(no subject)

[madscience.livejournal.com]

[edited for emphasis on my question]

I'm just beginning to learn Russian and I'm trying to figure out how I'd write my last name. Крумвиде would be somewhere in between the original German pronunciation and the way my family pronounces it now, and Google turns up a few uses of that spelling for the name of a scientist who spelled his name the same way I do. But Крумуиди would actually be closer to how I would pronounce it. Would a native speaker have any difficulty slurring together 'уи' as a syllable by itself, sounding somewhat like the English word 'we'?

Спасибо!

Comments

[roman-v-m.livejournal.com]

Actually in most cases English w is transliterated in Russian as у.
James Watt - Джеймс Уатт
Naomi Watts - Наоми Уоттс
Warren Bitty - Уорен Битти

[ex-eugzol340.livejournal.com]

As for my part, I really don't like such transliteration =) Better to transliterate it as "В" -
Доктор Ваттсон
:)

[roman-v-m.livejournal.com]

AFAIR the only case where sych transliteration occured was TV series "Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Wattson".

[shalapanova.livejournal.com]

"Вальтер Скотт", and, moreover "Ватт" (Watt as a unit of a power).
But:
"Уолт Дисней"

[khathi.livejournal.com]

This is traditional rendering and as for now is officially obsolete. It remains only in highly traditional or formally fixed transliteration like "Ватт" Watt as a unit of power (note that mechanic himself is now universally called Джеймс Уатт) or "доктор Ватсон" for Dr. Watson in old Sherlock Holmes translations.

[shalapanova.livejournal.com]

Actually, the letter is depend on the mood of the translator ;-)

[inoctiluci.livejournal.com]

I've had so many Russians tell me that there's absolutely only one way to spell my last name, and every one of them has a different idea of which version is that one. Spell it however you think makes it sound closest to the actual pronunciation.

[oscar-6.livejournal.com]

I think that in your particular case it would be better to transliterate it as "ви", not "уи", because as a native speaker, I feel a strong urge to make an accent at the second "у"--"Круму́иди" (if memory serves me, it's a general rule to place an accent at second syllable when a word is unknown), which would disorder the whole thing.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reply.

How would you separate the syllables if it were spelled Крумуиди? And how did you type that accent mark?

[oscar-6.livejournal.com]

"Кру-му-и-ди". As you can see, "у" and "и" get separated, so they can't work as one phoneme.

As for that accent mark, I pasted it from Symbol Chart. It's called "Combining Acute Accent", you just paste it after the letter and the mark appears on the top of it.

[serpent-849.livejournal.com]

that муиди somehow reminds me on the word мудак :/ no offence meant.
and in all the examples in earlier comments, w is at the beginning of the word. i can't think of any particular word right now, but it seems to me, that after consonants w is usually transliterated as в, not у.
and about the last letter, I think it's better to leave the e, even though it's not pronounced like that.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Yes, (s)he would have, at least in this word. When I see a word "Крумуиди", I immediately get an idea that the only way it can be read is "кру-му-и-ди", with stressed и and a secondary stress on кру. And it sounds Gergian ;)

[firstlemonpie.livejournal.com]

only the owner of the name can say how to write his name and what to do with it!)
Even russian people not always write names of other people correctly!!) For example, people have a lot of problems with writing of my last name (i'm Russian and my last name is russian). I have to spell out my last name to make people write my name correctly!

So it's up to you!!! If you like Крумуиди more, than it's correct!

[constpd.livejournal.com]

In fact, most Russians who don't speak English, will have difficulties with “уи” in this position, so it's better to spell as “Крумвиди”.
There is no strict pattern for w-before-vowel case, here are the examples:
Ватсон (Wattson) - Уоттс (Watts) - Ватт (Watt) - Уайт (White)
Уитни (Whitney) - Виллард (Willard) - Вилл/Уилл (both, Will)
Уорен (Waren) - Вонг (Wong)

[kart.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert, but "уи" sounds like two separate sounds that run together... maybe even two syllables. Kru-mu-i-di

If it's supposed to be one syllable, maybe go with "уй" instead: Kru-muy-di

[and2000.livejournal.com]

You can use this transliteration table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian
and script
http://ncnever.free.fr/translit/

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

My experience with the W sound (my last name is Worley) is that in general native Russian speakers just think it sounds bizarre and the majority of Russians who don't know English, when you pronounce your name in English, will correct it to a "В" anyway. When I received packages with my names written in English, the postal people always Russified my name on the notice to Варлей, and whenever I was booking myself a hotel room (which you have to do according to your passport spelling), it took several minutes to explain the spelling of my name according to my visa (which is usually Уэрли or Уорли - ick). So do whatever you want, spell how you like - just don't have too high expectations of what people will do with it.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>the postal people always Russified my name on the notice to Варлей

Maybe they thought you were related to popular Russian actress Natalia Varlei (Наталья Варлей) :)

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Hmm...maybe. I should have offered to get them autographs. :)