7 ms·

The didn’t decline the last name. They omitted the first name. “господину Цукербергу” = “to Mr. Zuckerberg”, which is acceptable in English as well.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
If it's not being declined, why is there a "у" at the end of Цукербергу? It even matches the ending of господину, which -- without the у -- sure looks like the courtesy title "Gospodin". You're sure that's not a case marker?
- filoleg 5y ago
  Russian "У" sounds the same as english "oo". And here, it is placed at the ends of both words as dative preposition, to indicate that it is "*to* Mr. Zuckerberg". If it was Putin instead of Zuckerberg, it would work just the same, "господину Путину". No difference at all, regardless of whether the last name is Russian or not.
  - stavros 5y ago
    And yet it's not in the dative case (ie declined)?
    - filoleg 5y ago
      It is declined. The point I was making is that it was declined not because it was a foreign last name. Swapping Zuckerberg for Putin in that sentence would decline Putin's last name in the exact same way.
      - stavros 5y ago
        I see, thank you. As an aside, you would not decline the transliteration of a foreign name in Greek. They used to "Greekify" the names a century ago and decline them, but now that sounds extremely dated and odd.
        aasasd 5y ago
        In Russian, the amount to which words were assimilated has also changed depending on which foreign language was in vogue at the time, and to what extent. In the past, pronunciations of English borrowed words became closer to Russian standards. But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Afaiu it was the same in the past with French borrowings and then German ones (or perhaps in the reverse order)—kinda similar to English flirtings with French and Latin, but thankfully without such a mess in spelling. However, Цукерберг/Zuckerberg is quite natural for Russian due to being an obviously Jewish name. The first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, because that's how analogous Jewish names are pronounced here.
        stavros 5y ago
        > But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Now that you mention it, that's exactly what happened with Greek too. Branding used to be Greek, then sort-of-foreignified Greek (eg Greek words with a foreign suffix) and now just English. > first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no?
        aasasd 5y ago
        Hmm, weird about the branding in Greece, since afaik you haven't had a sudden-ish disappearance of an Iron Curtain with a resulting influx of Western culture. But I guess that globalism-aka-Americanism is more widespread than just our case. > That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no? Well yeah. Wiktionary notes straight away that the surname is Ashkenazic—it was most probably naturalized in Russian through Ukraine's and specifically Odessa's Jewish population. The more familiar variation here is ‘Zuckerman’.
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
    - aasasd 5y ago
      It is, the gggp comment is mistaken in saying that—I think the author is just not too familiar with English terminology for this.
- anonymfus 5y ago
  Yes, the endings are case markers here. YeBanKo probably misunderstood your question.
- YeBanKo 5y ago
  I misunderstood the question. I think the question is why both "господину" and "Цукербергу" are declined, given that "Цукербергу" has non-slavic origin. I think typically the rule is that only names of Slavic origin are declined along with generic name, such as "в город Минск", "в город Киев", "в город Москву". But the foreign names it is not, e.g. "в город Сан Франциско", "в город Сан Сиэтл". I think it definitely true for geographical names, and probably for last names as well. However, even for geographical names there many names that considered long assimilated, e.g. "в городе Санкт-Петербурге". I think the same true for a last name such as Цукербергу. There are plenty of people with Germanic last names, especially ending with -berg, -man, -baum, etc, so maybe it is considered assimilated enough that it follows rules for Slavic based names.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

If it's not being declined, why is there a "у" at the end of Цукербергу? It even matches the ending of господину, which -- without the у -- sure looks like the courtesy title "Gospodin". You're sure that's not a case marker?

filoleg 5y ago
Russian "У" sounds the same as english "oo". And here, it is placed at the ends of both words as dative preposition, to indicate that it is "*to* Mr. Zuckerberg". If it was Putin instead of Zuckerberg, it would work just the same, "господину Путину". No difference at all, regardless of whether the last name is Russian or not.
- stavros 5y ago
  And yet it's not in the dative case (ie declined)?
  - filoleg 5y ago
    It is declined. The point I was making is that it was declined not because it was a foreign last name. Swapping Zuckerberg for Putin in that sentence would decline Putin's last name in the exact same way.
    - stavros 5y ago
      I see, thank you. As an aside, you would not decline the transliteration of a foreign name in Greek. They used to "Greekify" the names a century ago and decline them, but now that sounds extremely dated and odd.
      - aasasd 5y ago
        In Russian, the amount to which words were assimilated has also changed depending on which foreign language was in vogue at the time, and to what extent. In the past, pronunciations of English borrowed words became closer to Russian standards. But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Afaiu it was the same in the past with French borrowings and then German ones (or perhaps in the reverse order)—kinda similar to English flirtings with French and Latin, but thankfully without such a mess in spelling. However, Цукерберг/Zuckerberg is quite natural for Russian due to being an obviously Jewish name. The first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, because that's how analogous Jewish names are pronounced here.
        stavros 5y ago
        > But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Now that you mention it, that's exactly what happened with Greek too. Branding used to be Greek, then sort-of-foreignified Greek (eg Greek words with a foreign suffix) and now just English. > first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no?
        aasasd 5y ago
        Hmm, weird about the branding in Greece, since afaik you haven't had a sudden-ish disappearance of an Iron Curtain with a resulting influx of Western culture. But I guess that globalism-aka-Americanism is more widespread than just our case. > That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no? Well yeah. Wiktionary notes straight away that the surname is Ashkenazic—it was most probably naturalized in Russian through Ukraine's and specifically Odessa's Jewish population. The more familiar variation here is ‘Zuckerman’.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
  - aasasd 5y ago
    It is, the gggp comment is mistaken in saying that—I think the author is just not too familiar with English terminology for this.
anonymfus 5y ago
Yes, the endings are case markers here. YeBanKo probably misunderstood your question.
YeBanKo 5y ago
I misunderstood the question. I think the question is why both "господину" and "Цукербергу" are declined, given that "Цукербергу" has non-slavic origin. I think typically the rule is that only names of Slavic origin are declined along with generic name, such as "в город Минск", "в город Киев", "в город Москву". But the foreign names it is not, e.g. "в город Сан Франциско", "в город Сан Сиэтл". I think it definitely true for geographical names, and probably for last names as well. However, even for geographical names there many names that considered long assimilated, e.g. "в городе Санкт-Петербурге". I think the same true for a last name such as Цукербергу. There are plenty of people with Germanic last names, especially ending with -berg, -man, -baum, etc, so maybe it is considered assimilated enough that it follows rules for Slavic based names.