4 ms·
If Tchaikovsky is Russian and the translation of his name into written English is arbitrary and it's pronounced "Chaikovsky", what is the "T" for?
by ReactiveJelly 6y ago
If Tchaikovsky is Russian and the translation of his name into written English is arbitrary and it's pronounced "Chaikovsky", what is the "T" for?
- asjw 6y agoThat's also very simple: it's the transliteration of the phonetic symbol 'tʃ which represents the soft C sound as in cheese. That's what happens when a language steals a foreign word (Latin in this case) and changes its pronunciation In Latin the way groups of letters are pronounced it's (almost) unambigous, it's a phonetic alphabet itself If you change the pronunciation, that part is lost and you have to rely on recollection instead of recognition It also means that if you don't already know a word you can't be sure on how it is pronounced
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoThe 't' is from French. That's how they code the sound in the French language.
- asjw 6y agoP.s. Tchaikovsky in Russian is Чайко́вский and it is pronounced Cheekousky and not Chaikowsky The correct transliteration is Čajkovskij and the correct phonetic one is tɕɪˈkofskʲɪj