Russia and its language

Summary: In no part of the world have I found citizens of a country speak in their native language more reluctantly with foreigners than Russia.

Part of your blogger's life -- with his later adolescence (age 13-17) spent in an WASP upper-class, but parochial prep school in New England ("I'll do anything to escape New Hampshire for four years"; such were my thoughts for choosing to study Russian there) -- has been devoted to learning how to speak Russian/understanding Russia and its talented population, and not only its intelligentsia -- with the hoped-for delight of using, of course, the language of Pushkin.

As they say about learning Russian, "the first 20 years are the easiest."

Background  (can be omitted; scroll down to the "point of this entry")

(Full disclosure: Am a child of the Cold War; wanted to do something about the USA and USSR not atomically -- automatically? -- blowing each other up).

Am no linguist. But I grew up in France in the early 50s, where my francophile USA diplomat Father sent me (and my dear brother) to anécole maternelle near Paris, and my nanny was française.

Yes, French is my native language. I learned English at an "international school" in Brussels, Belgium, in the fourth grade.
One USA very "American" 1950s looking gal (well, maybe not now, time does pass; see below pix) telling me at this English-speaking "International School" in Bruxelles (image reflecting period, not person mentioned);


"Why are you at this school? You don't even speak English!"

 I answered -- in my perfect (?) French (or was it by then Belgian?) accent: "But dis (forget the "th") is an international school" ...  



Later, and privileged to be a  Foreign Service brat in other Western European countries and Mexico, dare I say I picked up quite a smattering of foreign languages, especially in Rome as an adolescent (age 10-14). (I swear I can still say "vaffanculo" with a perfect Roman accent; pardon my pride).

I finally even learned (I hope) how to speak English, although I still can't figure out English prepositions.



Of all my years in foreign countries -- from my birth on down -- I have never found any people less willing to speak in their own language with foreigners than Russians (the French come close; the Germans are more linguistically "tolerant"; the Belgians will speak to a foreigner in any language [but of course the Walons won't speak to the Flemish, not even in esperanto :)]; if you are a woman, Italians will speak to you con piacere in their native tongue, and praise you for saying "caio" senza accento; in Mexico, they don't care what language you speak, so long as you, while in the Ciudad de México, buy a tortilla from a street vendor -- or,  in our "day and age" express public support (I guess) for Donald Trump. 

The implication?

--You, an inostrannets [foreigner], if you utter a word of Russian -- you dishonor our language ... So stick to your own language when you're talking to us -- especially if it's English, so that we can speak like true Americans ...

Why?

Why don't Russians -- especially the ethnic Russian intelligentsia -- not want to speak Russian with foreigners (of course, in this context and in our troubled times, by "foreigners" I mean, grosso modo, Americans)?

I can think of several reasons:

--Foreign accents  -- especially American -- make Russians cringe. In their no-nonsense schooling Russians are taught to speak Russian "properly"; it's a matter of national pride. (Nothing worse than an "official" American trying to speak broken Russian to a Russian audience to show how much she empathizes with the natives). There's no such "hang-up" about hearing a foreigners speaking with an accent in the USA, a nation of immigrants that in fact has never really taken "how well you speak" (or, for that matter, speech) seriously, or as a matter of national identification (in all-American "western" movies, hardy anyone speaks, but they sure do shoot);

--Showing off. Russians, God bless 'em, have a certain sense of national inferiority (expressed, of course, by public expressions of national superiority). So they can't wait to show you that they speak your language much better than you speak theirs. As soon as a Russian realizes your Russian is not perfect, he'll switch to your language (or to that lingua franca, English), even if he doesn't speak it that well (which he doesn't quite realize).

--Russians, known for their shirokaya dusha (generous soul, especially under the influence of vodka or literature), get very possessive in matters of language. Russian is "theirs"; they are instinctively reluctant to lend it -- share it -- with anybody. (Unlike Americans, who don't see American English as a "national treasure" that shouldn't be lost on foreigners; we care about money, not pretty words or sentences, in the USA). ....

--Caveat: I did speak Russian quite frequently while in Russia for many years. But that was with cab drivers from central Asia ...