Depalatalization or Palatalization in Russian Loanwords in Kola-Lappish

Abstract

The Lappish language belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family. It is spoken in four European countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia). There are three major dialects of this language; one of those is "Eastern Lappish". "Kola-Lappish" is a subgroup of the Eastern dialect.

I noted down a large number of stories in Kola-Lappish and published the whole material in two books in Germany. (Laszlo Szabo: Kolalappische Volksdichtung I and II. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,1966 and 1968).

Almost all consonants can be palatalized or non-palatalized both in Russian and in Kola-Lappish. For this reason, it seems logical to expect that, when the words are borrowed from Russian into Kola-Lappish, there will not be too many changes as far as palatalized or non-palatalized consonants are concerned. However, in more than half of the borrowed words, if the consonant is palatalized in Russian, it is non-palatalized in Lappish or vice-versa, e.g. sanii 'sledges' Rus. sani 'id'., Lp. zaht 'son-in-law' Rus . zat 'id'.

In this paper, I shall present more examples of this strange phenomenon (mostly from my own Lappish stories), and try to explain it. The explanation is connected with Lappish consonant graduation.