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""Alice (Mahon) has no intention of handing her seat on to a
miserable lackey of the hated apparat ..." Matthew
Norman; Comment and Analysis: Diary; The Guardian
(London, UK); Jul 27, 1999."
So she was not a happy apparatchik.
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stranger
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"apparat - structure, mechanism, etc. of an organization, especially a political one."
I need to add, that described meaning of today's word *apparat*, is only one of a few in Russian language. Other meanings (correlate with the word *apparatus*) are - engine, appliance, device, equipment, gadget, mechanism, machine; in medicine - group of systems united to perform a specific function, e.g. *locomotor* apparat = skeleton + muscles for movement. It might as well came directly from Latin in addition to german route, as most scientific words, and was russianized by omitting 'us' suffix, as we usually do.
Also, a female member of political apparat, as Alice (Mahon) is *apparatchiza* ['z' pronounced as in pizza], and male is *apparatchik*.
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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I think out beloved curmudgeon was making a pun.
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Blessings on you, Faldage
I have also waited unsuccessfully to jest about Politburo member Furtseva.
Bilingual pun = fart saver
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stranger
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Ekaterina Alekseevna Furzeva [pronounsed - foor-ze-va, whith 'z' as in 'pizza '], member of PolitBuro (Political Bureau) of Centralnogo Komiteta (committee) of Kommunisticheskoy Partii of the Soviet Union, she was also a Ministr kultury (Minister of Culture) of the Soviet Union.
Here we see a limitation of translation into a foreign language, where no letters exist to represent particular sound. There is no [-ts-] sound in her familia (family name), and no [ah] sound, as in ... well, 'fart'! Sorry, here goes the bilingual pun...
In russian we have archaic word *fart*, pronounced - [fah-rt] - exactly the same way as 'fart' in English. Means good Fortuna, derived from - right, Latin.
P.s. Letter 'z' is usually used in translations to represent [z] sound, as in Zinger!...
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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If the z is the letter that looks like an upsidedown pi with a little tail in the lower right hand corner we usually transliterate it as ts in English. This would be the letter that is doubled in the Russian word for pizza and the initial letter in the word we normally transliterate as Tsar. The one we transliterate as z in English is the one that looks like the numeral 3 and is the first letter in 3gpaBcmByume = zdravstvuite. Other languages may use other transliteration schemes.
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Yes, David, agree completely on those usual rules of transliteration. Unfortunately many words lose their original sounding, despite the fact that there are corresponding sounds present in English (seems that there are not enough letters in it)... One example is Eltsin (pronounced with -ts-) when it should be Elzin (pronounced with soft 'l' and 'z' as in pizza). I was spelling it differently on purpose, so that original sounding would be saved!
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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'z' as in pizza
Now this is where I get confused. To me 'z' as in pizza implies a [ts] sound. See the Afrikaans spelling pietsa.
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Issac Asimov, a writer of both science and science fiction, told a story about his name in his autobiography.
His parents made a point of learning the roman alphabet (they alread were literate in Russian, hebrew and yiddish)before embarking for the americas. During the crossing, they continued to learn english, practicing with other passengers, and the crew.
when they reached ellis island, his father was very proud to be able to answer the imigration clerk with his name, and how to spell it..
A-S-I-M-O-V He was quite sure about it being A-S,not A-Z,
as he once explained to young Issac. It was S just like Zinger Zewing machines!
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stranger
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'Z' as in Zoo zone.
To David et al. Sorry for causing such a stir with my humble exercises on transliteration... I really should have looked in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) first.
1)Letter 'Z' - David correctly described as "the one we transliterate as z in English - that looks like the numeral 3 (in Russian - V.T.) and is the first letter in 3gpaBcmByume = zdravstvuite (means - be healthy, used for saying "Hello" - V.T.)." Letter 'Z' used mainly for representing [z] sound as in Zoo zone. Bet you will not be a dispute here! And it's the only one 'z' sound in Russian Language.
2)The confusion I've caused with 'Z' grew from my attempt to represent the other sound. That of the 23rd letter in Russian alphabet (you can look it up in Unabridged Websters Dictionary, on the inside cover, or on the web), which David correctly described as "that looks like an upside down (Greek - V.T.) 'pi' with a little tail in the lower right hand corner. We usually transliterate it as 'ts' in English." And also: "This would be the letter that is doubled in the Russian word for pizza and the initial letter in the word we normally transliterate as Tsar." Perfect! I also think this sound is "heard" in the word quartz (here comes another turmoil...). That is why I used this letter 'Z' for this sound. Because that is what we, russkie (russians), hear in pizza, and I "heard" Italians pronounced it "just like that", without [ts] sound. We should ask Emanuela to clarify. But, (there is always but, isn't it?) my years of immigrant experience taught me, that people tend to "hear" in foreign languages sounds and forms that are familiar to them. In reality their hearing apparat (after all, we have to stay on the subject!) conducts the foreign sounds to the brain precisely, but the brain can't make a sense of it and relays info to the conscience in the forms of phonetics, that are familiar to the person... That humble almighty brain... The sound is further altered when it is spoken by foreigner, not having corresponding sounds in their native language. When such a speaker is corrected, he is arguing and swears that he heard it "just like that"! In fact he honestly think he did, when he really "heard" it. That is why it is so hard for us, adult immigrantuses, to learn to speak without an accent, if it's at all possible... Excuse us.
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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Re:That is why it is so hard for us, adult immigrantuses, to learn to speak without an accent, if it's at all possible... Excuse us.
Dear viktor,
Don't worry about it! In my family, my sister is married to a Japanese national, and her marriage name, Tsuyuki, contains a ts sound, that unless you have learned at an early age is hard to "hear" as being different from a plain S sound--so she often 'mispronounces' her own name.
her maiden name, Reilly-- gives her husband problems, and is just as like like to sound like Leary when he says it!
even those of use who speak english as a native language, sometime have trouble with D/J-- during comes out of my mouth and enters my ear as juring-- but i have asked others to listen for the word as i speak, and they all swear i am saying during--i know i am not!
others here can give many other examples...
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stranger
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Helen, his name - Isaac, we pronounce it [Ee-sah-ah-k]is obviously jewish, but his familia looks russian, with typical -ov ending, which is pronounced as -of by the virtue of consonantalization schemes of russian speech. It just seems easier and more natural for us. Such family names were spelled -off in the past to reflect it. E.g. Romanoff (tsar Romanov). However the letter 'z' ('s' was incorrectly spelled) in his family name is pronounced [z],as in Zoo! To verify it, you can look at his homepage, and reed his own opinion on sounding of his family name: http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html#starters
And yes, it's in English!
Little excerpt from there:
How do you pronounce "Isaac Asimov"?
"EYE'zik AA'zi-mov". "AA'zi-mof" is also OK. The name is spelled with an "s" and not a "z" because Asimov's father didn't understand the English alphabet clearly when the family moved to the U.S. in 1923. (In Russian, the spelling was the Cyrillic equivalent of Azimov, and in Yiddish, the Hebrew letters were aleph-zayin-yod-mem-aleph-vav-vav.) One way to remember this pronunciation is the pun from The Flying Sorcerers by Larry Niven and David Gerrold: "As a color, shade of purple-grey", or "As a mauve". Asimov wrote a poem ("The Prime of Life") in which he rhymes his surname with "stars above"; someone else suggested amending the poem to rhyme it with "mazel tov", which he thought an improvement.
Asimov's own suggestion, however, as to how to remember his name was to say "Has Him Off" and leave out the H's.
P.s. I still think that [z] in Zinger sounds as in Zoo zone! But only Germans among us can clarify... Please!
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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stranger
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Yes, I've always heard "ejucation" from everywhere, but recently one of my american friends said repeatedly - education. I wonder what's wrong with him or me...
Viktor V. Trukov
Viktor V. Trukov
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enthusiast
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I will check in my dictionary at home, but I can already say that I am not even able to say "ts", and surely I don't hear this sound in Pizza.
I don't think that I am even able to distinguish between ts and z, they seem the same to me ( unless saying ts slowly, clearly separating t and s)
By the way, zzzzzzzz is the italian onomatopeic sound for mosquitos
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Ts is a common beginning of Navajo family names, e.g., Tsosie, but I could never hear it as anything other than S.
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emanuela, does the z sound in pizza or piazza or ragazza sound like the ts in my name, Betsy? If so, you are hearing it but just don't realize you are hearing it. Like Viktor said. I think.
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my dictionary suggests the pronounciation
pittsa !!!!!
yes, you are right, it's me, that not hear the sound, or do not recognize it!
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enthusiast
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the brain can't make sense of it and relays info to the conscious in the form of phonetics which are familiar to the person... That humble almighty brain...
Very insightful, Viktor.
Psychologists call this phenomenon "banalization", I believe. It probably explains why eye witnesses of the same event see different things. The variations are probably predictable when you factor in things like race, culture, religion, socio-economic status and so on.
In short, we see [or hear] what we expect to see [or hear] and the brain filters out a lot of what is inconsistent with expectation - automatically. The whole truth [or the real truth] never reaches "the conscious" so we are always convinced we are right, just as you say.
These rough-hewn "schemata" served our primitive ancestors very well in fight/flight situations where instanteous judgments meant the difference between life and death, but they are a great impediment to tolerance and understanding between different races and cultures and faiths and socio-economic groupings today.
As you say, "the humble almighty brain".
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re:In short, we see [or hear] what we expect to see [or hear] and the brain filters out a lot of what is inconsistent with expectation - automatically
This is not just for flight or flight, it is a real part of learning and functioning, we don't have to learn things over and over again, they can be learned and 'forgotten'..
especially conveniet for skills like shifting in a car.. you 'feet' know how to do, your 'brain' is free to look for pedestrians, or other traffic..
marijuanna, tends to remove this filter, and make every experience seem fresh--people high on marijuana get excited over mundane things. like the twill weave of their jeans, or the complex set of flavors and smells we know as vanila..
but the attraction of so many new like experiences make them a hazzard.
the filter system is complex, and marijuana interferes with parts of it.. especially food and taste.. foods taste 'new'- and complex.. in a hunter gather society, where just collecting enough calories are important, your brain would learn to just focus on 'right?' or 'wrong?' to make sure you were collecting the edible variety of plant and not something poisonous.
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The brain is capable of "multitasking" far more complex than any computer is. And the capability can be ennanced by practice. I spent a couple years as a PBX operator in a rather large hospital. I got so I could juggle six or eight
calls, remembering who the callers were, who they were calling, and the phone numbers needed without having to consult any list. I would be a miserable failure at it now.
My recent memory is a travesty of what it used to be.
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Pooh-Bah
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That's why we talk about people having an "ear" for language. Babies hear the phenomes of every language but soon learn to hear only those of their own. Someone with an ear for language often has kept the ability to hear and therefore copy other/unfamiliar sounds. I studied Spanish with various S Amer. teachers then went to Spain. It took me a week to re-tune my ear to the local sounds. V sounded like B, B was half way in-between the two. The R was rolled and the RR rolled so hard it sounded like a D, the hard C was a K sound and the soft C was a Th while the S was not Th or Sh but wasn't quite an English S either. I do like getting the pronunciation close enough to pass for, well obviously not local but not too distinctly N Amer.
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Pooh-Bah
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I've recently been trying to write "east end" English as it's spoken. I can "hear" it perfectly, but try rendering it on paper!
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