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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2muThiW:
oh one more tiny note on The Shape of Water, which is apropos of absolutely nothing but is fascinating (to me!) nonetheless:
I was talking about the ASL coaches etc i noticed in the credits, and what that meant, and so on, and Dude said, oh, there was a Russian dialect coach too, I noticed him. Know what? He was Latvian.
Oh? How do you know that? I asked.
Because he had a Russian last name with an S tacked on the end, he said. That’s how you know. Anybody who’s been in Latvia long enough gets an S stuck on the end because your name has to conform to Latvian naming conventions (s for man, a for woman) in order to function grammatically. (Onetime Sabres hockey coach Ted Nolan was famously called Teds Nolans for his entire tenure coaching the Latvian national team.)
This dialect coach’s name was clearly a Russian name, ended in -ov or something, but with an s tacked on. -ovs. So. Latvian.
Huh, I said.
Oh and his first name had a J in it, which I know isn’t a Russian thing, dude added. So, there’s no doubt: he was certainly a Latvian.
I just looked him up, and, well. There’s no more info than that, but sure enough, his name conforms to Latvian naming conventions and has a j in it. Genadijs Dolganovs on IMDB, not much there, but… Oh, I Googled him, and
Yup! Genadijs Dolganovs. Native of Riga, Latvia, resident of– surprise– Toronto. Where the movie was mostly filmed. Actor, director. Dialect coach.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, there’s a little lesson for you, which I suppose illustrates the importance of #ownvoices stuff– nobody would ever have noticed that guy’s name except a Latvian-descended kid who felt cut off from his roots and studied it and never did anything with it but by God, he notices it wherever it is. It’s hard to convey how much resonance something will have in a case like that. And it’s why it’s so hard sometimes to get representation right.
And there’s a whole story in that, somewhere: this background crew guy, born in Latvia under the Soviets, with a work history there and then a relocation to Toronto around the millennium… yes, he probably has quite a good handle on the various accents and dialects of Russian.
(Your picture was not posted)
oh one more tiny note on The Shape of Water, which is apropos of absolutely nothing but is fascinating (to me!) nonetheless:
I was talking about the ASL coaches etc i noticed in the credits, and what that meant, and so on, and Dude said, oh, there was a Russian dialect coach too, I noticed him. Know what? He was Latvian.
Oh? How do you know that? I asked.
Because he had a Russian last name with an S tacked on the end, he said. That’s how you know. Anybody who’s been in Latvia long enough gets an S stuck on the end because your name has to conform to Latvian naming conventions (s for man, a for woman) in order to function grammatically. (Onetime Sabres hockey coach Ted Nolan was famously called Teds Nolans for his entire tenure coaching the Latvian national team.)
This dialect coach’s name was clearly a Russian name, ended in -ov or something, but with an s tacked on. -ovs. So. Latvian.
Huh, I said.
Oh and his first name had a J in it, which I know isn’t a Russian thing, dude added. So, there’s no doubt: he was certainly a Latvian.
I just looked him up, and, well. There’s no more info than that, but sure enough, his name conforms to Latvian naming conventions and has a j in it. Genadijs Dolganovs on IMDB, not much there, but… Oh, I Googled him, and
Yup! Genadijs Dolganovs. Native of Riga, Latvia, resident of– surprise– Toronto. Where the movie was mostly filmed. Actor, director. Dialect coach.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, there’s a little lesson for you, which I suppose illustrates the importance of #ownvoices stuff– nobody would ever have noticed that guy’s name except a Latvian-descended kid who felt cut off from his roots and studied it and never did anything with it but by God, he notices it wherever it is. It’s hard to convey how much resonance something will have in a case like that. And it’s why it’s so hard sometimes to get representation right.
And there’s a whole story in that, somewhere: this background crew guy, born in Latvia under the Soviets, with a work history there and then a relocation to Toronto around the millennium… yes, he probably has quite a good handle on the various accents and dialects of Russian.
(Your picture was not posted)
