Appendix talk:Russian alphabet

Is this practical?

Hi,

I'd like to ask about the romanisation of "ё". Do these rules apply to Wiktionary at all? I don't think romanising Cyrillic "ё" as "ë" (e with a diaeresis) makes much sense. Other confusing ones are "ъ" and "е". "ъ" is ″ and "е" is "e". Even the Wikipedia article does not specify that "е" is occasionally romanised as "je/ye", e.g. Ельцин - Jel′cin/Jel′tsin/Yel′tsin, etc. not El′tsin. Anatoli 22:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This table outlines the three romanization standards which Wiktionary readers and editors are most likely to encounter in references. In academic linguistics articles, in the OED and other dictionaries, in library catalogues and bibliographies you will find that 99% of Russian text is transliterated strictly according to one of these.

There are some common exceptions (like initial E > Ye in the British system) which mainly show up in publishers' house rules, and are used for proper names in running text. I'll have to do some more research before I can definitively document these.

In Wiktionary we use a novel standard (Wiktionary:Russian transliteration) which looks a lot like the international linguistic standard, but has inexplicable differences and inconsistencies. This is a bad idea, in my opinion – if you're already familiar with any of these systems, or using a reference which follows one, then you must learn yet another to use Wiktionary, and painstakingly convert your transliterations. —Michael Z. 2009-03-26 00:14 z

Thanks for the explanation, Michael. Anatoli 02:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Щ

I just what to make clear that щ is never pronounced as [ʃʲtʃʲ] in modern Russian. Today's common and standard pronunciation of щ is /ɕɕ/ ([ʃʲʃʲ]). See w:Talk:Shcha, w:Russian phonology, ru:w:Щ.

The most sensible current transliteration would be š' (=[ʃ][ʲ]), šš (=[ʃ][ʃ]) or shh, but without any [t] as in šč/shch (=[ʃ][tʃʲ]). Unfortunately, almost all english transliteration standards for Russian are based on the pronunciation of 19th century. --4th-otaku 06:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we are aware of all this. —Stephen 06:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi and yes, please stick to šč for transliteration and shch for romanisation purposes, even if it's the traditional method. Anatoli 13:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Ѧ, ѧ (юс(ъ) малый) is shown incorrectly.

This letter was removed much earlier, before 1750, along with these letters: Ѕ/ѕ, Ѯ/ѯ, Ѱ/ѱ, Ѡ/ѡ, Ѫ/ѫ, Ѧ/ѧ, Ѭ/ѭ, Ѩ/ѩ. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually... it was never removed. It just changed shape a little. :) —CodeCat 01:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Please enlighten me more if you already know (although I should know better but I don't :) ). I was just using the English Wikipedia article. I'd like to include all older letters with correct labelling. In older text, there could potentially be some confusion between Russian and Old Church Slavonic or when Old Church Slavonic words were used in Russian. These letters above are often referred to as "старославянские", not "русские". --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The modern letter Ya is more or less a reshaping of the original small Yus. Specifically, it came from the handwritten style which caused some simplification of this letter by leaving out the left "leg" and rounding the middle. So in a sense, the letter wasn't removed... people just abandoned the old way of writing it in favour of the new shape. —CodeCat 01:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Anyway, we now have two different letters and Ѧ, ѧ is still labelled incorrectly.

Removed. —Michael Z. 2013-04-08 02:07 z

Thanks, Michael. Are you able to add pre-1750 letters with some labels with or without romanisation? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I think so, but wouldn’t this start to overlap quite a bit with Appendix:Old Cyrillic script? —Michael Z. 2013-04-08 03:08 z

You've got the point there. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing a bit more info on Wikipedia, I think these letters belong in the Russian grazhdanka c. 1710–1750, and might occur in citations. I will add them, but this appendix shouldn’t be trying to replace the Wikipedia articles. —Michael Z. 2013-04-08 16:17 z

Thank you. I won't add them to WT:RU TR for now. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:52, 9 April 2013 (UTC)