# Talk:Vera Gedroits

Can anyone provide a reference for Gedroitz and Nierodt being lovers? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Many sources now document that information. SusunW (talk) 13:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Weight of English sources use Gedroits. Note discussion here [1] where linguistic discussion confirming that Lithuanian root (from Giedroyć and the town of Giedraičiai) would indicate the name ending in an s rather than z. SusunW (talk) 13:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ipigott: [2]  - err, her initials would be VIG, not VEG. I and E are as different in Russian as they are in English or German. I'd want a direct quote from her that she meant that, rather than just hypothesizing. --GRuban (talk) 13:59, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

GRuban 2 sources, albeit both written in part by Metz, state that it used the "initial" letters of her names, (not her initials). p 293[3] It is a slight distinction and I have changed the text. SusunW (talk) 14:44, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I agree "initial letters" is better.--Ipigott (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@SusunW:: You write "Daria Konstantinovna Mikhay (Russian: Дарья Константиновна Михау)" - the Russian "у" of "Михау" is not usually transliterated as the English y, but rather as the English u, or ou, or something like that. It's certainly pronounced as "oo", not as the y of "yes"; there is a hard "y" sound in Russian, but it's a completely different letter. So either the English or the Russian is probably wrong. I couldn't find the source you got her mother's name from - can you find it, so we can check? And we probably want to mark the source for it in near the name in the article. --GRuban (talk) 14:40, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

GRuban I am not a linguist and you speak Russian, so definitely we need to change the name as you see fit. See p 92 5 lines up from the bottom of the page. Also then needs to change for her mother a few lines down. Confirmation of the spelling Дарье Константиновне Михау, is here: [4] SusunW (talk) 14:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
And while we are on it, I am not sure which spelling of her first and middle parts of her name should be used for Russian either. The whole changing ending thing always confuses me. We were lost the whole time we were in Zagreb (only place I have ever been that I couldn't use a map) because the names on the street signs differed from the names on the map. A Serbian friend explained that it has to do with how you express words in various contexts, but I truly don't understand. SusunW (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Hehehe. The way I try to think of it, is that in Russian, nouns are conjugated, somewhat like verbs are in Latinate languages. Ah, there is one example in English! Pronouns! I gave the widget to her, and she gave it back to me! Did you notice that the words "she" and "her", and "I" and "me" changed dramatically, yet each pair refer to the same person? Here is what our Wikipedia articles say about it: a short example: Grammatical_case#Russian; a long explanation: Russian_grammar#Nouns. 7 possible endings for most nouns, depending on context (if you want to annoy a Russian speaker, ask them to count fireplace pokers beyond 4: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кочерга :-) ). Anyway, I think you have them correct here, though will scan again. Additional difficulties come from the facts that (1) her name wasn't really Russian, but Lithuanian, (2) she lived much of her life in Ukraine, which speaks a closely related but different language, (3) that she was born in 1870, and the language changed during her lifetime. So if you find her name spelled multiple ways in certain sources, well … yeah, I can definitely believe that could be possible! --GRuban (talk) 15:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Oh, are you asking about Дарья Константиновна versus Дарье Константиновне? Yeah, that's all right, that's just case. In the first, and most common case, Daria, is the subject of the sentence, so think of it as she. The second case, Darie, is the object of the sentence, so think of it as her. The specific sentence is something like "he married Darie Konstantinovne", think of it as "he married her". (Of course, in reality 7 different versions, instead of 2, but … sigh) --GRuban (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
GRuban Thank you for that explanation and correction to the article text. It makes perfect sense to me, though it is unlikely to stop my confusion. The whole 107 different conjugations of a verb in Spanish and other Romance languages just boggles my mind, as do the noun endings in various Slavic languages. LOL SusunW (talk) 15:59, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Actually wait. I just realized, and really need to ask. @SusunW:: You are writing this long and complex article with minimal knowledge of Russian? How? All but a few of your sources are in Russian! They're also not trivial to interpret, considering that politics were involved on multiple levels, multiple wars, probable Soviet revisionism, some sources working hard to gloss over her being lesbian, etc. I mean, you seem to be doing a fine job, but how are you managing it? --GRuban (talk) 15:57, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

GRuban none, zero, nada. I am at the point now where I recognize certain words in Cyrillic, but I neither read it nor write it. When I have a PDF, I literally have to paste one character at a time into a translation program. I use multiple translation programs to make sure I understand the text. Then if I still am unsure, I ask Ian. She is I think my 3rd Russian GA after Nina Simonovich-Efimova and Sophia Parnok. I was a history major, so Russian history I know about, language, no. SusunW (talk) 16:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Wow. Impressive. Honestly, if I had heard that someone were writing anything more than a stub-length article using a translation program, I'd have recommended they stop, because of the obvious errors and misunderstandings that could show up. And yet you seem to be doing fine on a complex subject; and you've done 2 more. --GRuban (talk) 16:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
GRuban Whenever Ian says basically what you said, I do not understand and am perplexed, as it is my normal. If I want to know about someone, I read whatever sources there are. Using multiple translation machines, knowing which ones do a better job on which languages and then translating the translation back, seems normal to me. I often write about women from a variety of countries with foreign sources. I have always assumed anyone could do it. In fact, I honestly think I have poor skill with languages other than English. I can read, but pronunciation is hard and hearing is awful. (The pronunciation in my head differs from how someone says it in real life). Maybe you all have convinced me this is a skill I have. SusunW (talk) 16:23, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
GRuban: Susun is certainly skilled and exceptionally proficient at making good use of machine translation systems. When she has serious doubts, she asks. Some minor errors occur from time to time but they are usually not significant. As for the names in this article, there are a huge number of variants. See for example the various authority files on Vera Gedroits under Authority Control, not to speak of the variants used in French and other Western European languages. Thanks for all your assistance.--Ipigott (talk) 16:39, 15 June 2018 (UTC)