To tell the truth, i dont know if we have a standard for transliteration or not, at least if it is exists, noone really knows about it:P
But generally we try to render the pronounciation of the other language though of course it is not full, as Russian doesnt have many sounds like english W TH, etc. so W is always "y" (cyrillic), TH is T, H (like in Hitler) is written like G sound, Adolf Hitler=Adol'f Gitler, yes and we tend to soften L...
polish sirnams ending on WSKI are russified by adding j at the end
So as you can see Russians arent so ideal in transliteration as well...
Easterner,
<< The specific problem with English and French oprthography is that they have conflicting pronunciations for the same letter combination - the combination "-oy" is a case in point, as in "Tolstoy". I'm not sure how this writer's name is transliterated in French - I guess they use the "i" with the double dot diacritic above it. >>
That is what they do. The Bolshoi Ballet is written “Bolchoï”. (But even with the diacritic, I always think “Bolshwa” when I see it.)
Something I’d like to see in transliterations of Russian names is an indication of which syllable to stress. Of course, I’d like to know the same about Russian even when it’s not transliterated. Languages such as French and Finnish are easy – the former stresses the last syllable and the latter stresses the first. But unless I recognize a familiar root in a Russian name, I have no idea.
There was a dancer whose last name is Terekhova, and I didn’t know whether it was te-re-KHO-va, te-RYE-kho-va, or ter-RYO-kho-va (thinking that “ye” might actually be a “yo”). Finally I bought a video that had a voiceover, and learned that her name is TYE-re-kho-va, the only syllable I didn’t think would be stressed.
<< Finally I bought a video that had a voiceover, and learned that her name is TYE-re-kho-va, the only syllable I didn’t think would be stressed. >>
Of course, the last syllable wouldn't be stressed in any women's last names that have traditional endings. For that reason, it was ironic to hear a French voiceover in another ballet video, with the narrator listing various dancers and teachers: VaganoVA, UlanoVA, ChenchikoVA, KurgapkiNA, etc.
LINGUIST,
I thought the trend now is to transliterate "h" as the KH sound, rather than the G sound. The first time I went to Russia, in 1988, a member of our group had the last name Van Horne, his name had been transliterated using X (KH). Actually, his name was transliterated as "Van Khorni".
My favorite word with the H to G transliteration is "Gollyvood".
Transliterations are difficult when the target language doesn't have some of the sounds from the source language. At least when the alphabets are the same, you can pronounce the words if you know how to pronounce letters in that language. The balletic term "pas de deux" is a difficult one to transliterate into Russian. The accepted transliteration sounds like "pa dye dye". I guess the only other choices would be "pa dyo dyo", "pa do do", "pas dyu dyu" and "pa du du".
Kirk : French traditionally tends to 'Francise' proper names deriving from languages not written with Latin alphabet.
Fr <Mao Tsé-toung> and Fr <Mao Zedong>.
Fr <Gorbatchev>, not *<Garbache/ov>.
*<Brezhnev> is impossible as is *<Khrushchov>. So is *<Putin>. But you're right, when a Francophone reads an Anglophone papers it almsot looks like 'whore' (<putain> actually) is written.
Now we talk about transliteration into Latin characters, do arabs have one? My favorite Egyptian singer is Mohamed Mounir, but I have seen him spelled in many ways: Monir. Moneer, Mouneer etc. The same with Umm Khultum etc. A bit of a nuisance when you try to do an internet search...
I like the name of the Moroccan Olympic runner Hicham el-Guerrouj.
Saying Poutine, guys, don't forget to change stress vowel for the first one.
For Tout Les Russes, the name of our president associates with put' (way), not whores, vaginas or Quebecian puke.
From the times of communism we have a combination of words that even me can remember: svetly put'=fair way. It's something far and beautiful we go for. Also, abreviation of his name, patronimic and surname launched by the journalists is short for Gross Domestic Product.
I am not sure if his name gives him 70% rating among Russians, but certainly this is a trump to have such a name.
Heh.
Vytenis,
Searching for Arabic names on the internet is one of the most frustrating experiences I've had. You never know whether to search for French transliterations, which are very common, or English transliterations that attempt to use spellings that look very English, or transliterations that try to use vowel sounds that are common to a number of languages. And sometimes one method seems to have been used for one syllable, and another method for the next syllable. So, should you look for Munir, Mounir, Mooneer, Muneer or Mouneer?
Then there's the problem of how to symbolize the glottal stops and the "ayn". Add to that the different spellings of the definite article (al, el, al-, el-) and you have a real mess.
I also suppose that the sometimes widely different varieties of spoken Arabic can add in another problem to Romanization, altho you were probably just referring to the high, more literary Standard Arabic that educated Arabic-speakers have learned.
And another thing -- there's the problem of how to indicate long vowels. Should you look for doubled vowels or the diacritical mark to indicate length, or nothing special at all?
Just for fun, I looked up a certain famous Egyptian singer/songwriter, and got the following (partial list):
Farid el Atrash
Farid El Atrache
Farid el-Atrache
Farid Al Atrash
Farid Al-Atrash
Fareed al-Atrash
Fareed el Atrache*
You get the idea. And that was searching for sites in English. The German spellings (Farid + Atrasch) were also inconsistent about whether to use “El” or “Al” and whether to use the hyphen.
*Fareed el Atrache is odd, since the first name is an English transliteration and the last name is a French transliteration.