Global Accentedness Across Bilingual Trajectories in Russian–Hebrew Bilinguals: The Role of Age of Onset of Bilingualism

This study examines the role of age of onset of bilingualism (AOB) in shaping global accentedness in Russian among Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. All bilingual participants acquired Russian from birth but differed in the age at which they were first exposed to Hebrew, the societal language, forming three groups: BL-Early (Hebrew exposure before age 5; heritage-language speakers), BL-Late (Hebrew exposure between ages 5 and 13), and IMMControl (Hebrew exposure after age 13). These groups were compared with a monolingual Russian control group (MonoControl). Global accentedness, defined as listeners' overall perception of pronunciation differences based on segmental and suprasegmental cues, was assessed in Study 1 through ratings of speech samples by 20 monolingual Russian listeners. Results revealed persistent global accentedness across the bilingual groups, with differences associated with AOB, sustained Russian exposure, and Russian proficiency. Although earlier Hebrew exposure was associated with greater global accentedness at the group level, sustained Russian exposure and proficiency emerged as the strongest predictors of individual differences. In Study 2, qualitative interviews identified specific features underlying listeners' judgments, including rising intonation, inconsistent palatalization, and non-native fricatives and affricates. Together, these findings suggest that bilingual experience shapes Russian phonetic and phonological outcomes over the long term and that AOB onset establishes distinct bilingual trajectories, while sustained heritage-language exposure and proficiency more directly account for individual differences in perceived global accentedness.