Re: TV: Padomju džinsi

On 23/03/2025 12:41 p.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2025-03-22, Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
 

It turns out that the "Latvian" dialogue actually flips back and
forth between Latvian and Russian.  Since I know neither language,
simply distinguishing the two is already an effort for me.  (Akanye
helps.)

 Actually, I think it isn't so much akanye specifically as that
Russian generally reduces unstressed vowels.  Latvian not so much.
And now that I look at Wikipedia's "Latvian phonology" page, I see
that Latvian distinguishes vowel quantity even in unstressed
syllables.
 

This reminded me of the first time I had a chance to hear Latvian spoken (some distinguished Latvian being interviewed on TV, with subtitles). Knowing some Russian, and a very little Finnish, my impression was that it sounded like Russian spoken with a Finnish accent. Which, on reflection, makes some linguistic sense. And your point about vowel reduction was probably an important part of that impression.