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ArchivesRe: The Romanov Family
in reply to a message by Alice
There are a several acceptable spellings for the names of the Romanov family because the Russian language uses a Cyrillic alphabet and because you have to transliterate them into English using the English alphabet, there's no one set way to spell them. Basically, you have to spell the names (goes for words, too) as they sound in Russian using English letters because there are no direct equivalents of Cyrillic letters in English (this is hard for me to explain, so I'm hoping that you can follow me somewhat).
I'm not totally sure on this, but I believe there are a couple of standardised transcription systems for Romanising Russian (basically, writing Russian using the English alphabet).
Basically, no matter how the Romanovs names are spelled, they aren't necessarily wrong.
Traditional English equivalents are Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Alexis.
A more standard equivalent (English transliterations that stay true to the Russian forms) are Nikolai (can also be Nikolay), Aleksandra, Olga, Tatiyana (Tatiana, Tatyana), Mariya (Maria), Anastasiya (Anastasia), Aleksei (Aleksey).
I hope this made an iota of sense. :)
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I'm not totally sure on this, but I believe there are a couple of standardised transcription systems for Romanising Russian (basically, writing Russian using the English alphabet).
Basically, no matter how the Romanovs names are spelled, they aren't necessarily wrong.
Traditional English equivalents are Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Alexis.
A more standard equivalent (English transliterations that stay true to the Russian forms) are Nikolai (can also be Nikolay), Aleksandra, Olga, Tatiyana (Tatiana, Tatyana), Mariya (Maria), Anastasiya (Anastasia), Aleksei (Aleksey).
I hope this made an iota of sense. :)
This message was edited 5/22/2006, 2:19 PM
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Replies
There is also a linguistic standard transliteration system - but not used much in the English-speaking world. It's mostly based on the Czech alphabet and how it renders certain sounds. In that transliteration it would be
Nikolaj
Aleksandra
Ol'ga
Tat'jana
Marija
Anastasija
Aleksej
The ' stands for a Russian letter, the "soft sign", which affects the pronunciation of the preceding consonant but has no sound value of it's own.
*****
Nikolaj
Aleksandra
Ol'ga
Tat'jana
Marija
Anastasija
Aleksej
The ' stands for a Russian letter, the "soft sign", which affects the pronunciation of the preceding consonant but has no sound value of it's own.
*****
1
Interesting. So basically, for Czech transliteration, we're trading the Russian transliteration's 'I's and 'Y's for 'J's? Also, you said that the ' affects the pronunciation of the preceding consonant but has no sound value of it's own. Does that affect the stressing of a syllable of a name (or word), too?
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This message was edited 5/22/2006, 2:36 PM
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1. Hold on, you've lost me there, with all those Is and Ys and Js :-)
Here's a link that gives the transliteration in the "Lateinische Translit." column:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/fremdsprachig/cyr/russisch/rustranslit.html
(Ignore the Duden-Transkript. column, that's how it's done non-scholarly in German)
Basically, "i kratkoe" is represented by j. Then there are letter combinations ju and ja for the last two letters of the Russian alphabet. And that Russian middle vowel in ty, my, vy is represented by y.
2. No effect on the stress.
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Here's a link that gives the transliteration in the "Lateinische Translit." column:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/fremdsprachig/cyr/russisch/rustranslit.html
(Ignore the Duden-Transkript. column, that's how it's done non-scholarly in German)
Basically, "i kratkoe" is represented by j. Then there are letter combinations ju and ja for the last two letters of the Russian alphabet. And that Russian middle vowel in ty, my, vy is represented by y.
2. No effect on the stress.
*****
This message was edited 5/22/2006, 2:50 PM
1
And I just notice, in line 23 they've put the c in brackets. In the scholarly standard transliteration it's definitely ch.
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Danke schön!
I'm fascinated by languages so I'm definitely going to give this a thorough looking over. That site is very helpful in describing what I find it difficult to explain. Also, it effectively explains in simple terms the things that I have trouble understanding.
Thanks again!
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I'm fascinated by languages so I'm definitely going to give this a thorough looking over. That site is very helpful in describing what I find it difficult to explain. Also, it effectively explains in simple terms the things that I have trouble understanding.
Thanks again!
1