(no subject)

[nursedianaklim.livejournal.com]

This is, perhaps, the stupidest question ever posted here. But it's something I've been wondering about for a while.


Okay, so, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home? Chekhov keeps saying "nuclear wessels" instead of vessels, and as I'm studying Russian now, I'm confused, because it doesn't look like there is a "w" sound in the language. (Unless I am completely stupid.) So what I'm wondering is if this is just absolutely horrid writing on their part or if there is a valid reason why a native Russian speaker would say "wessels" instead of "vessels".




I know, I know, I need a life.

Comments

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

I agree that it may be hypercorrection. Or it could be he's secretly Ukrainian. lol.

About the hypercorrection.. Many Philippine languages don't have F in their phonemic inventory; it's usually substituted by P. But still, the F sound is taught in schools as part of learning English. Anyway, my aunt and grandmother tend to hypercorrect. Saying stuff like FARTY instead of PARTY. Lots of laps. I mean laughs. hehe.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

By the way, in Russian there also was no such a sound as 'F'. And there are no Russian words with that sound. All the words in Russian that have that sound are borrowed from other languages. There were even two letters to designate that sound. Actually, Ф was to designate 'ph' and the theta letter (there is no such instance in modern cyrillic alphabet) was to designate 'th'. Just like 60 years ago it was a common thing in villages to still say 'П' instead of 'Ф'. The most well known mistake was to say 'шкап' instead of 'шкаф'.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ф
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Фита

[oryx_and_crake]

Sorry, шкап instead of шкаф was not a mistake but a norm at the time. See, for example, "Дядя Степа", a well-known poem by Mihalkov:

Сидя книги брал со шкапа,
И не раз ему в кино
Говорили: "Сядьте на пол!
Вам, товарищ, все равно!"
(1935)

I guess that later the norm was changed and шкаф became the accepted spelling. However it is wrong to say that 60 years ago it was a mistake. It was not. It would be a mistake now but I think no one pronounces шкаф as шкап any more anyway.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Agreed. My mistake. The original german word 'schapp' had 'p', not 'f' at the end. :)