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 ...
- 56k
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 ...
- 26.1k
28
votes
Accepted
What kind of Russian orthography is this?
Yes, it's the Russian pre-reform orthography. The reform took place in 1918, so this is just hundred-year-old Russian. It's easy to understand — just like it's easy to understand hundred-year-old ...
28
votes
Why did "он" suddenly become so much more common?
Actually, the year is not "around 1915", but the beginning of 1918 when the orthography reform began. Before 1918 "он" was written as "онъ", and naturally before 1918 "он" was not used. Have a look:
...
- 26.1k
20
votes
Why do Russians sometimes spell "жирный" (fatty) as "жырный"?
As you can see from your own question, Russians indeed do spell жирный as жырный sometimes. It’s just that people sometimes tend to ignore strict orthography rules for convenience or fun — especially ...
- 38k
19
votes
Accepted
Why do Russians sometimes spell "жирный" (fatty) as "жырный"?
To place emphasis on this word
These patterns are called "Sensational spelling" and "Cacography".
It is not a unique Russian language trait:
Cacography is deliberate comic ...
- 612
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
12
votes
Why do Russians sometimes spell "жирный" (fatty) as "жырный"?
(In addition to shabunc's answer.)
Aside of just fun, жырный is used mostly when they want to stress that it's not just "some bold X" but an extremely huge and/or explicit X.
E.g.:
Жырный минус ...
- 444
12
votes
Accepted
Why is Max Verstappen's last name transliterated with a Ф ('F') instead of a В ('V')?
Wikipedia indeed mentions that this corresponds to practical Dutch transliteration, as you can clearly see from the article linked. A Dutch "v" is usually transliterated as "в"; we ...
- 38k
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
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 ...
- 26.1k
9
votes
Слово "Бог": с прописной или со строчной
В советской литературе слово "бог" писалось с маленькой не потому, что "бога нет", а потому что христианский бог Яхве (Иегова) рассматривался точно так же, как и все другие боги, и ничем от них не ...
- 91
9
votes
Accepted
Why "вести" but "веду"
It's not irregular but all you can do is just to memoize such cases.
While the ст -> т happens in some verbs like "плести"/ "плету", "цвести"/"цвету", "мести"/"мету" for instance, a change to д is ...
- 38k
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
8
votes
Accepted
Why are the dotted i (І/і) and yi (Ї/ї) from Ukrainian not present in Russian?
The Russian alphabet had both і and ї in the past, but they became obsolete.
"Изменялись также правила относительно числа точек над І: Пётр отменил было их; затем было предписано ставить по две ...
- 4,339
8
votes
со днём vs. с днём
Preposition со is used:
1)before words which begin with с,з,ш,ж + consonant or with consonant щ
со славой, со звездой, со шкафа, со жгутом, со щами.
2)before the genitive and instrumental case of ...
- 21.9k
8
votes
What is the history behind the word биткоин, why does it have И before Н?
Биткоин has the и before the н because the English word "Bitcoin" has the i before the n.
When adopting loanwords, Russian tends to preserve the original spelling as long as it ...
- 56k
7
votes
Как писать прилагательное, образованное от имени собственного?
Ну, тут на мой взгляд, не может быть правоты или неправоты никакой, кроме статистической. По факту в любых прилагательных, образованных от начинающихся с заглавной буквы в английском технологий, мы ...
- 38k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the history behind the word биткоин, why does it have И before Н?
This is a hotly debated subject which is almost as old as bitcoin itself. It seems that биткоин has been winning for the last few years. That's probably why this is reflected in the 2019 Russian ...
- 938
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
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 ...
- 38k
6
votes
Accepted
Are there any common words with the syllable "кы"?
After a couple of days of thinking over it all I have finally decided to put down the whole story of кы, гы, хы the way I understand it. My story will begin with what the answer by Quassnoi begins, ...
- 26.1k
5
votes
Are there any common words with the syllable "кы"?
The difference between и and ы after consonants in Russian is not phonematic, and neither is the difference between palatalized and non-palatalized к, г, х.
You can probably find some degenerate ...
- 56k
5
votes
Should "йе" after vowel be pronounced [jje]?
Gemination is a bit fuzzy in Russian:
Words such as касса, масса, тонна, ванна, Мекка, поддать, Приенисейе [йй] have 'true doubles': saying them with a single consonant can hinder understanding. ...
- 16.7k
5
votes
How is the choice made by Nicholas II between "также" and "так же" in his Language Manifesto of 1900 correct?
At the time this manifesto was composed, the closest thing to an authority on Russian orthography was Grot's Русское правописание.
It reads (97.7.3):
(Для образованiя составныхъ реченiй соединяются ...
- 56k
5
votes
Accepted
How do you choose between "о" and "ё" after sibilants for neologisms?
My initial impulse was (and I luckily left it only as a comment) is to say that your particular choice of example is unfortunate - ж is never softened in modern Russian, while usage of ё implies ...
- 38k
5
votes
How do you choose between "о" and "ё" after sibilants for neologisms?
I would write it as напряжометр since -о- is an interfix. Compare to гальвано́метр, трапецо́эдр.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe interfixes should follow the same rules as endings and suffixes ...
- 16.7k
5
votes
"Свежеструганые доски" or "свежеструганные доски"?
Конечно, свежеструганые. Отглагольное прилагательное, без зависимых слов и прочих фишек.
Две -н- было бы с приставкой, сравните: свежеструганые — свежевыструганные (приставка вы-).
- 61
4
votes
Should "йе" after vowel be pronounced [jje]?
For я in майя there's such difference, it's supposed to be pronounced like май-йа. However, for instance, de-facto this quite exotic letter combination is pronounced just like я. For verifying both of ...
- 38k
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