Re: OT: Russian in ASCII?

 --- John Cowan skrzypszy:

> > NB You can often easily recognise the source(s) of a writer's text
> > by simply looking at the transcription(s) used. Sometimes you can
> > distinguish Gorbatschow(German), Khrushchev (English), and Tsjernenko
> > (Dutch) in one text!
>
> Not always.  The conventional English spelling of the composer is any
> of Tchaikovsky, Tschaikovsky, or even straight German Tschaikowsky,
> though Chaykovsky would be more suited to the general run of English
> transcriptions.
True, that's a good point. Stupid as it my sound, Tchaikovsky is one of the few
exceptions that confirm the rule. Or, to put it in a more sophisticated manner:
when a person or place is commonly known in a wrong transcription, we don't
change it.
A funny side effect of this rule is the name Tchaikovsky itself, because it
refers to Pyotr Ilyich only. When we speak about another composer with the same
name, we follow the correct transcription: Boris Chaykovsky.

 --- Andreas Johansson skrzypszy:

> > NB You can often easily recognise the source(s) of a writer's text by
> > simply looking at the transcription(s) used. Sometimes you can distinguish
> > Gorbatschow(German), Khrushchev (English), and Tsjernenko (Dutch) in one
> > text!
>
> A Dutch newspaper article I read on the train in Brussels this monday had
> alot to say about 'Sjewardnadze' and 'Saakashvili'. Neat, I thought.
Especially because "Sjewardnadze" is a combination of the Dutch and German
popular transcription; it should be either "Sjevardnadze" or "Schewardnadze".
In the case of the ending "-shvili" is must admit that this is more common in
the Dutch newspapers than the correct Dutch transcription "-sjvili". Probably
because Georgian names were less known here before the 1990s, it seems like we
adopted the English popular transcription. A shame, especially if you consider
the fact that Mr. Saakashvili is married to a Dutch woman!

Jan

=====
"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed
room with a mosquito."

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