Subject
Re: squawk, gawk, and spoke (fwd)
From
Date
Body
From: Earl Sampson <esampson@cu.campuscwix.net> (Retired teacher of Russian
language and literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder)
No one has responded to Jeff Alexander's question of last Wednesday on the
pronunciation of the final consonant of VN's name. First of all, was it
mentioned on the list where Nabokov proposed "love" as a rhyme for his name?
If it was, I can't find it. I ask because I would like to know the context; it
occurs that he might have meant it simply as a Nabokovian joke (suggesting the
importance of love in the Nabokovian universe), more than as a guide to the
pronunciation of his name. But to speak directly to the possibilities Jeff
suggests (below): 1) No. Final consonants were devoiced in standard Russian,
whether Moscow or Petersburg dialect, since long before Nabokov's youth. 2)
Possibly. There are people on the list who have heard Nabokov speak; do they
remember whether he tended to devoice final consonants in English? I have
heard other Russian speakers with this trait in their Russian-accented English
(as had VN himself; witness Pnin's "I haf nofing!")
To return to the pronunciation of the stressed "o" in Nabokov: I agree with
Tim Henderson that my (Colorado native) pronunciation of the vowel in "gawk"
(or squawk) certainly does *not* coincide with the pronunciation of the
stressed Russian "o". "Spoke of" to my ear seems closer, but not identical,
because of the American tendency to dipthongization. Tim is right that our
"aw" is an unrounded vowel (Say "Ah"), but the "o" is a rounded vowel (pucker
up). Perhaps the secret is that the Russian "o" is *more* rounded than the
English/American, and the greater rounding renders dipthongization impossible
(I remember telling students to emphasize rounding to the point that it seemed
to them exaggerated to more closely approximate the Russian rounded vowels "o"
and "u"). I am certainly not a phonetician, so if I am wrong on this point
perhaps someone with more expertise can correct me.
Pronunciation aside, no one has commented on VN's unusual use of the word
"gawk" (so unusual that people have (mis)remembered the verses with the more
"logical" word "squawk"). I have always known the word as a verb (to stare
gape-mouthed); my dictionaries tell me it is also a noun, but with the meaning
"lout", not the name of a sound. My theory: VN knew very well the dictionary
meanings of "gawk", but took the poetic license of using a word that seemed to
him more onomatopoetically descriptive of the cry of a heron. Has anyone
encountered "gawk" anywhere else as a name for a bird cry (or similar sound)?
Another question occurs: is "geek" derived from "gawk"?
Galya Diment wrote:
> From: Jeff Alexander <jeff_alexander@franklin.com>
>
> I would like to thank Tim Henderson for clearing up the confusion
> about "gawk of"; it seems to be a good rhyme for the last two syllables
> of Nabokov's name in British, but not in American English. I was
> beginning to doubt my admittedly very rusty Russian even more than
> usual!
>
> I would like to pose a question about the pronunciation of the
> *final* syllable of N's name that a list member can perhaps answer.
> Anatoly Vorobey writes:
>
> > 'Nabokov' does
> > not technically rhyme with 'love' because the stressed syllables are
> > different; when Nabokov said it did, he meant the *last* syllable of
> > 'Nabokov', which is reduced to schwa in pronunciation, as unstressed
> > vowels in Russian generally are.
>
> What I find confusing in Nabokov's choice of "love" as a rhyme for
> the last syllable of his name is not in the vowel, but the consonant.
> When I studied Russian phonetics, it was drilled into me that final
> voiced consonants are always pronounced as their devoiced equivalents
> (i.e. final "v" is pronounced "f", "b" becomes "p", "g" becomes "k", etc.),
> so that "kov" is pronounced "kuhff". Knowing how important precision
> was to Nabokov, his choice therefore puzzles me. Two possibilities
> suggest themselves: 1) that in the Russian spoken in pre-revolutionary
> St. Petersburg a final "v" would not have been devoiced to "f", and this
> is simply a feature of modern spoken Russian; or 2) that Nabokov's own
> pronunciation of the "v" in "love" was idiosyncratic. Any ideas?
>
> Since I usually lurk on this list, let me introduce myself: I'm an
> editor who lives in Philadelphia, USA, and am a big fan of Russian
> literature generally and Nabokov in particular.
language and literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder)
No one has responded to Jeff Alexander's question of last Wednesday on the
pronunciation of the final consonant of VN's name. First of all, was it
mentioned on the list where Nabokov proposed "love" as a rhyme for his name?
If it was, I can't find it. I ask because I would like to know the context; it
occurs that he might have meant it simply as a Nabokovian joke (suggesting the
importance of love in the Nabokovian universe), more than as a guide to the
pronunciation of his name. But to speak directly to the possibilities Jeff
suggests (below): 1) No. Final consonants were devoiced in standard Russian,
whether Moscow or Petersburg dialect, since long before Nabokov's youth. 2)
Possibly. There are people on the list who have heard Nabokov speak; do they
remember whether he tended to devoice final consonants in English? I have
heard other Russian speakers with this trait in their Russian-accented English
(as had VN himself; witness Pnin's "I haf nofing!")
To return to the pronunciation of the stressed "o" in Nabokov: I agree with
Tim Henderson that my (Colorado native) pronunciation of the vowel in "gawk"
(or squawk) certainly does *not* coincide with the pronunciation of the
stressed Russian "o". "Spoke of" to my ear seems closer, but not identical,
because of the American tendency to dipthongization. Tim is right that our
"aw" is an unrounded vowel (Say "Ah"), but the "o" is a rounded vowel (pucker
up). Perhaps the secret is that the Russian "o" is *more* rounded than the
English/American, and the greater rounding renders dipthongization impossible
(I remember telling students to emphasize rounding to the point that it seemed
to them exaggerated to more closely approximate the Russian rounded vowels "o"
and "u"). I am certainly not a phonetician, so if I am wrong on this point
perhaps someone with more expertise can correct me.
Pronunciation aside, no one has commented on VN's unusual use of the word
"gawk" (so unusual that people have (mis)remembered the verses with the more
"logical" word "squawk"). I have always known the word as a verb (to stare
gape-mouthed); my dictionaries tell me it is also a noun, but with the meaning
"lout", not the name of a sound. My theory: VN knew very well the dictionary
meanings of "gawk", but took the poetic license of using a word that seemed to
him more onomatopoetically descriptive of the cry of a heron. Has anyone
encountered "gawk" anywhere else as a name for a bird cry (or similar sound)?
Another question occurs: is "geek" derived from "gawk"?
Galya Diment wrote:
> From: Jeff Alexander <jeff_alexander@franklin.com>
>
> I would like to thank Tim Henderson for clearing up the confusion
> about "gawk of"; it seems to be a good rhyme for the last two syllables
> of Nabokov's name in British, but not in American English. I was
> beginning to doubt my admittedly very rusty Russian even more than
> usual!
>
> I would like to pose a question about the pronunciation of the
> *final* syllable of N's name that a list member can perhaps answer.
> Anatoly Vorobey writes:
>
> > 'Nabokov' does
> > not technically rhyme with 'love' because the stressed syllables are
> > different; when Nabokov said it did, he meant the *last* syllable of
> > 'Nabokov', which is reduced to schwa in pronunciation, as unstressed
> > vowels in Russian generally are.
>
> What I find confusing in Nabokov's choice of "love" as a rhyme for
> the last syllable of his name is not in the vowel, but the consonant.
> When I studied Russian phonetics, it was drilled into me that final
> voiced consonants are always pronounced as their devoiced equivalents
> (i.e. final "v" is pronounced "f", "b" becomes "p", "g" becomes "k", etc.),
> so that "kov" is pronounced "kuhff". Knowing how important precision
> was to Nabokov, his choice therefore puzzles me. Two possibilities
> suggest themselves: 1) that in the Russian spoken in pre-revolutionary
> St. Petersburg a final "v" would not have been devoiced to "f", and this
> is simply a feature of modern spoken Russian; or 2) that Nabokov's own
> pronunciation of the "v" in "love" was idiosyncratic. Any ideas?
>
> Since I usually lurk on this list, let me introduce myself: I'm an
> editor who lives in Philadelphia, USA, and am a big fan of Russian
> literature generally and Nabokov in particular.