Thank you for trying to distract me. I appreciate it and it worked.
Here’s the link to the article.
I don’t know if I mentioned it but a while ago I helped a scholar with her research on surzhyk. She asked me to watch a few TV programs (news and sitcoms) and identify instances of surzhyk, which I gladly did. She’d say, “You marked “Ah!” as surzhyk. What makes you think it’s a surzhyk “ah” and not a Russian or Ukrainian “ah”?”
But I know just by the sound of it. It doesn’t sound like Ukrainian or Russian. It’s in the middle.
This isn’t voodoo science. You know immediately when Jasmine Crockett switches into her fake Ebonics twang. Or when you reach a call center and hear “hello!”, you immediately know when you are talking to somebody in India.
I can’t speak surzhyk myself but I know and recognize it. I grew up surrounded by it. My mother’s Ukrainian is mostly surzhyk.
So yeah, it’s a fascinating topic and thank you for the link.
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