Evening star., 1934-02-27
To the Editor OF The Star:

10 the Edltor OF he star.
Mr.. Lindsay S. Perkins observa-
tions in the columns of your paper
of February l3 on the difficulties one
encounters in studying the Russian
language are. generally speaking
correct. but require important quail
fications
Why speak only Of the hardships
Of the language? Why not mention
scme Of the alluring phenomena of
the Russian tongue. Let me indicate
few of it's appealing characteristics
Each Russian vowel or consonant
letter stands with rare exceptions for
one and only one sound. and con-
versely each sound of the Russian
tongue is represented by one and
only one letter. not including the
diphthongs, which are also uniformly
and regularly pronounced
1t is perhaps net beyond the point
to mention here to the credit OF the
Soviet government that it has still
more simplified the writing of Rus
sian by eliminating useless letters
which represented no sound. For in
stance, the hard sign formerly indi-
Gated that the conSonant preceding
it was to be pronounced hard This
sign is now discarded. The soft mark
is still retained to point out that the
consonant preceding it is pronounced
soft: the absence of the soft mark after
a consonant makes its pronunciation
hard. Some of the adjective endings
have been eliminated, and the same
endings are now used in the nomina-
tive and accusative plural. modifying
both masculine and neurer nouns
There are other useful changes.
1t is true that there is no ironclad
rule for properly accenting Russian
words. There are, however, principles
of declension and conjugation, gen.
orally regular, which direct the cor
rect accent of Russian words. Fur
thermore. to place the proper accent
on Russian words, it is only necessary
to possess good sense and good taste:
namely, one must not put the accent
on a syllable which makes the pro-
nunciation of the word difficult or
awkward.
The construction of a Russian SEN
LCllNS, "llCCiCA Va ul III WI itCCH- 10
simplified by the ending of its words.
The subject. predicate. direct or in
direct objects, even II enormously
transposed in a sentence. do little
violence to the meaning, thought or
idea therein expressed.
OF course, for foreigner to study
Russian. like any other language. is
no light task But it is essential to
understand that the Russian language
can be mastered by following the sci
entific rules of its grammar, which
unlike, for instance, English, has few
exceptions to each rule. whereas in
English, not speaking of the numerous
sounds each vowel and some conso-
nants represent, its grammar contains
so many exceptions to each rule that
the exceptions constitute the rules,
and the rules are really the excep-
tions.
1t is the writer's opinion. resulting
from a living experience, that it is
as easy to learn to read, speak and
especially to write Russian as English
While praising Prof. Kolesnikoff,
MIR. Perkins informs us that the Rus
sian language is interesting and use
full. Let us add another thought: The
Russian language is not only inter-
esting and useful but it Is also very
beautiful.
It Is an artistic, melodious language.
The great Russian Turguenef advised
the Russians to keep in its purity
that precious inheritance Of ours, the