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

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 22, 2000, 13:12
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"