(no subject)

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to notice that sometimes Russians like to use English letters sprinkled here and there in names. "Zемфира," "Fилтер" (can't verify that one, but I distinctly remember seeing it), and "Веk," immediately come to mind. I was just wondering, are many Russians familiar to some extent with the English alphabet? Whether or not they actually study the language? I'm also thinking about web addresses, and how I've yet to see one written in Cyrillic. Thoughts? Wisdom? Am I missing the obvious?

Comments

[med99.livejournal.com]

More or less everyone in Russia knows the Roman (not "English" ;) ) alphabet, even without knowing any particular language that uses it.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

You know, something about that phrase just struck me as wrong, but I couldn't figure out why. Thanks, for that. :)

[nale.livejournal.com]

I daresay every Russian is familiar with the "English" alphabet enough to be able to read, that is to understand what letter stands for what sound, more or less. :-) Only - it is called Latin alphabet. :-) Common knowledge obtained by playing chess, studying physics and chemistry at school, etc.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

No, no. I think med99 is right. It's the Roman alphabet. I knew for sure not to call it the Latin alphabet, because back when I took Latin in high school, I looked at a chart with all the letters and I thought, "What in the world??"

I wish it were that way for speakers of English. You know, where they're at least familiar with a foreign language's alphabet enough to not try to sound out how they think the letter should sound, according to their own linguistic tuning forks. *cough* (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/71739.html)

Thanks for your comment!

[nale.livejournal.com]

Roman, right. :-) Just looked it up in the dicitonary and realised that I was wrong.

From my experience...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Even little kids know the alphabet...it's probably one of the few things Russians remember from their English lessons at school, even when everything else has gone out of the window.

I don't recall seeing many examples of using odd letters in a Russian word though. Maybe it's just the typeface they're using? In the same way that some "stylised" scripts might show cursive cyrillic, some others might veer towards a more "latin" cyrillic...

?

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

Well, you're probably right, but there are some examples of Russian words blatantly using Roman characters. Zемфира even has the "Z" tattooed on her arm. (http://zemfira.ru/img/photo/img20040623001612952_b.jpg)

Although, in this picture, (http://zemfira.ru/img/photo/img200406230011492049_b.jpg) I'm more concerned about what she's WEARING.

!!

Thanks for your input!

oh my!

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

That is a *horrible* dress! YIK!

*snigger*

Re: oh my!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, this is only because that young lady from Ufa is just horribly tasteless :)) I mean her clothes, not her music (though I can't be too serious about her music as well :)))

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

ГлюкоZa...

[ex-evengar540.livejournal.com]

Learning the Latin alphabet (not the language but the alphabet) is a part of the Russian education program. Latin letters are used for maths. Learning a foreign language (British English) is a necessary part of the program, too. Of course, there's question about quality of such education nowadays; but most of the people at least know how to pronounce certain letters and many of yougsters know at least some English words.

The influence of the West has been significant since the USSR collapsed. Movies and computer games (especially, computer games) - they had enormous impact on lives of people through the 90s.

[ex-vision-fu642.livejournal.com]

Well, there are some schools where students learn other foreign language. For example, my girlfriend has learned German. But I agree that almost all people in Russia are familiar with the Latin (and even Greek) alphabet.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I sudied German at the school (and was really fluent when I was in the 10th, at that time the final, grade) and took some French at the University. Both languages are almost gone now: I can read both, but the lack of practive took all my speaking skills away years ago. I was familiar with the Roman alphabet since my 2nd grade when I started to take German at school. It's funny but I have never studied any English formally: I'm a self-taught, that's why my English is so broken ;-) But I still have difficulties with Greek alphabet, probably because I never needed it seriously (though it was fairly close to Cyrillics.)

[llz.livejournal.com]

that's why my English is so broken ;-)

or so GOOD. did you ever buy any tapes, or were internet and tv/radio enough? and how long have you been learning? i borrow cassettes and books for learning russian from the library and give up after 5 minutes ;Q

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I started quite early, well before the Internet and even the era when one could legally listen to the foreign radio in the Soviet Union, leave alone TV :)) I'm 36 so now I'm in the 21st year of my study :) I never hurry so I never exhaust myself, I have to admit ;-)) Just be patient. It comes naturally after a while, if you are seriously motivated.

P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Playing with Roman letters is (and was!) quite popular. When I played in za rock group in my late teens, we used to label our demo cassettes (hey, anybody remembers what the cassettes were? ;-)))) with the non-existent "PLASTINKI РЕКОРДС" (literally, Records Records, the Russian word being transliterated in Roman letters and the English word in Cyrillics.)

[llz.livejournal.com]

web addresses can't be written in cyrillic, nor accented characters, nor chinese characters, so they're all transliterated :)

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

So is it safe to assume that lots of Chinese people can recognize and sound out Roman characters, as well?

Hi. :)

[squodge.livejournal.com]

Chinese people who are computer-literate would definitely know the Roman Alphabet. However, the 'average' person in China cannot read English.

~ squodge ~

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

Chinese people study the Pin Yin phonetics of their own language... which are in Roman alphabet, naturally.

[canofcheese.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem entirely fair, does it? I mean, I can't think of a single reason why it isn't practical, but for I.T. to be so language-biased, it's just.. I don't know. Stinky?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It's just practical. The Soviet Union had developed a HUGE computer industry, one-of-a-kind, highly original, based upon domestic elements, domestic programming etc. But even then, in the 1970s and early 1980s, all Russian programming was based on the Roman alphabet - well, as soon as it left the stage when programmers had to deal with the binary code directly. But the practical reasons prevailed: the Union was too weak to stand the armament race, and that's why the original Russian computing only remains in the military now. The rest is all Chinese-produced IBM-compatible English-thinking gear :))

[johnny-english.livejournal.com]

The Soviet computer industry wasn't highly original... In the 1970s and later most popular Soviet computers were bad replicas of original devices by IBM, DEC etc. This applies to operating systems too.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Come on. I've happened to work on them :)) SM, ES1020, ES1840, then the first proto-PCs like Iskra 226. Which I doubt you did - at least because I'm some 15 years older that you are, sorry :) I _do not_ discuss their _quality_ here, I'm only speaking about them being produced domestically, stlictly on domestic elements base, and purposedly _non-compatible_ with their Western counterparts, even if they really were in original/replica relationships.

[johnny-english.livejournal.com]

I worked on ES1841 in early 1990s. To be more exact, ;)) I played games on this computer :) It was fully compatible with IBM PC XT. It ran MS-DOS as operating system. Yes, these devices were produced domestically. Yes, they were based upon domestic parts. But this parts - especially ICs - were replicas of western/eastern analogues. They were as "original", as present-day "IBM PC compatible" devices are.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Early 1990s and mid-1980s were really different, believe me. Again, I'm not discussing the tech stuff here. I only explain to the one who asked the original question that using Roman letters in computing in the countries with non-Roman-based languages is just practical, a matter of convenience, not the "language-biased thinking". Please don't lead the discussion away if it's possible.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Do not forget about БЭСМ.

[kirgudu.livejournal.com]

Iskra 226 is a WANG 2200 replica :)
Excellent one, i must say.
SM and ES1020 were mostly Russian but not 100% - they used some Bulgarian and German parts (peripherials)

[johnny-english.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I can't agree with you. Last year VeriSign began to register cyrillic domain names, and still do it nowadays.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The only problem is that virtually nobody uses it. I was working in the Web field since 1996, and I have NEVER seen Cyrillic domain names in use (even in advertizing,) though I've heard that it existed.

[welgar.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are Cyrillic domain names (although I myself haven't seen any of them either). But they also get translated into some Roman-based code for DNS purposes.
Sorry for the offtopic.

Most famous

[ex-fmraven.livejournal.com]

Russian musical festival: КаZантип.