On 17/05/2024 7:56 p.m., HenHanna wrote:

This must be Bulgarian (full audiobook?)

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9eWqGGpNPs

(it surely sounds like Russian to me.)

It's Bulgarian.

The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта бесконечная гирлянда
    ------ The [Escher, Bach] part is the same in Russian and Bulgarian.

I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian,
where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it
looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be
representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a
re-translation of the Russian?

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On 2024-05-17, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта бесконечная гирлянда

I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian, where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it
looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a
re-translation of the Russian?

There are a lot of things in here.

I'll start by stressing that in the modern Slavic languages the
iotated vowel letters primarily indicate that the preceding consonant
is palatalized. Only in special positions, e.g. at the start of
the word, do the iotated vowel letters also represent an actual
glide consonant /j/ preceding the vowel.

If you look across the modern variants of the Cyrillic alphabet as
used by the Eastern Slavic languages and Bulgarian, as well as
historical versions, you will notice that there are iotated versions
of a, e, and u, but there is no iotated o. (Bear with me.)
I assume that reflects a historical phonotactical restraint such
that there were no palatalized consonants before o. I don't know
enough about the history of the Slavic languages for details. On
the rare occasions that the modern languages have a palatalized
consonant before o, Ukrainian and Bulgarian use a soft sign + o
spelling, i.e., <ьо>.

Russian stands out because it has a sort of iotated o, <ё>. However,
that is the result of a late soundshift, where stressed /e/ after
but not before a palatalized consonant shifted somewhat inconsistently
to /o/. This continued to be written <е> until <ё> was created
around 1800, and even today <ё> is not consistently differentiated
from <е> in Russian orthographic practice.

Belarusian also has <ё>.

When it comes to transcribing the German (French) front vowels
represented by ö (eu) and ü (u), Russian uses the iotated vowels
<ё> and <ю>. This could be related to the fact that the Russian
vowels have fronted allophones after (ё) or between (ю) palatalized consonants.

Ukrainian picks <е> and <ю> for transcribing the same foreign vowels,
i.e., it unrounds the mid vowel.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is rendered like this:
ru: Герхард Шрёдер
uk: Герхард Шредер
bg: Герхард Шрьодер

There is another aspect that might have some bearing on this.
Although a language like German (or English or French) does not
_distinguish_ between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants,
there is presumably some degree of allophonic palatalization happening
before front vowels. So maybe my pronunciation of München has an
initial /mʲ/ to Russian ears, making the transcription Мюнхен quite natural. I don't know.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

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On 18/05/2024 8:57 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта бесконечная гирлянда

I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian,
where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it >> seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it
looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be
representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a
re-translation of the Russian?

There are a lot of things in here.

I'll start by stressing that in the modern Slavic languages the
iotated vowel letters primarily indicate that the preceding consonant
is palatalized. Only in special positions, e.g. at the start of
the word, do the iotated vowel letters also represent an actual
glide consonant /j/ preceding the vowel.

If you look across the modern variants of the Cyrillic alphabet as
used by the Eastern Slavic languages and Bulgarian, as well as
historical versions, you will notice that there are iotated versions
of a, e, and u, but there is no iotated o. (Bear with me.)
I assume that reflects a historical phonotactical restraint such
that there were no palatalized consonants before o. I don't know
enough about the history of the Slavic languages for details. On
the rare occasions that the modern languages have a palatalized
consonant before o, Ukrainian and Bulgarian use a soft sign + o
spelling, i.e., <ьо>.

I'm remembering, without consulting any books, but I think there is no
actual palatalization before (historic) a,o,u, as one might expect.
The Russian я following palatalized consonant comes from the front nasal
vowel *ę; the ё, as you mentioned, results from *e > o in a certain environment; and unless I'm mistaken ю only represents /ju/ in native
Slavic words -- Cю sequences occur in borrowed words like сюрприз 'surprise'.

Russian stands out because it has a sort of iotated o, <ё>. However,
that is the result of a late soundshift, where stressed /e/ after
but not before a palatalized consonant shifted somewhat inconsistently
to /o/. This continued to be written <е> until <ё> was created
around 1800, and even today <ё> is not consistently differentiated
from <е> in Russian orthographic practice.

Belarusian also has <ё>.

When it comes to transcribing the German (French) front vowels
represented by ö (eu) and ü (u), Russian uses the iotated vowels
<ё> and <ю>. This could be related to the fact that the Russian
vowels have fronted allophones after (ё) or between (ю) palatalized consonants.

Yes, this is a better reason for using ё and ю. It also accounts for the Bulgarians using ьо /jo/. (Found another example: шофьор 'driver'.)

Ukrainian picks <е> and <ю> for transcribing the same foreign vowels,
i.e., it unrounds the mid vowel.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is rendered like this:
ru: Герхард Шрёдер
uk: Герхард Шредер
bg: Герхард Шрьодер

There is another aspect that might have some bearing on this.
Although a language like German (or English or French) does not
_distinguish_ between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants,
there is presumably some degree of allophonic palatalization happening
before front vowels. So maybe my pronunciation of München has an
initial /mʲ/ to Russian ears, making the transcription Мюнхен quite natural. I don't know.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Christian Weisgerber <[email protected]> wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта бесконечная гирлянда

I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian,
where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it >> seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it
looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be
representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a
re-translation of the Russian?

There are a lot of things in here.

Я гюры хенд іт ты сыріліқ. Туайс ез мәнь лерыз ез ләтін, ын дызн солв әнь
ыв ітс проблымз.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Ar an t-ochtú lá déag de mí Bealtaine, scríobh Antonio Marques:

Christian Weisgerber <[email protected]> wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта бесконечная гирлянда

I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian, >> where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it
seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it
looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be
representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a
re-translation of the Russian?

There are a lot of things in here.

Я гюры хенд іт ты сыріліқ. Туайс ез мәнь лерыз ез ләтін, ын дызн солв әнь
ыв ітс проблымз.

Every script-language combination deals poorly with sounds that are not in the language.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-05-18, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm remembering, without consulting any books, but I think there is no
actual palatalization before (historic) a,o,u, as one might expect.
The Russian я following palatalized consonant comes from the front nasal vowel *ę;

There are other sources of я. Just looking at two feminines on -я: неделя ‘week’ < PSl. *neděľa
заря ‘dawn, dusk’ < PSl. *zořa

and unless I'm mistaken ю only represents /ju/ in native
Slavic words

любить ‘to love’ < PSl. *ľubiti

Proto-Slavic already had a number of palatalized consonants, most
easily traceable ň, ľ, ř. Those later merged with the newly
palatalized consonants before front vowels.

So there are clearly native examples of Cʲa and Cʲu. The lack of
Cʲo is curious. Leaving aside the later development of ё, Russian
morphology shows an alternation between Cʲe and Co. I don't know
what to make of that.

Huh, it seems to have been as simple as fronting o > e after
palatal consonants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_language#Alternations

This could be related to the fact that the Russian
vowels have fronted allophones after (ё) or between (ю) palatalized
consonants.

Yes, this is a better reason for using ё and ю. It also accounts for the Bulgarians using ьо /jo/. (Found another example: шофьор 'driver'.)

You keep writing /jo/, but there is no /j/. Шофьор is /ʃoˈfʲɔr/.
When an actual /j/ is needed, Bulgarian resorts to й:
Jörg Haider > Йорг Хайдер
yo-yo > йо-йо

Russian also tends to use йо over ё in such contexts.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 19/05/24 04:17, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-05-18, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm remembering, without consulting any books, but I think there is no
actual palatalization before (historic) a,o,u, as one might expect.
The Russian я following palatalized consonant comes from the front nasal
vowel *ę;

There are other sources of я. Just looking at two feminines on -я: неделя ‘week’ < PSl. *neděľa
заря ‘dawn, dusk’ < PSl. *zořa

and unless I'm mistaken ю only represents /ju/ in native
Slavic words

любить ‘to love’ < PSl. *ľubiti

You get a more impressive example with the first person singular of that
verb: люблю. Or, now that I think of it, with the first person singular
of almost any verb.

OK, there are some exceptions to that last statement. я иду (I come),
for example, lacks the palatalisation.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 19/05/2024 6:17 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-05-18, Ross Clark <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm remembering, without consulting any books, but I think there is no
actual palatalization before (historic) a,o,u, as one might expect.
The Russian я following palatalized consonant comes from the front nasal
vowel *ę;

There are other sources of я. Just looking at two feminines on -я: неделя ‘week’ < PSl. *neděľa
заря ‘dawn, dusk’ < PSl. *zořa

I don't doubt there are other sources. These two look to me as though
they both have a *-ja suffix.
My point was that the palatalization process which produced the largest
number of palatalized C's in modern Russian applied only before front
vowels. The palatalized C's before a-o-u have other origins.

and unless I'm mistaken ю only represents /ju/ in native
Slavic words

любить ‘to love’ < PSl. *ľubiti

Proto-Slavic already had a number of palatalized consonants, most
easily traceable ň, ľ, ř. Those later merged with the newly
palatalized consonants before front vowels.

So there are clearly native examples of Cʲa and Cʲu. The lack of
Cʲo is curious. Leaving aside the later development of ё, Russian morphology shows an alternation between Cʲe and Co. I don't know
what to make of that.

Huh, it seems to have been as simple as fronting o > e after
palatal consonants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_language#Alternations

This could be related to the fact that the Russian
vowels have fronted allophones after (ё) or between (ю) palatalized
consonants.

Yes, this is a better reason for using ё and ю. It also accounts for the >> Bulgarians using ьо /jo/. (Found another example: шофьор 'driver'.)

You keep writing /jo/, but there is no /j/. Шофьор is /ʃoˈfʲɔr/. When an actual /j/ is needed, Bulgarian resorts to й:
Jörg Haider > Йорг Хайдер
yo-yo > йо-йо

My impression from Wikipedia was that the Bulgarians could not agree on
whether /Cj/ or /C'/ was the correct analysis (for the standard language).

Russian also tends to use йо over ё in such contexts.

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