The San Francisco call., 1904-02-21
Russian Names.

present war in the Far East would ap-
pear 10 be the difficulty Of spelling and
pronouncing the Russian names. The
list OF the vessels engaged in the naval
battle at Port Arthur. as contained in
Viceroy Alexeiev's official report, looks
like a mass Of ingenious typographical
errors. or the disastrous mixup of a
runaway linotype As a matter Of fact,
however. the difficulty which Russian
names present to the American reader
is greatly enhanced by the fact that
most Of them. in the forms in which
We see them. do not come to US directly
from the Russians, but suffer from
passage through the French or the
German before reaching us. and most
of the names involved in reports of the
present war are the Wild Guesses Of the
correspondents. who for the most part
are acquainted with no language save
their own.
Russian names are at best by no
means simple. because the Russian
makes fine distinctions Of sound which
are scarcely perceptible to the ears Of
Americans: but there is no reason why
they should be still further cOmpli-
Gated by the grotesoue spelling which
French and German writer's employ in
order 20 initiate in their own languages
the Russian sound. AS matter of fact
the words which flow from the facile
tongued subjects of the Tsar find a
simpler and truer representation in
our own forms of spelling than in
either Of the other languages men
toned.
Ii is out Of the question to attempt
here 10 give the Russian characters
and their English equivalent but il is
entirely possible to sketch the lines of
simple. natural and uniform system
Of transliteration which, by a cOmpari-
son OF the French and German forms
frequently met with, viii enable the
casual reader to recognize Russian
names under their various forms, their
correct spelling and their approximate
pronunciation. Some words, TO be sure,
have become conventional in a form
which does not correspond at all to
the Russian spelling or pronunciation
and these can very well be left alone.
Moscow" for example. the Russians
spell and pronounce 'Moskva." The
name Of the Viceroy now in charge of
Russian affairs in the Far East is cor
rectly spelled "Alexeiev." but we are
form 'Alexieh' that it is probably best
not to tamper with it. On the other
hand. II you notice that a writer upon
Russian affairs calls the autocrat Of
all tAe Russias 'Czar" instead Of
''Tsar" you can make up your mind
that he is ignorant of the Russian Ian
guage and gets his information at sec4
Ond hand.
1t is possible without any reference
TO the Russian characters. but simply
by a comparison Of French and Ger
man forms TO formulate q useful and
fairly simple if not complete system
Of transliteration and pronunciation.
As to accent the majority of Russian
names. especially those ending in '.ov,'
ski" and "vich," take the stress upon
the next to the last syllable. as. for
example. "ROmanOv," ''Alexeiev,' Ma
karOv'' and 'Turgenev." The ending
'vich" means "son Of" and ski is
simply an adjective ending similar to
the German "isch." One of the difficult
ties Of Russian proper names will be
simplified If it is borne in mind that
the Russian always has three names
first, his given name; second, the given
name Of his father with "vich" at the
end of il. and third, his family or sur
name. Sc. for example. the name Of
the present Tsar is Nikolai Alexandra
vich RomanOv or Nicholas Romanov,
son Of Alexander Romanov.
For a system Of transliteration it
viii, perhaps, be simplest to mention
various English letters or combinations
of letters and the French and German
forms which should be replaced by
them. The changes chiefly to be OBJ
served are as follows:
"Ch" should always replace the Ger
man "tsch" and the French Itch" as
GorchakOv.
&c" is always hard: where the French
are obliged TO write gu" on this ac-
count they should not be copied, as
Turgenev.
For ~kh" German writer's use "ch -
which is much too cultural to represent
correctly the Russian, writing Astra-
chan for Astrakhan
IS" and -" have their exact equiv
alents in Russian, but German and
French scholars frequently use IS" for
the latter and SIS" for the former. writ
ing Wassili for Vasili. and Rasumowskl
or Rasoumoffsky for Razumovski.
~Sh" should be used for the German
sch" and the French ~ch.' as Dash
kOv.
For It's" the Germans write e"
"" correctly transliterates the third
letter Of the Russian alphabet. which
French and German writer's have vari-
0usly represented by wv" and If" 2.
3. NOrOntsov. To be sure ''ff' at the
end OF a word more correctly approx
mates the Russian pronunciation. but
for the sake Of uniformity il is much
better TO use ~ in all cases, and this
usage has been adopted by the authori-
ties Of the British Museum. The Rus
sian character for this letter is "a. -
and 10 this was due the mistake by
which SevastoDol was formerly writ
ten SebastoDoi.
-Zh" should be used where the
French use j." so Nizhni Novgorod.
The vowfls 'e" and ''i' must be re-
tanned az in French and German with