# Dosteovskyovskiioevsky. . .blah. . .



## HLGStrider (Sep 3, 2005)

It has long been a joke of mine to purposefully mispronounce the names of Russian authors. Mainly because I know there is no way I will ever be able to get Solzhenitsyn correct and it is better to be purposefully silly then unintentionally dumb. So, I have fun with Dusty-ov-sky as I call him and have been trying to come up with a creative way to mis-say Tolstoy (it is hard to mispronounce that. . .). 

Anyway, only pronounciation isn't a big deal, but spelling is, and I had been spelling Dostoevsky like you see me spell it here. . .That is the way it is spelled on my copy of _The Idiot_ and my copy of _Notes from Underground_, and I basically assumed they wouldn't lead me astray. Then, low and behold, I went and bought a copy of _The Brothers Karamazov_ (I like Dusty-ov-sky quite a bit. . .) and there on the cover it says "Fyodor Dost*OYEV*sky." My jaw dropped. 

Since then I have seen it both with the OE and the OYE and I really like it better with the OE. . .But I was bored and thought I'd put it up to the membership and see what they like.

I also have a friend who likes Russian history and keeps telling me that it should be Dostoevskii, since the Y is an evil form of anglicization or something like that. So I'll put that as an option too. 

What do you guys think?


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## Inderjit S (Sep 4, 2005)

I think Dostoevsky would be proud of you! 

Or not. Ever tried mispronuncing Gogol?


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## HLGStrider (Sep 4, 2005)

Just add an extra o and mix it up with a famous search engine, Jr.

I've decided my favorite character is Lise. She reminds me of myself except shriller. I hope she doesn't die. . .


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 5, 2005)

Actually, it _should_ be spelled Достоевский.  My husband is actually Russian and Russian is his native language, so I asked him. We looked it up on a transliteration website (http://www.answers.com/topic/transliteration-of-russian-into-english) and according to that website it should be _dostoyevskii_. However, since "ii" _was_ anglicanized (or whatever)American/English-speakers will look at it and say, "huh?" So, they have changed "ii" to "y".

So my final vote is "dostoyevsky." One thing to keep in mind is that the middle "e" in the word is actually pronounced "ye." If it is written only as "e" English speakers will look at it and read "dos - toe - vsky" whereas a Russian person will read it correctly as "dos - toye - vsky" (because in the their language the letter "e" is pronounce "ye"). However, English speakers won't know that, so the only way for them to get that "y" sound in there is to add the "y."

But my husband still insists it should be Достоевский. 

_P.S. You won't be able to read the Cyrillic writing if your computer settings aren't set for it, so it may look like gibberish._


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## Inderjit S (Sep 5, 2005)

My favourite character is the Claudian Prince Myshkin from "The Idiot", though I also like the morbidly dysfunctional Karamazov family too. (The Brothers Karamazov is my favourite Dostoevsky novel.) I also like The Underground Man, mainly because my essay on him enabled me to pass my English Exam which I didn't even revise for. I also like the dopey Uncle from his little known work, The Village of Stepanchikovo. 

Thanks for the 'interesting' (!?) explanation Nenya, I guess ii would look weird and y is a good substitute.


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 5, 2005)

It's not that it would "look" weird! I was only meaning that since "ii" was anglicanized (as Elgee's history friend told us), when used in an English word it becomes "y."

If you were to write Dostoyevsky to a Russian-speaking person and had to use English letters (because you did not have access to the Cyrillic letters) you would write _dostoevskii'_. However, if you go by what Russian-English transliteration says (i.e. when you switch out of the Russian alphabet into the English alphabet), you should write _dostoyevskii_, and since "ii" _was_ anglicanized to "y," I deduct that you should write it as _dostoyevsky_ when writing in English.


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## HLGStrider (Sep 5, 2005)

I couldn't like Mishkin. He was too obviously doomed. . .


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## Ingwë (Sep 8, 2005)

Nenya Evenstar said:


> Actually, it _should_ be spelled Достоевский.


Indeed it is. I'm Bulgarian and I'll study Russian next school year (after one week in begins  ) but why did you vote _Dostoyevsky. _I think it's pronuncation would be _Досто*й*евски_. The pronuncation of the name depends on the language. In Bulgarian it is _Достоевски_. Without '_й_'


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 8, 2005)

I don't know how they say it in Bulgarian, but the 'й' isn't in the Russian version. They pronounce it exactly as it's written: _Достоевский_ (except of course the beginning 'o' is a little closer to 'u'). I'm not quite sure how it would be pronounced with the 'й' in the middle. Is that how you pronounce it in Bulgaria? Can you give us an 'English' version of the Bulgarian pronunciation?

Keep in mind that the 'e' in Достоевский already has a 'y' sound to it (it is pronounced 'ye').


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## Ingwë (Sep 9, 2005)

Bulgarian pronuncation is _Достоевски, _not_ Досто*й*евски__. _You have voted for _Dostoyevski _and I think its pronuncation is _Досто*й*евски. _The English version of Bg pronuncation is Dostoevski.



> Keep in mind that the 'e' in Достоевский already has a 'y' sound to it (it is pronounced 'ye').


I'm not Russian but I disagree  Why the_ 'e'_ sound is pronounced _'ye_'? I think with that _'y' _it is _'__*й*е'_. ​


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 9, 2005)

Hehehe . . . I see! 

Same difference!  I can't use 'й' in English because we simply don't have that letter.  So, I have to use 'y' as it makes the same sound (basically  ). Besides, if you go to the transliteration website I gave, 'e' in Russian transliterates to 'ye' in English. That's why I use it. 

How is the Bulgarian letter 'е' pronounced?


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## Ingwë (Sep 12, 2005)

> How is the Bulgarian letter 'е' pronounced?


Like *'e'* in* Nenya 

*


> I can't use 'й' in English because we simply don't have that letter.  So, I have to use 'y' as it makes the same sound (basically  ). Besides, if you go to the transliteration website I gave, 'e' in Russian transliterates to 'ye' in English. That's why I use it.


 I see but that it in not the Russian version that you gave  Look... Yes [pr. _'jes'_, cyrillic _*й*е__c_] So the correct version is Dostoevski. 
And... don't use websites. They cannot translate. I mean they make many mistakes. That's not a joke.


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 12, 2005)

I don't use websites.  I use my husband -- he's from Russia and speaks Russian as his native language. The website I mentioned was a website that shows the _transliteration_ of Russian to English, not the _translation_.

From that website:

Russian letter or letter combination:
Е (е)

English transliteration (meaning what that letter becomes when used in the English alphabet):
Ye (ye)

And then it gives examples:

Ельцин = Yeltsin 
Раздольное = Razdolnoye 
Юрьев = Yuryev (ь omitted—see ь line below); 
Подъездной = Podyezdnoy

If you notice, whenever the Russian letter 'e' occurs, it is replaced in an English word by the letters 'ye.'

So I stick with Dostoyevsky. 



> Yes [pr. 'jes', cyrillic йеc]


 I disagree. The cyrillic would be simply 'ec.' 

In Russian 'e' is NOT pronounced like the 'e' in Nenya. If you were to pronounce that 'e' like it is pronounced in Russian you'd say 'Nyen' for the first part of the word. As an example, take the word 'Het,' meaning 'no' in Russian. That is pronounced, literally, 'nyet.'


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## Ingwë (Sep 14, 2005)

*Аргх...*

Argh...



Nenya said:


> Ingwë said:
> 
> 
> > Yes [pr. 'jes', cyrillic *йеc*]I disagree. The cyrillic would be simply 'ec.'


I disagree with you, dear Nenya. I speak Bulgarian quite well, more than many other Bulgarians (we have dialects in the different parts of the country though it is small  ). It wouldn't be simply_ 'ec'_ because [highlight]_'s'_ in simply _'ec' _[/highlight]. Cyrrilic is Bulgarian alpabet; neither Russian nor Macedonian. Our first alphabet is [highlight]Glagolhic aplabet[/highlight]. It was created by Kiril and Metody but it is based on Bulgarian language as it was spoken in IX century... [highlight]Climent of Ohrid reduced that alphabet and so he created Cyrillic.[/highlight] Climent was a student of the Brothers. 

http://www.easybulgarian.com/ If you want to leand something...

_I understand that 'e' and 'ye'..._



Nenya said:


> As an example, take the word 'Het,' meaning 'no' in Russian


I know what does it mean but [highlight]I suppose that the word is not 'Het' but 'нет'[/highlight]

Радвам се да видя Български (Е, славянски) език тук, в този форум 
I'm glad to see Bulgarian (well, Slav language) here, in this forum


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 24, 2005)

Ingwe,

Ok, so I've done some research on this. Just trying to get my history straight. 

And yes, I did mean "нет," but I don't have cyrillic on my keyboard and didn't feel like searching the internet for the word, so I used the best I could with what I have.

From what I understand, the Glagolitic was created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius to write religious and biblical works. Glagolitic was used to write their translations of a Slavonic dialect of the Thessalonika (Greece) area.
Old Church Slavonic developed from that. Then, in the 10th Century, St. Kliment of Ohrid invented the Cyrillic alphabet to write the Old Church Slavonic language (developed in Bulgaria).

Russians used Old Church Slavonic and an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet. Then, in the 17th Century, Peter the Great introduced a revised Cyrillic alphabet based off of the dialect of Moscow. After the Russian Revolution, the Russians removed a few letters to form their current alphabet.

Bulgarians used Glagolitic and gradually switched over to an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet. In the 18th century, the Bulgarians adapted the Russian version of Cyrillic that Peter the Great had revised. Then, during the 19th century, a number of different versions of this Russian-Cyrillic alphabet were used. The latest version of this alphabet was proposed by Marin Drinov and was used until 1945 when the letters yat and yus were removed.

So yes, Cyrillic did originate in Bulgaria. However, the Bulgarians adopted the Russian Cyrillic alphabet in the 18th century. This means that the alphabet you currently write is based off of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

Also, a few things to note: The Bulgarian alphabet and the Russian alphabet are not the same. The Bulgarian alphabet has 30 letters, the Russian alphabet has 33.

So, we cannot say that Bulgarian Cyrillic and Russian Cyrillic are the same. Things will be written and pronounced differently. Therefore, since Dostoyevsky is Russian, we must use the current Russian Cyrillic alphabet to decide how his name should be written in English.

_Reference information from www.omniglot.com._


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## Walter (Sep 24, 2005)

Read Gogol! 


Saves you a lot of trouble when you have to spell the author's name...


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## Ithrynluin (Sep 24, 2005)

Walter said:


> Read Gogol!
> 
> 
> Saves you a lot of trouble when you have to spell the author's name...



Plus, _the Overcoat_ is a pretty good story, that coming from someone who is not too into "the classics"!


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## Tar-Elendil13 (Sep 24, 2005)

I take Russian, and the exact transliteration of it is dostoyevskii, but I prefer dostoevsky.

TE13


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## Ingwë (Sep 30, 2005)

Nenya, 

Bulgarians were enslaved by the Turks from 14 Century to 19 century. Russians helped us to be free again. Bulgarians are Orthodox as well as Russians. The leader of the Orthodox, the patriarch is in Russia though we have own  who is in hospital now  Indeed the Russians influenced over the Bulgarians when we were enslaved.


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