45
votes
Accepted
Why is the Turkish president's surname spelt in Russian as Эрдоган, with г?
Russian has different transcription systems for different languages.
Some of them (Japanese, Korean, Chinese) have been developed by a single person or by a group of scholars, who had invested some ...
- 52.2k
32
votes
Why is the letter "г" in some Russian words pronounced [v]?
The Russian orthography is based on morphological-historical principles, which means it tries to write morphemes the same way all the time and keep the historical spellings of those morphemes (the ...
- 26k
18
votes
Why is the Turkish president's surname spelt in Russian as Эрдоган, with г?
There are formal rules for practical transcription of Turkic proper names into Russian:
Турецко-русская практическая транскрипция
According to that table, ğ is transcribed as г and in rare cases as ...
- 11.9k
16
votes
Accepted
Why "Гиппократ" but "ипподром"?
The word "гипподром" is still used as a historical term for ancient stadiums for horse racing. The reason for dropping "г" was French influence where "h" is not pronounced (and the word hippodrome is ...
- 37.9k
15
votes
Accepted
The cases where "о" is pronounced as "a"
You could probably work something out from etymology, but generally speaking no, except this can only happen for unstressed vowels. Russian spelling is mostly morphological, so a good rule of thumb ...
- 266
12
votes
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Дочерний интерфейс: подъинтерфейс, подинтерфейс, или подынтерфейс?
Приставки, оканчивающиеся на согласную, для целей правописания можно разделить на "исконно русские" и "заимствованные".
После "русских" приставок, таких как пред-, под- и пр. пишется буква ы, ...
- 15.3k
12
votes
Accepted
Почему "Венера", а не 'Венус"?
Imparisyllabic Latin words (meaning words having an extra syllable in genitive compared to nominative) are usually cited in their genitive form, as it's usually a more accurate representation of the ...
- 52.2k
11
votes
Почему Париж пишется через "ж"?
Слово Париж пришло в современный русский через польский, в котором оно звучит (ну, практически) так же - Paryż. Гипотеза @user31264 не выдерживает критики и проходит по разряду любительской ...
- 37.9k
11
votes
Why is the Turkish president's surname spelt in Russian as Эрдоган, with г?
As a Turkic, I say that it is completely true to consider his name as Эрдоган. The name in Turkish is "Erdoğan". Note that the letter "ğ" is a sound most like the French "r" and is also a deformation ...
- 211
11
votes
Почему Йорк а не Ёрк?
Because Russian transliterations are not consistent.
The letter ё didn't make it into Russian before late XVIII century. Church Slavonic language didn't use the sound cluster this letter denotes.
When ...
- 52.2k
10
votes
Accepted
Why is "томат" spelt without an "o" at the end?
Why on Earth it should be? Just because in other languages -ato ending are OK for nouns? Why банан and not банана? Or кофе but not кофи?
This is emotional part of an answer, and as of the facts - ...
- 37.9k
10
votes
Accepted
"Радио" or "ра́дио"
Both forms are correct.
The "accent" is a stress mark. Stress marks are omitted in most books. They are printed in books for beginner readers, and in words where a change of stress would change the ...
- 3,088
10
votes
Accepted
How is the choice made by Nicholas II between "также" and "так же" in his Language Manifesto of 1900 correct?
Since on the source site you gave a link to there is a typo or an OCR mistake in the word установяенія instead of the correct установленія, I decided to check the original printed version of the ...
- 26k
9
votes
Accepted
What is the correct Russian spelling of "Trump"?
Сorrect Russian spelling of the last name of the US President-elect, Donald Trump - Трамп.
- 116
9
votes
Accepted
What's the reason for the change from "-аго" to "-oго"?
The 1918 orthography reform was not something that came into existence all of a sudden after the Bolsheviks came into power. In fact, this question was quite a hot topic from the early 20th century. ...
- 37.9k
8
votes
Дочерний интерфейс: подъинтерфейс, подинтерфейс, или подынтерфейс?
It's подынтерфейс, similar to подынтервал and подынтегральный.
Rosenthal, 33:
После приставок, оканчивающихся на согласную, вместо и пишется ы в соответствии с произношением, например: играть – ...
- 52.2k
8
votes
Is there a difference between "эго" and "это" or the are the same?
These are two completely different words.
Эго is a noun which means ego. In most cases, it means a (usually boosted) sense of self-importance, for example у него непомерно раздутое эго. In Russian, ...
- 8,572
8
votes
Почему Париж пишется через "ж"?
Согласно топонимическому словарю Е.М.Поспелова "современная французская форма названия - Пари (Paris); принятая в русском языке форма Париж усвоена в искаженном виде через польское посредство".
В 58 -...
- 21.4k
8
votes
Accepted
в чдачах и в нечдачах
Конечно это ошибки.
и БОРЮЩИХСА (со старомосковским акцентом) впридачу, в сильно двусмысленной фразе борющихся с ними.
Покольку плакат, насколько можно судить по тексту, выпущен в Британии, ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
When is it necessary to use a capital letter in the beginning of the sentence?
Basically, capital letter is required in the beginning of a sentence and in names (people, places, books, etc.).
There is a tricky case with singular "вы", which can be capitalized to show respect (...
- 2,809
7
votes
Using written е instead of ë
This is actually a subject of "holy wars" between Russians.
Some people insist that using ё must be mandatory, because replacing it by е can change the meaning of a sentence. The most famous example: ...
- 191
6
votes
Accepted
English equivalent of "й"
The newest standard of Russian - English transliteration was adopted in 2012 for official use, for passports, for example. The letter й should be written like i. Nikolai,Dmitrii.
В п. 97 приказа ФМС ...
- 21.4k
6
votes
Why is the letter "г" in some Russian words pronounced [v]?
Historical phonetics, I guess. In some southern dialects of Modern Russian, the letter Г г is still pronounced as [ɣ] almost in any position (as in modern Ukrainian). For some times, the Russian koine ...
- 4,502
6
votes
When is it necessary to use a capital letter in the beginning of the sentence?
Personal pronoun I is never capitalised (unless positioned at the beginning of a sentence):
Я изучаю китайский язык, и чем больше я его изучаю, тем больше у меня вопросов.
Names of countries are ...
- 4,502
6
votes
Кавказ - Закавказье, Урал - Зауралье, Алтай -?
Такого слова нет. Наличие горной системы не предполагает автоматически, что существует образованное от него слово с приставкой "за-". В случае Закавказья мы имеем исторически обосабливаемый регион, ...
- 37.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Why did ten-based numerals such as пятьдеся́т lose the final soft sign of десять?
The word десять historically was a noun (as were all numerals starting with five), but unlike пять, шесть etc. it had a consonant stem.
Words with a consonant stem had the ending -ъ in plural ...
- 52.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Why was it decided in 1956 to abolish the spelling чорт (devil) in favor of чёрт?
Before the standardization both forms, черт/чёрт and чорт were in actual use, like we see from this google ngram chart:
(Strictly speaking, we should sort out черт derived from черта but this won't ...
- 37.9k
5
votes
Is there a difference between "эго" and "это" or the are the same?
My intuition is that perhaps you meant его (as a Single Genitive Case of он(о)) instead of эго, which is more likely to be 'used almost in the same context' as это, or perhaps него.
The differences ...
- 4,502
5
votes
Why is "томат" spelt without an "o" at the end?
Words get borrowed into the languages not necessarily from the languages they originated in, not necessarily keeping their meaning, not necessarily the way they originally sounded and not necessarily ...
- 52.2k
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