pronunciation of slavonic words and names

Pronunciation of Slavonic Words and NamesSource: The Slavonic Review, Vol. 2, No. 6 (Mar., 1924), pp. 668-672Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4201801 .

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668 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

and was received with the keenest attention and interest by a consider- able audience. Professor Lavrin distinguished between three planes of intellectual existence: the primitive, the struggle for definition, and the stage in which the conquests of this struggle have themselves become instincts, a stage of conscious and articulate personality. Making frequent and discriminate use of the memoirs, letters and diaries of these two great writers, Professor Lavrin represented Nietzsche as spurred by his frail health to self-mastery, and proceeding from wha t would have been an instinctive Christian psychology to that glorifica- tion of strength by which he is known. Tolstoy, on the other hand, he regarded as instinctively a pagan who struggled to an ideal of self- suppression. It is impossible, however, in a few words to summarise this fascinating study, which we hope to print at some time in this Review.

PRONUNCIATION OF SLAVONIC WORDS AND NAMES.

THE Slavs use two types of alphabet. Those of Orthodox faith use an alphabet largely modelled on Greek and named the Cyrillic. This alphabet is used, with slight modifications, by the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Serbians and the Bulgarians.

The principles adopted in the transliteration of Russian have already been explained in previous numbers of this Review, but may be repeated here in tabular form. The same system is employed for Ukrainian.

TRANSLITERATION OF RUSSIAN.

The following system is recommended by the Conference of University Teachers

a -a Ji- 1x - ch 6 b M - m m - sh B v H - n T - shch r -g (h) o - o - omit g -d n -p u- i e -e p r b - ' c e c-s i e E zh T t 3- e

3 -z y-u I0 Yu Hl . ?-f a- ya

x - kh o- f ri -y u ts v-i 4- k



PRONUNCIATION OF SLAVONIC WORDS. 669

Serb is transliterated into Croat, as, notwithstanding the difference of alphabet, the literary language is one and the same (hence the name Serbo-Croat).

Bulgarian spelling is not finally standardised, phonetic as well as historical orthographies being used. In this Review, Bulgarian is transliterated into the Latin alphabet, as used by the Croats. &, except when final, is retained, and ac, i, a, A are rendered by i, e, ja and j respectively, which are pronounced as in the italicised sounds of but, yam, yard and yet.

The Slavs of Catholic faith use a modified form of the Latin alphabet. By the exclusion of some letters and by the addition to others of various diacritical marks their languages are on the whole represented phonetically. While Polish, like English, frequently uses diagraphs to express single sounds, Czech early adopted the phonetic principle of one sound one letter, and one letter one sound. The lead of Czech is followed by Slovak, Croat, Slovene and Upper Wendish, the alphabets of which differ from each other and from Czech in minor details only. Lower Wendish generally uses the Gothic character.

In the pronunciation tables given below the nearest English equivalent sound is given. This is only done where the sounds

NOTES.

g (h) is admissible in retransliterating from the Russian foreign words such as Hugo.

Final y is to be optional when it is the second half of the diphthong it(-iy) if final and unstressed, in such names as:

rOpbERii - Gor'ki, AoCToeBcKi& - Dostoevski(y);

but it is obligatory when this diphthong is final and stressed, e.g. Bifl- viy.

Likewise it is obligatory when this diphthong occurs medially, stressed or unstressed, e.g.

HOBOPOCCiiiCICb - Novorossiysk. This final y is obligatory in all other diphthongs, whether medial or final, whether stressed or unstressed, e.g.

RpaCHBbill - krasiviy. iojIoMbi6iCa - kolomiyka.

TOJICTOiI - Tolstoy aipall - kray.

The apostrophe is retained to denote the soft sign, except in names already anglicised, e.g. Sebastopol, Astrakhan, Archangel; but Khar'kov, Kazan', Kol'tsov.

In this Review the principles recommended by the Conference are generally followed, subject to a few variations in detail.



670 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

either do not occur in English (6, etc.) or where the English reader would, if unwarned, pronounce wrongly (c, ch, etc.). On the other hand, no mention is made if the sounds in Slavonic are rendered by a letter that causes no ambiguity (z, etc.). For a correct pronunciation of Slavonic words and names it should be remembered that once the letters are correctly interpreted into the correct sounds, the words will present little difficulty, as redundant letters hardly ever occur and the spelling is on the whole phonetic. Speakers of standard (Southern) English must remember that vowels are not to be diphthongised, but pronounced as in Italian; approximately, therefore, a as in card, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in cloth, u as in rude.

The following hints on the pronunciation of the separate languages may prove useful. Only the more important points are touched upon.

Polish.

All words are stressed on the penultimate. All vowels are short, except when stressed, in which case they are semi-long Unaccented syllables are not slurred. The two nasal vowels, a and e are generally pronounced like English on and en; before spirants they have the sound of French on and in. Barred 1 (1) sounds in all positions like English w, or, in the pronunciation of some, like 1 in people, and w like English v. Any consonant followed by i is thereby palatalised (softened). It is important to distinguish in sound sz and ?, z and i, cz and c, di and dz. The first sounds of these four pairs resemble English shoot, leisure, choose and June respectively. The other four sounds have no exact English equivalent, but similar sounds are occasionally heard in English. A prolonged s sound is often used in such words as tissue and mischievous. The sound z is the corresponding voiced sound. The sound c, a close combination of t and s, may occur in " I'll hit you," or in the rapid pronunciation of tube, as distinguished from an affected or over-careful tyube, and from a vulgar chube. The sound dz, which is a voiced c and therefore stands in relation to c as z does to ? or as z to s, may be heard in reading the sentence "What did ye go out for to see? " Like the Russian letter transliterated by y, the Polish y does not occur in English. It most resembles the i of prince. The 1, as in the other Slav languages, is like French or German 1. The average Polish pronunciation does not distinguish between ch and h; ch



PRONUNCIATION OF SLAVONIC WORDS. 67I

resembles that of German or Scotch loch but is not so guttural, and an untrained ear often mistakes it for English h. rz, etymologically equivalent to Czech ir, is not distinguished in standard speech from i.

Czech and Slovak.

All words are stressed on the first syllable. Vowels may be long or short, length being indicated in writing by the mark over the vowel. There is no slurring of unaccented syllables. Palatal t, d and n (written t' or t', d' or dv, n', and, before i and e, without change, i.e., ti, te, etc.) are similar to the sounds heard in the normal, educated pronunciation of tune, dune, new T' and d' differ from Serbo-Croat c and dj in being single sounds and by having an acoustic effort resembling a mid-way position between ky (as in kyard for card) and ty or gy and dy in English. The sound r (voiced or unvoiced according to its position in the word) has no equivalent in English. r is a single sound with an acoustic effect similar to a rapid combination of r with simultaneous sh. Long u (as in boot) is written iu as well as u. Y has the sound of i and thus is generally a historical survival only. It has not, however, the palatalising effect of i. Ou is a diphthong as in standard English home. Czech carefully distinguishes ch and h. The ch is as in Polish, and the h similar to English h in " aha."

Slovak has no 'r, has a soft 1 (similar to the sound in million and written 1') and usually palatises t, d, n before i and e. Its vowel sounds are richer and include a (much as in English man) and 6 (as in want). Otherwise it agrees with Czech.

Serbo-Croal.

Polysyllabic words may be accented on any syllable except the last. Only experience can tell where the stress falls. All the vowels in any position may be long or short, and again, knowledge is the only guide, as length is not recorded in the writing. There is no slurring of any syllable. c is written as in Polish; for the sound of Polish dz three spellings are used in Croat, gj or dj or d. For palatal 1 and n, lj and nj are generally used, but the Zagreb Academy uses I and fn, and for dz (- Polish di) uses g. The sound written h varies in different parts of the territory over which Serbo-Croat is spoken. Either the Slavonic ch sound, of which this h is the etymological



672 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW. equivalent, may be used, or the English h, or the sound may be omitted altogether.

Slovene. As in Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian the stress may fall

on any syllable. All vowels in any position may be long or short. Neither accent nor vowel length is marked. Unaccented syllables are greatly slurred as in English or Russian, and vowels become reduced. The h has the etymological value and the pronunciation of Czech ch. v before consonants has usually the sound of English w. 6 and its voiced equivalent (gj or dj in Croatian) do not occur. With these exceptions, Slovene pronunciation agrees roughly with Serbo-Croat, except that there are more long accented vowels and that the stress generally agrees with Russian in being one syllable nearer the end of the word than in Serbo-Croat.

The following table presents the above explanations in a condensed form: Polish. Czech and Serbo-Croat and Nearest

Slovak. Slovene. equivalent. 4 On, sometimes Fr. on, cp. above I - en, sometimes Fr. en, cp. above

--- (Cz.) e ije, je as in yet. y - - as in prince. See above for Czech sz s s as in shoot. z z z as in leisure. cz c c as in choose. di dz dz (g) as in June.

' (si) - (tfissue), cp. above. i (zi) cp. above. c (ci) (S.-Cr.) c (tube) cp. above. dI (dzi) (S.-Cr.) gj, dj (d) (did ye) cp. above.

-- t', tv' (ti) (tune) cp. above. d', dv (di) (dune) cp. above.

as in youir. (Si.) 1' lj (i) (million) cp. above.

t - - as in wag. n' (ni) ni (ni) nj (iV) (new) cp. above.

(Cz.) r - cp. above. w v v as in verv.

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