Re: "New World": Little Russia (Malaja Rus'), Texas

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Danny Wier wrote:

> Doesn't one form of the word mean "peace" and the other "world"?  If
> so, then different spellings would be a good idea.  Compare to English
> "meet" and "meat", "see" and "sea"...
Fine and good if you think in English.  But 99% of the Russian system
is firmly (morpho)phonemic, and having three letters for /i/ and
two for /je/ stands out like a sore thumb.  Etymology doesn't cut it,
as very few Russians have the vaguest idea what is ChSl and what is
native -- IIRC, all present participles are ChSl, about as if we
had borrowed all past-tense endings from Norse!

As for the hard signs, they aren't *difficult* exactly, but they sure
do take up space.

The Revolution just finished the work that Peter started by abolishing
a bunch of redundant letters and parts of letters (historically /u/ was
written OY, as in Greek; Peter disposed of the O part).
I can see clinging to the old spelling out of fanatical anti-Bolshevism,
the way Taiwan clings to the Wade-Giles romanization out of fanatical
anti-mainlandism.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"