Heritage Language: Russian

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Facts about Robart's russian collection

Robarts library has a large collection of Russian publications, here are some interesting finds in that collection.

• There is only one motion picture in Russian available (Ptushko, A. (Director). (1972). Ruslan i Li︠u︡dmila [Motion picture]. Russia: Ruscico.)
• There is an autobiography of Russian-Jewish women in the 19th century (Clyman, T. W. (1996). Russia through women’s eyes autobiographies from Tsarist Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press.)
• There is an encyclopedia of Russian business (Encyclopaedia of Russian business. (1994). London: Sterling Publications.)
• There is an essay on the Russian revolution (Haimson, L. H. (2005). Russia’s revolutionary experience, 1905-1917: two essays. New York: Columbia University Press.)
• There is exactly one book published in Russian during the 1600s (Mi︠u︡ller, V. K. (1644). Novyĭ anglo-russkiĭ, russko-angliĭskiĭ slovarʹ: sovremennai︠a︡ transkript︠s︡ii︠a︡, 150,000 slov. Moskva: Firma “Rest”, pri uchastii OOO “Perseĭ”.)

Those interested in linguistics and culture would find the book “Russian language and out-of-language reality” by A. D. Shmelev an interesting, but challenging read. Among many other things, the book explains the difference between the concepts of “истина” (‘istina’) and “правда” (‘pravda’), both of which are translated into English using the word ‘truth’. While “истина” (‘istina’) is an idea, a notion about the world that is real, “правда” (‘pravda’) is information that somebody knows, but might not necessarily tell others (Shmelev, 2002).

Helpful Resources

Heritage, native and second language speakers of Russian alike would find it useful to use a word formation dictionary, such as the “Word formation dictionary of contemporary Russian language” (editors M. B. Baklanova and O.S. Verkhovaya), to expand their vocabulary. Did you know that 58 words came from the word “земля” (‘earth’), while the word “игнорировать” (‘to ignore’) gave rise to only three new words? While exploring this dictionary, people will be able to find out this and other interesting facts.

Electronic resources available through the University of Toronto Libraries are also very helpful to speakers and non speakers. Heritage language speakers-learners and their instructors, along with people interested in heritage languages in general, might find it interesting to read the article “The Role of Motivation among Heritage and Non-Heritage Learners of Russian” by Anna Geisherik. The article mentions, among other things, the fact that heritage learners with no or low reading and/or writing abilities in the language, when placed in the same classes with second-language learners, are mistaken in thinking that their advantage (being able to speak the language already) will help them achieve higher results than they would have learning another language. It is also noted that the main reason heritage speakers study their language is to preserve it in the family, which results in them placing a higher importance on speaking rather than reading and writing skills (Geisherik, 2004). These findings are undoubtedly very interesting.

Unfortunately, there are very few resources specifically about Russian as a heritage language in Canada. There are much more articles regarding this topic in the United States. An interesting observation was made by O. Kagan and K. Dillon in “Russian Heritage Learners: So What Happens Now?”. They note that the 9/11 terrorist attacks made the US government realize the need to encourage heritage speakers of all languages to preserve their mother tongues (Kagan & Dillon, 2006).

More Russian culture in Toronto

http://www.torontovka.com/ : an all Russian site for Ontarians with everything from blogs, classified ads, to a dating site.

http://www.torontorussianfilmfestival.ca/ : the Toronto Russian Film Festival (TRFF) is an annual film festival in september which shows an array of russian movies in every genre.

http://www.russiantorontolife.com/ : This site has all of the latest updates about Russian culture. Speakers living in toronto can look on the site for frequent updates and can even join the facebook community to connect with other russian speakers in Toronto.

Movies from last year's Toronto Russian Film Festival