Re: OT: Russian in ASCII?

Hello Mark, Isaac,

2003-12-31T22:27:38Z Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 05:37:21PM +0200, Isaac Penzev wrote:
>> > Here's the system which is used daily in Russia:
>> >
>> > a b v g d e yo zh z i y k l m n o p r s t u f kh ts ch sh sch ' y ' e yu ya
> So "e" is used for both е and э, and ' is used for both znaks?
> That would seem to be ambiguous and inconsistent with the other
> palatalizing vowels.  Why not ye for е?
Because е can represent different sounds in different positions (i.e.,
both e and ye are applicable), and I tend to think that it's common to
use ' for both "znaks". As far as I remember Stalin (well, not himself
of course) was fighting against the letter ъ (hard sign) and had plans
to represent it with an apostrophe. I guess it comes from those times.

>> > No one writes Jel'cin btw. You can see Eltzin or Eltsin
>> > in the newspapaers depending on the language.
>>
>> Or Yeltzin.
> Boris is always <Yeltsin> over here.  The spelling <tz> seems very odd; for
> one thing, it would never actually be pronounced [tz] but either [ts] or
> [dz].  I can guess it derives from languages where <z> itself represents
> [ts], but then the <t> is either redundant or geminate . . .
From a Russian point of view <ts> and <tz> represent quite the same
sound. Isaac?

P.S. Isaac, I know you get everything from the list, I've no idea why
my mail client settings make you mad. Can't you use the Reply To All
option?

Regards,
--
  Alexander Savenkov                            http://www.xmlhack.ru/
  savenkov@xmlhack.ru             http://www.xmlhack.ru/authors/croll/