No. 26 - Russian Accents
The woman who collects our acoustic data asked me if I had noticed the
different Russian accents. Interesting question; I had never been
aware of any. I find it easy to distinguish Spanish accents, even
though I can barely communicate, hacking my way through the most
offensive spanglish ever heard. But a Russian accent was beyond the
pale of my imagination. We are surrounded by Russian words and
phrases: conversations between the deck and the bridge and the winch
operators and the navigator are broadcast throughout the ship -- loud
and with a little feedback thrown in for good measure; conversations
with people are often held in Russian and English with someone in the
group who speaks both. The drama and rhythm that infuse spoken
Russian can take on a variety of forms, implying all kinds of meaning,
but -- except for a word or two -- I simply can't figure out what
they're saying. How could I get something as subtle as an accent?
But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I was hearing
accents. I could tell who was talking on the loud speaker and who was
trying to interrupt by the sharpness and melody of their voices.
Maybe someone listening to English without a clue as to what's being
said would recognize different accents, or maybe it's unique to the
Russian language. Maybe it's the names of familiar places on the
chart in strange Cyrillic characters that gives Russian an added sense
of remoteness to me, but I don't imagine myself ever being able to
communicate in that language. Yet I can recognize a Ukrainian from a
Georgian.
In the meantime, the latest weather fax shows a tightly wound low
heading our way. If all goes well this will be our last day of
fishing -- just in time.
-Roger