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Hamburg - transliterated by german rules

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Nonsense. In German it's [hamburg], not [gamburg].

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I mean german rules of transliteration to russian.
But we mess here transliteration and translation. The OP wants transliteration but shows examples of translation.

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here (http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/649819.html?thread=9990491#t9990491)

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Especially having in mind that what we deal here with is neither transliteration nor translation, it's transcription.

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Rules of transliteration cannot be applied that way
You can transliterate Michael as Майкл or Михаель or Мишель...

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Nonsense. The difference you write about depends on the language of the original (respectively, English, German, or French,) not on rules in Russian.

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So if you meet "Michael Schumacher" in english text will you TRANSLITERATE it as Майкл or will you TRANSLATE it as Михаель?

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In Russian, transcription (NOT transliteration!) of an originally German name is still Ge-Ru, not En-Ru. It is still transcription, not translation, which requires the translator to know the rules of more than just one language. Of course, there still is a lot of illiterate smartasses who, while translating from Engish, tend to transcribe Francois Leger as Франкоис Леджер and Julio Hernandez as Джулио Хернандез, but it's the problem of them not being properly qualified for the translation work, not us accepting their lousy job as a rule :)

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natha1ie.livejournal.com

upon a time there was a mighty knight Ивангое... ;-)

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That's right, and the 1st U.S. President Георг Вашингтон.

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onodera.livejournal.com

Well, the English king is still Георг, the French one is Людовик and the Portugese one is Жуан.

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So, I TRANSCRIBE it as Михаэль (NOT Михаель!) Шумахер, and it's not TRANSLATION, it's TRANSCRIPTION -- you do not TRANSLATE names!

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kite-head.livejournal.com

I whole-heartedly agree with you, but I do have one exception that I wanted to see if you would call it transcription:

Ivan (transcribed from cyrllic, which I do not have on this computer) to John. That's translation.

So, since the op and all subsequent comments are misunderstanding you, I just wanted to verify if this would be an instance of name translation?

I hope that makes sense.

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oryx_and_crake

You DO NOT translate names. And Иван is not a translation for John, it is an equivalent (or you can say these two names have the same origin, or whatever). If someone's passport name is John, his Russian name will be Джон, not Иван. The only possible exception is made for names of kings and such (e.g. king Charles I will become Карл, but I still would not call this translation). And it is certainly not a transcription. Transcription is when you render a word from one language with the alphabet of another. John - Джон is transcription. John to Иван is not.

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kite-head.livejournal.com

All right. I just wanted to know what you would call John to Иван. I apologise for my imprecise question.

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No, it is not translation. This is "pointing out that Ivan in Russian is the name of the same saint(s) as John in English, Jean in French, Johannes in German, Isztvan in Hungarian, Juan in Spanish and Portuguese, etc." But you never translate the name, you just find another name in another language which derives from the same ancient Greek, Latin or Hebrew name. Why would anybody want to change Ivan to John? Would you call Ivan the Terrible -- John the Moroze? I doubt that. You would still call him Ivan the Terrible, because names are not translated normally. Would you call Mikhail Gorbachev -- Michael Gorbachev? Lemme doubt you.

It's like when I'm in the States, I use English name, Cyril, because I'm not at all content with what Americans always do with my real Russian name, Kirill (can't stand their attempts to pronounce it like [kaier-eel]. So I just took ANOTHER name for convenience -- the name of St.Cyril, which is Kirill in Russian. It's still not translation :)

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kite-head.livejournal.com

thanks. :-)

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tak-nado.livejournal.com

"H" to Russian - "Х"

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voiza.livejournal.com

So, why transliteraion of Харьков is Kharkov but not Harkov?

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spiritrc.livejournal.com

Ask our officials about that. They also tend to use an apostrophe to transliterate a soft sign (Кузьминки = Kuz'minki). I doubt any foreigner can ever understand what that ' means there.

Anyway, the question was about transliterating from English to Russian, not backward.

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natha1ie.livejournal.com

russian sound "X" differs from english "H". It's more rough and obvious in Russin than in English. BTW it's not what you've asked first %)

From Russian into English russian sound "X" goes as "KH" (latin alphabet).
From Englis into Russian "H" _usually_ goes as "X". But I wouldn't say it occures in all cases.

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This happens because first "h" before vowel pronounce just as aspiration in some languages (in Greek for example)
In this way "К" points to hardness

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This is not an universal rule. Do not misguide people.

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yms.livejournal.com

There are a lot of names traditionally transliterated in this or that way: Гамлет, Хельсинки, Гамбург, Хилтон, Гамильтон, Гудзон (Hudson River), but Хадсон (Mrs. Hudson), etc.
Transliterations with 'Г' tend to be older. Nowadays 'H' is usually transliterated as 'Х', but this still has a lot of exceptions.

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ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com

No, sorry, no rules. A dictionary is your friend.

Older words often use Г and newer ones tend to use Х (if we're speaking about words borrowed from Germanic languages). But again, this is not a rule, just a tendency.

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It is ultimately the matter of a tradition. In 19th century Russian, all 1st position Hs in European languages were transcribed by Г (Гамбург - Hamburg, Гаррисон - Harrison, Гольмз - Holmes), and even Хельсинки, at that time the capital city of Russia's Great Princedom of Finlandia, was called Гельсингфорс (from its Swedish name, Helsingfors.) In 20th century, the trend has changed.

Note that in Ivan Turgenev's "Fathers and Children" the German "Ich habe..." ("I have...") is transcripted as "их габе". It's the 19th century rule.

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jorgen-w.livejournal.com

Thanks for all answers and making this clear to me!

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There is no universal rule to right transliteration. It depends on different rules for specific language where word derived from. In most (but not any) cases it writes as it heard at first time.
For example:
H offten converts to "Х" from traditional english and french names: Dunhill, Houston, Helen, Pearl-Harbour (Данхилл, Хьюстон, Хэлен, Пёрл-Харбор)
H before vowel offten should be omitted in Semitic names: Abraham, Johann (Авраам, Иоанн), but if it is latinized name (like some american guy Abrahams) it pronounced in other way: А(Э)брахамс.
H offten converts to "Г" in north-europe names and latinized oriental names: Hertz, Hitler, Hong-Kong Same "Johann", but used in north European language (Герц, Гитлер, Гонг-Конг, Иоганн)
In most cases H before consonant (like in John - Джон) ommited.
And don't forget that H in Diphthongs works in absolutely other way, especially "th" and "ph".

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Sorry, i mean transcription of course.

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There is no such word as Гонг-Конг in Russian. It's Гонконг.

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