[mova] Ukrainian noun?

Thu May 5 05:59:49 EDT 2005

This question came up four years ago (Curt Woolhiser asked it 
initially, I think). Below are a couple of items from the thread that 
I have in my records:

>Status:  U
>Date: 05 Oct 2001 09:27:25 PDT
>From: Alexandra.Hrycak at directory.reed.edu (Alexandra Hrycak)
>Subject: Re: Fwd: rahul's'kyj/rahul'stvo
>To: radelo at earthlink.net, cfwoolhiser at mail.utexas.edu
>
>Hi Rob and Curt,
>
>While doing research, I often came across  rahul's'kyj when I asked 
>people "what
>is the stereotype people had of those who spoke Ukrainian?" and they sometimes
>answered using this term (they thought we were just a bunch of 
>rahuli"). When I
>asked my respondents what it means, they said that a "rahul" has 
>gold teeth, is
>unsophisticated and comes from a village or small town.  The Ukrainian he/she
>speaks is unpolished and includes lots of non-standard colloquialisms.  I
>believe the easiest American equivalent is "hick," but that doesn't 
>seem to work
>for the translation: "when the Hadiukin brothers used a comic mixture of hick
>surzhyk mixed with Galician dialect, it seemed a breath of fresh air."
>
>Any other opinions?
>
Alia/Alex

>Status:  U
>From: "Edward Rakhimkulov" <edward at iupdp.kiev.ua>
>To: "Robert De Lossa" <radelo at earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: rahul's'kyj/rahul'stvo
>Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:11:31 +0300
>X-Priority: 3
>
>"Rahul`s`kyy" in the Halychyna dialect of Ukrainian was initially (and
>largely still remains) a derogatory adjective referring to the lack of
>culture of people coming from villages. "Rahul" thus means a person born and
>raised in the village and expressing a lack of "refined" (in the opinion of
>those using this term) culture of a city, "uncultured" individual.  However,
>in the recent years, the term has acquired a broader meaning (higher
>valence), covering also city folks.
>
>Ale vse odno, v osnovnomu "rahul`skyy" i "rahul`" zalyshayut`sya obrazlyvymy
>terminamy, scho vykorystovuyut`sya v osnovnomu v zaxidniy Ukraini.  Schodo
>movy, to ce oznachaye vyraznyy sil`s`kyy akcent lyudey z sil.  Ye syl`ni
>fonetychni vidminnosti u vymovi zvukiv, a takozh pevni hramatychni
>vidminnosti (e.g. "ya si tak smiyala" zamist` "ya tak smiyalas'(ya)")
>
>Best regards,
>Edward
>

>Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 19:17:10 -0500
>Reply-To: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list 
><SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
>Sender: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list 
><SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
>From: curt fredric woolhiser <cfwoolhiser at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>
>Subject:      rahul'/rahul's'kyj, etc.
>Comments: To: SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Status:  
>
>Dear SEELANGers,
>
>Thanks to all of you who responded to my query regarding the 
>Ukrainian adjective "rahul's'kyj".  It sounds as if "rahul'" and 
>"rahul's'kyj" have undergone a certain amount of semantic change (at 
>least in youth slang) over the last decade, referring originally to 
>recent migrants from rural areas, but now (as suggested by Edward 
>Rakhimkulov's response, reproduced below) applying more generally to 
>representatives of the urban lower working class. Perhaps in the 
>context of the quote in "Halas" the phrase "vidverto rahul's'kyj 
>surzhyk" could be translated as "bluntly lumpenish patois."
>        I'm wondering, however, if in contemporary Ukrainian youth 
>culture "rahul's'kyj" could in some contexts even have positive 
>connotations, i.e. "streetwise", "tough", "macho" etc., reflecting 
>the "covert prestige" associated with urban working-class culture in 
>many modern industrial societies. Here's another example from the 
>same issue of "Halas": "A hitaryst Vadik ne prosto zaminiv soljaru 
>Siroz^y, a j vnis svij strumin' -- spravz^nij rahul's'kyj saund!" At 
>first, it seemed to me that "Halas" here was just making fun of the 
>guitarist Vadik, but now I'm not exactly sure. After all, if the 
>Snake Brothers' use of "vidverto rahul's'kyj surzhyk" mixed with 
>Galician dialect is seen as something fresh and exciting, perhaps 
>Vadik's "spravz^nij rahul's'kyj saund" is, too. Any thoughts?
>        This brings me to another question I had regarding 
>contemporary Ukrainian youth slang. My initial impression was that 
>much of it was borrowed from either Russian youth slang (including 
>many borrowings from English) or Russo-Ukrainian surzhyk. This 
>impression was certainly reinforced by the "Slovnyk tlumachen' 
>muzychnoho slengu" in Halas, where we find such gems as "pjerjexod" 
>('brejk, pasaz^ u vykonanni barabannyka'), "podbjerliozit'" 
>('poz^uvaty'), "po sosjedjam" ('c^ipljaty vypadkovi noty, hraty 
>brudno'), and "pos^la kalbasa" ('zaxopljujuc^a improvizacija, 
>poc^atok xoros^oji hry"). The case of "rahul', on the other hand, 
>suggests that regional varieties of Ukrainian have also contributed 
>to the formation of contemporary youth slang in Ukraine. Does anyone 
>know of other examples of regional/dialectal Ukrainian words that 
>have been widely adopted in youth slang?
>
>Curt Woolhiser
>

Regards,

Rob DeLossa

p.s. _Rozmovljajmo_ a new textbook of Ukrainian for college students 
and self-learners is in the final page proof stage at Slavica 
(Indiana University). It should be out in a first run this summer. 
Anyone interested in course adoption or personal use, please feel 
free to contact me. Along with yours truly, the authors are Roman 
Koropeckyj (UCLA), Robert Romanchuk (FSU), and Alexandra Isaievych 
Mason.

>Can someone tell me the meaning of rahul'stvo in a sentence like:
>"Tse odyn z proyaviv nashoho natsional'noho provintsializmu i rahul'stva"?
>Many thanks in advance,
>--
>
>Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics
>Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
>Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
>
>tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
>fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
>e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu
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