Alaskan Russian, known locally as Old Russian, is a dialect of Russian, influenced by Eskimo–Aleut languages, spoken in what is now the U.S. state Alaska since the Russian colonial period. Today it is prevalent on Kodiak Island and in Ninilchik (Kenai Peninsula), Alaska; it has been isolated from other varieties of Russian for over a century.Evgeny Golovko (2010) 143 Years after Russian America: the Russian language without Russians. Paper read at the 2010 Conference on Russian America, Sitka, August 20, 2010.
Dialects Kodiak Russian was natively spoken on Afognak Strait until the Great Alaskan earthquake and tsunami of 1964. It is now moribund, spoken by only a handful of elderly people, and is virtually undocumented.
Ninilchik Russian is better studied and more vibrant; it developed from the Russian colonial settlement of Ninilchik in 1847.Russian language's most isolated dialect found in Alaska. Russia Beyond, 2013 May 13.Ninilchik Russian (with dictionary)
Phonology
As it has been isolated from other varieties of Russian for nearly two centuries, Alaskan Russian has developed its own distinctive phonology.McGrady, C. D. (2023). The Phonetics and Phonology of Alaskan Russian: The Disappearing Dialect of a Forgotten People (Order No. 30814563). Available from ProQuest Digital Collections; ProQuest One Academic; Publicly Available Content Database. (2909528597).
Vocabulary Ninilchik Russian vocabulary is distinctly Russian, with a few borrowings from English and Alaskan native languages.
Below is a comparison between some examples of Alaskan Russian from the village of Ninilchik and modern standard Russian, using a transcription of modern Russian that follows the same scheme (including vowel reduction, which is not marked in the standard Russian orthography). As in standard Russian, most consonants also have a palatalized (or 'soft') form, which is marked by an apostrophe, as in . Words with multiple syllables have stress marked with an acute accent. Alaskan Russian Standard Russian Gloss This is my house. She is very pretty. She loves us. The sea brought in the coal. My God! He is my brother. I have a little Russian blood.
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Further reading