| Doukhobor Russian | |
|---|---|
| Диалект духоборов Канады Dialekt Duchoborov Kanady | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | British Columbia,Saskatchewan,Alberta |
| Ethnicity | Doukhobors |
Native speakers | 200 (2019)[1] |
| Cyrillic | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | douk1234 |
| IETF | ru-CA |
Doukhobor Russian, also calledDoukhobor dialect[2] andDoukhoborese ("D'ese" in short),[3] is a dialect of theRussian language spoken byDoukhobors, spiritual Christians from Russia, one-third of whom (about 8,300) were the largest mass migration to Canada (1899-1930). They spokeSouthern Russian dialects, which slowly changed under the influence ofCanadian English and neighboringUkrainian Canadians settlers inSaskatchewan. At its peak, there were as many as 30,000 speakers, but now, there are only a few hundred.[4]
Over several generations, their original dialect has been mostly lost, as descendants are educated and immersed with Canadians, and when they do speak Russian, it is more modernStandard Russian with a Canadian accent.
It is reasonable to assume that the formative period for the speech of the Doukhobors was the first four decades of the 19th century. It was in 1802 that manyheterodox groups, self-labeled asspiritual Christians including Doukhobors, were encouraged to migrate to theMolochna River region, aroundMelitopol nearUkraine'sSea of Azov coast, where they could be controlled, isolated from contaminating Orthodox Russians with their heresies, and converted to Orthodoxy. Over the next 10–20 years, thousands arrived, most speaking aSouthern Russian dialect.[5][6] Now concentrated, they were exposed to a variety of somewhat similar people who could learn the other'sdialect koiné, based on Southern Russian and Eastern Ukrainian dialects.
Starting in 1839, Spiritual Christians tribes were enticed to resettle toTranscaucasia to further isolate them from Orthodox, and to establish a Russian presence in the conquered non-Russian-speaking territory. The invading villages from Russia were surrounded by mostly indigenous non-Russian-speaking peoples. Here, in relative isolation from the rest of the Empire, their dialects and singing distinctly evolved.
With the migration of some 7,500 Doukhbors from Transcaucasia to Saskatchewan in 1899, and some smaller latecomer groups (both from Transcaucasia and from places of exile in Siberia and elsewhere), the dialect spoken in the Doukhobor villages ofTranscaucasia was brought to the plains ofCanada. From that point on it experienced influence from theEnglish language of Canada and, during the years ofDoukhobor stay inSaskatchewan, the speech of Doukhobor'sUkrainian neighbors.
A split in the Doukhobor community resulted in a large number of Doukhobors moving from Saskatchewan to south-easternBritish Columbia around 1910. Those who moved (the so-called "Community Doukhobors" – followers ofPeter Verigin'sChristian Community of Universal Brotherhood – continued living a communal lifestyle for several more decades, and preserved their Russian language more the "Independent Doukhobors", who assimilated by staying in Saskatchewan, most as individual farmers.
By the 1970s, most Russia-born died along with their language[7] Their English speech is not noticeably different from that of other English-speaking Canadians of their provinces. Russian is used primarily during religious meetings and psalm singing. Practising Doukhobors are declining, about 3,800 counted in theCanada 2001 Census.
It was reported that only a few hundred elderly speakers of Doukhobor Russian remained by 2019.[4]
According to Gunter Schaarschmidt's survey article ("Four norms ..."), research into the Russian spoken by Canada's Doukhobors has not been extensive. However, a number of articles, mostly published in the 1960s and 1970s, noted a variety of features in Doukhobors' Russian speech that were indeed characteristic of Southern, and in some casesCentral Russian dialects, e.g. use of the Southern, [h] where Standard Russian has [g].
Features characteristic of a number of locales in theEast Slavic language space were noted as well, reflecting perhaps the heterogeneous origin of the Doukhobors' settlements inMolochna River after 1800; e.g., similarly toBelarusians, Doukhobor speakers do not palatalize [r] in "редко" (redko, 'seldom'). Remarkable was the dropping of the final -t in the 3rd person singular form of verbs. This can be considered a Ukrainian feature, and it is also attested in some Russian dialects spoken in Southern Ukraine (e.g.,Nikolaev, not too far from the Doukhobors' old homeland on theMolochna).
As with other immigrant groups, the Russian speech of the Doukhobors uses English loanwords for some concepts that they had not encountered until moving to Canada.[8]
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