainian which strikes me as flowing very easily) was somewhat halting
> and stilted by comparison to Putin's.  Could someone with a better
> knowledge and understanding of both Russian and Ukrainian comment
> Yushchenko's
> knowledge/usage of Russian?
>
> Further, are there aspects of Yushchenko's Ukrainian important to take
> note - does he have any sort of notable social-class or regional accent?
>  Does he resort to particular class or region-specific phrases or terms?
>  (I always notice the usage of "shcho" coming out as "s'o", but can't
> really assign any sort significance to it).
>
>
> Much thanks.
>
>
> Max Pyziur
> pyz at brama.com
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