Re: Russian-based pidgins (was: Zelandish)

Hellom

> >And rightly so. The surzhik is nowhere near being a pidgin.
> It is quite
> >truly a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian
[...]

> Is it a transitional dialect, or his it a later-arisen
> mixture of R and Ukr?
> If the later, what caused the rise of a such mixture?
I'd say it's both. The establishment of Russian rule in the Left-bank
region of Ukraine (referring to the Dnieper) is Khmel'nyts'ky's time -
mid-17th century. At that time the languages hadn't drifted too far
apart (well, indeed they haven't even now), so the surzhik is a
secondary mixture overlaying an older transitional zone. Though the
transitional zone itself is wider than that - it begins about north of
Kursk or thereabouts and stretches right down south.

North- and eastwards the surzhik gradually dwindles into the Russian
dialects, but the western border with Ukrainian proper appears quite
abruptly, obviously because of the former political border.

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb