The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1917-01-11
Russian
ny DR.. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1915. by Frank Crane)

who had Just got back from a years stay
in Russia, where he had been represent
ing business house having been sent
over just after his graduation from Am
herst, want to say to you that the Rus
sian language is a pppin
went right TO work studying it AZ
soon MS | reached there. And say. I've
had some acquaintance in school with
Greek and Latin also bit of French and
ereFHan. used TO think they were hard
Pshaw! they're basket picnic compar-
ed 10 Russian. Whoever invented that
speech must have sat up nights thinking
up ways to make talking hard.
In the first place there's the-looks of it.
And while it's bad enough in print, when
you come to write it with pen it's 3 re-
bus Al first you see lot of letters that
look like English. There's where you're
fooled The more they resemble our let
.ers the diiferenter they are.
That thing for instance, that looks like
an IN" is really "t;" also u is "e."
and IN" is p" and ''p" is r. and &C"
is IS, and 30" is ". and so on.
They have several "e's" pronounced
all sorts Of ways, and one Of them is like
no sound you ever heard.
The accent is lovely. There's no rule
for it. And it may be on one syllable in
the singular and on another in the plural.
lou have TO learn each word by itself
The words Of most European languages
have some sort Of faint resemblance at
least to ours as good" is gut" in Ger
man, and "aimer" in French is sort Of
cousin TO our "amiable" and Greek and
Latin have lot of friends Of ours dis
guised in their lingo, but Russian! Why
no, for instance. is "nyet, man is
"tcheloyyok," and II slept is va spal'
and 81 want is va hochu7-dont sound
Ike anything at all. do they?
Their nouns have all the cases of Latin
and two more TO boot, and there are two
or three. ways Of declining nouns in each
OF the three genders
The adjectives are declined rs much as
the nouns. but different and twice as
fierce. as they have two distinct forms.
according to whether they are used in the
predicate or not
Besides this there are a bushel Of ex-
lceptions to the regular ways.
Pronouns. as to declension, see the
nouns and adjectives end raise them.
When a Russian declines a pronoun he
ust lets himself 20 lIe doesn't seem to
are how ne talks Pronouns are used
me way on Tuesdays and another on Fri
lays. if it doesn't rain.
H Every verb has two forms one to use
If the action Il done just once, and the
ther if You do it regularly "Tdti" is
'to 20. for example, poidti" is to keep
on going and "xodit" is to keep on still
more
They don't say anything like our "is'
Or am or have but if they want to
say Il am sick" they just say 81 sick"
n for Il have nose" they say ito no
IUose"
The verbs have only present and past
lenses; to indicate the others they Jug
gle these around.
But it's when YOU come TO the PROPOSE
tions that you give up
OF course propositions are tough in
any language, but in Russian they have
lall the languages Of earth beat four ways.
There are some rules for them, but
they're only good in certain seasons Of the
year: you just have to pick each one Of
/ 'em up and learn EN- one at time. and
each different in different combinations.
Even then you may hit it and may not,
and the odds are with the house.
My teacher told me all Russian nouns
are declined except three, coffee. depot
and oyercoat Once the czalina was visit
.ng school and asked little girl TO de-
Inc pal 10" (overcoat). The child, TO
the horror Of the toanhor, actually put it
through all the case forms it ought TO
have but doesn't. When the czarina said
to the child that pal to- could not be
declined, the little one answered. Not
ordinarily, but when your imperial great
ness commanded NE TO decline it. | mad
to-" That Kid was taking no chances on
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