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You probably wish it weren’t such a difficult name for Anglophone readers to parse! If we were to break it down, it sounds like HvOshinskaya with the stress on

by wruza 3y ago

You probably wish it weren’t such a difficult name for Anglophone readers to parse! If we were to break it down, it sounds like HvOshinskaya with the stress on the O That’s self-imposed complexity. First they transliterate it as “kh”, where “h” is enough in practice. And then these “sh”, “ch” permutations which should be something like /[ščşç]/. It could be justified if Anglophones could read it correctly, but usually I have to turn on subtitles to reconstruct a name back from that.

t_tsonev 3y ago
Mama ŠČ!
Tade0 3y ago
> First they transliterate it as “kh”, where “h” is enough in practice. That one caught me off guard when I saw Kherson mentioned for the first time.
bambataa 3y ago
When I studied Russian we were taught (by native speakers) that щ was pronounced “shch”. But then when we went to Russia literally everyone pronounced it like a longer and softer ш. I still don’t really understand what happened there.
- nine_k 3y ago
  You will hear "shch" in St. Petersburg, and a softened "sh" in Moscow. AFAICT more regional variations exist, e.g. sounding like "sht". Interestingly, you will also hear "shch" in Bulgaria.
lisasays 3y ago
That’s self-imposed complexity. It's not a matter of complexity for its own sake. The standard transliteration an intentional trade-off that favors accuracy/fidelity over accessibility to lazy English speakers. Berman has a point that a simpler system would make stuff easier to pronounce and recognize. But you'd be losing a lot of important signal and creating all kinds of other confusions (especially in dictionary entries) if you apopted that kind of a system as your standard. For example the Х is always a "kh" sound, as in the Scottish loch, and never a "h" sound (which doesn't exist in Russian). Meanwhile if one does see a Cyrillic name transliterated with a pure "h" sound it's a good sign that it references something in Ukrainian (where the sound does occur and is quite common). Also if we squish Щ down to "sh" then we're colliding with the representation of Ш which represents the pure "sh" sound. So you'd be creating all kinds of collisions is if you smushed these two letters down into the same representation. While "shch" is mouthful for Anglophones - it at least tells them that something is going on, and that it's not the same as "sh" in either the Cyrillic representation or the sound. Point being - there are reasons for the system the way it is, and it's not about pedantry really. (BTW yes, these sounds do drift regionally and all that but that's a whole different topic).

by wruza 3y ago

t_tsonev 3y ago

Mama ŠČ!

Tade0 3y ago

> First they transliterate it as “kh”, where “h” is enough in practice. That one caught me off guard when I saw Kherson mentioned for the first time.

bambataa 3y ago

When I studied Russian we were taught (by native speakers) that щ was pronounced “shch”. But then when we went to Russia literally everyone pronounced it like a longer and softer ш. I still don’t really understand what happened there.

nine_k 3y ago
You will hear "shch" in St. Petersburg, and a softened "sh" in Moscow. AFAICT more regional variations exist, e.g. sounding like "sht". Interestingly, you will also hear "shch" in Bulgaria.

lisasays 3y ago

That’s self-imposed complexity. It's not a matter of complexity for its own sake. The standard transliteration an intentional trade-off that favors accuracy/fidelity over accessibility to lazy English speakers. Berman has a point that a simpler system would make stuff easier to pronounce and recognize. But you'd be losing a lot of important signal and creating all kinds of other confusions (especially in dictionary entries) if you apopted that kind of a system as your standard. For example the Х is always a "kh" sound, as in the Scottish loch, and never a "h" sound (which doesn't exist in Russian). Meanwhile if one does see a Cyrillic name transliterated with a pure "h" sound it's a good sign that it references something in Ukrainian (where the sound does occur and is quite common). Also if we squish Щ down to "sh" then we're colliding with the representation of Ш which represents the pure "sh" sound. So you'd be creating all kinds of collisions is if you smushed these two letters down into the same representation. While "shch" is mouthful for Anglophones - it at least tells them that something is going on, and that it's not the same as "sh" in either the Cyrillic representation or the sound. Point being - there are reasons for the system the way it is, and it's not about pedantry really. (BTW yes, these sounds do drift regionally and all that but that's a whole different topic).