Runglish, Ruglish or Russlish (Russian: Рунглийский язык), is a neologism increasingly used to denote at least three different interferences of Russian and English languages: pidgin, spoken manner, and informal latinizations of the Cyrillic alphabet.
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As a term for describing the Russian-English pidgin language, it was popularized in 2000 as a name for one of the languages aboard the International Space Station. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov said: "We say jokingly that we communicate in 'Runglish,' a mixture of Russian and English languages, so that when we are short of words in one language we can use the other, because all the crew members speak both languages well." NASA has since begun listing Runglish as one of the on-board languages [1] Although less widespread than other pidgins and creoles, such as Tok Pisin, Runglish is spoken in a number of English-Russian communities, most notably the Russian-speaking community of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York[2]
"Runglish" is also used informally to describe the variety of English spoken by native Russian speakers. Distinctive features of Runglish may be noticed in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and in all cases reflect the respective features of Russian being applied to English.
Since the term "Runglish" entered circulation, it has been increasingly used to denote what was earlier known as Volapuk encoding: the rendering of Russian-language texts using the Latin alphabet.
Some notable novels have foreshadowed the development of Runglish. A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a Stamp Out Russlish!! campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present. Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange has one called Nadsat. (See: Concordance: A Clockwork Orange)
The Russian government declared 2007 to be the "Year of the Russian Language". It has been claimed that this was in part to give support to what is seen as proper Russian against such influences as the spread of English and Runglish [3]. However, Yuri Prokhorov, the head of the Russian State Institute of Foreign Languages stated that "Young people always develop fashionable ways of communicating. (But) it is Russian words used incorrectly that damages the purity of the language not the introduction of foreign words."[3].
(Taken from the New York Times[2])
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