I was watching the the US play Russia last night in the World Cup of Hockey on ESPN2. Russian last names sometimes present a bit of trouble for broadcasters; I thought I’d share some of the details from the game caller’s renditions, as the names on the Russian team’s roster offer several noteworthy observations. Among them, a stressed epenthetic vowel.
Here are my transcriptions from the game. Note I use acute and grave accents for primary and secondary stress, for easy readability.
| tverdovsky
| tɛ̀vr̩dórski [sic] |
| vishnevski
| vɪ̀znɛ́ski |
| volchenkov
| vəlčɛ́ŋkàf |
| yashin
| yǽšən |
| kovalev
| kóvəlɛ̀v |
| kovalenko
| kòvəlɛ́ŋko |
| kovalchuk
| kóvəlčʌ̀k |
| khavanov
| hǽvənàf |
| brolov
| brólàf |
| chubarov
| čùbáràf |
| afinogenov
| əfɪ̀nəgɛ́nàf |
| kvasha
| kəvǽšə |
| ovechkin
| òvíčkən |
Some random notes to make:
The initial tv of Tverdovsky is broken up with an epenthetic vowel, but since this results in a four-syllable name, the epenthetic vowel bears stress – and oddly becomes [ɛ]! The “v” was misread as “r” several times, but I remember this guy from last year’s Stanley Cup Final – back then they just deleted the /v/, but the epenthetic [ɛ] was there anyway.
“a” tends to be nativized as [æ], probably because the broadcaster (might be) Canadian (or is surrounded by them).
Chubarov‘s stress pattern is unlike Kovalev‘s. Is this a transfer of the actual Russian stress pattern?
Word-final “v” is devoiced in –ov but not –ev (although there’s only one example of –ev).
“kh” is nativized as [h], not [k].
“v” is not realized before [sk].
The “sh” in Vishnovski is non-palatal and voiced, ending up as [z]. It would be interesting if the voicing is a relic of regressive voicing assimilation, but the alveolarity shows an intolerance of the [žn] sequence with which this guy presumably pronounces his name. Just for a parallel, Yushkevich (who is not on this roster) is also nativized by the sports media with [s] rather than [š].
Russia won the game 3-1. The game winner was one of the most impressive goals I’ve ever seen.
Any hypocoristics worth noting?
I don’t recall any striking hypocoristics from the broadcast, except Jeremy Roenick (serving as a third commentator for the ESPN broadcast) referred to Doug Weight as “Waiter” and quickly explained why he’d done so.
Of the Russian names on the above roster, the coristics I’ve heard are these (if you’ll excuse the non-IPA):
Kovalenko > Kovie
Kovalev > Kovie
Yashin > Yash
Chubarov > Chubie
Khavanov > Havvie
I wish I had more, especially Afinogenov, Afinasenkov (because they’re so long), Tverdovsky and Kvasha (because of their clusters).