----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan van Steenbergen" <ijzeren_jan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: Lukashenka (jara: Country names still needed)
> --- Andreas Johansson skrzypszy:
>
> > It's him. The modern, "official" Swedish transliteration would be
"Zjukov".
> >
> > But surely the German transliteration must be "Schukow"?
>
> No, "Shukow" (IIRC). "Schukow" would be a transliteration of "S^ukov". The
> problem with German is that it doesn't have the /Z/ phoneme, and that is
why
> "sh" was chosen as some sort of compromise.
>
> Another problem with German is that it pronounces _z_ like [ts]. Hence for
> example "Jelzin". On the other hand, initial _s_ before a vowel is
pronounced
> [z], hence "Selkin" instead of "Zelkin". But what to do with initial [s],
then?
> How to distinguish between "Sacharov" and "Zacharov"? Well, sometimes
German
> uses double _s_ for [s]: Ssacharow. But often, some sort of compromise is
made
> with other transcriptions.
>
Why not use |ß|? It's much more fun than |ss|...ßacharow.