Phonological Adaptation of Russian Borrowings in Avar-Andic Languages

Aims and Research Questions: The paper investigates processes of phonological adaptation of Russian borrowings in Avar-Andic languages with an aim to determine what factors affect degrees of integration. Methodology, Data and Analysis: We analyzed Russian borrowings from ten dictionaries of Avar-Andic languages. Each borrowing was annotated and matched segment-by-segment to its corresponding Russian source lexeme. We performed a qualitative analysis of the correspondences and modeled them with a mixed effect logistic regression. Findings: The analysis demonstrates that variation in degrees of phonological adaptation depends on multiple factors, both language-internal (i.e., related to syllable structure and repair strategy preferences) and language-external (i.e., time depth of the borrowing). Originality: This is the first quantitative investigation of phonological adaptations of Russian borrowings in Avar-Andic languages. Implications: Our findings have implications for studies on language contact, and more specifically contribute to research on loanword adaptation in multilingual settings.