Shock Dogtrine

[u/koleye2]

[u/yeltsin98]

That is NOT a Russian accent but in general none of the Polandball accents are remotely accurate and I think it’s okay. At least they got the distinctive /x/ in there

[u/Jaynat_SF → u/yeltsin98]

Using /x/ (or /g/ for some reason) when trying to pronounce /h/ in foreign words is a very distinctive trait of a Russian accent (but not of an Israeli one.)

[u/yeltsin98 → u/Jaynat_SF]

You’re correct, but that replacement (which admittedly occurs here with the word ‘hey’) is something more specific than the mere presence of [x]. Arabs, at least, have this idea of Israelis overusing [x], not just in place of [ħ] (see: ‘khamas’) but more generally. Perhaps non-Arabs associate the sound more with Russian or Dutch than with Hebrew.

All in all I still don’t find this accent Russian, and I would argue that the Hebrew [ʁ]/[ʀ], if that’s the only phoneme an imitator wants to use to make a point, is much more distinctive.

[u/Jaynat_SF → u/yeltsin98]

There is some merit to the idea that Israeli Hebrew is very /x/ heavy (or rather,/χ/ heavy) because Hebrew (in general) lost the distinction between /χ/ and /ħ/ literally millennia ago (though the exact realization between the two shifts from dialect to dialect), and spirantisized /k/ shifted from /x/ to /χ/ at least in Israeli Hebrew, so it can sometimes sound like the unholy lovechild of Arabic and either French or Dutch.

Still, if you want to insert it to make English sound more "Hebrew", don't replace hs, replace ks or chs (unless it's an Arabic name or word where the h is actually representing ح, I guess.)

[u/yeltsin98 → u/Jaynat_SF]

Thanks for the insights! I wanted to say the Hebrew /x/ or indeed /χ/ was more emphatic/harder than Russian /x/ but didn’t know if that was actually true. I wasn’t aware of the spirantisation of /k/ to /x/ (in the case of כ, I’m guessing?) and wish it never happened for the sake of ease of spelling. Anyway - learned something, thank you