§ 2. Translation transcription

Transcription is a method of writing down speech sounds.

It is essential to differentiate between a phonetic transcription and a practical (or translation) transcription. In a phonetic transcription, sounds are depicted by special symbols on the basis of their articulatory and auditory identity. A phonetic transcription is an intralinguistic operation, that is, it deals with only one language: Anchorage [`xNkqrIG],Oakland[`qVklxnd].

A practical transcription is an interlinguistic operation as it deals with two languages: the sounds of the source language word are rendered by the letters of the target languge: Anchorage – Анкоридж, Oakland - Окленд. Because the English (Latin) and Russian (Cyrillic) alphabets and sounds do not coincide, there are special rules⁴⁸

for representing English sounds by Russian letters and Russian sounds by English letters.

The most important rules are as follows:

1. Transcribing English sounds with Russian letters:

• Interdental [ D] correspond to the RussianТ: Thatcher – Тэтчер, Thackeray – Теккерей. Sometimes these sounds correspond to the RussianC, which is a bit outdated:Galsworthy – Голсуорси.In Greek words, the interdental sound is rendered by the RussianФ:Athens – Афины, Themistocles – Фемистокл.

• The English [w] is transmitted by the letter Уif followed by a vowel:William – Уильям, Wilder – Уайлдер.But when followed by the vowel [u], the consonant [w] is rendered by the letterВ: Woolf – Вулф, Wodehouse – Вудхаус. However, there are some traditional cases of the sound [w] represented by the letterВ: Washington – Вашингтон, Walter Scott – Вальтер Скотт. The same is true in reference to the borrowed (mostly German) names:Wagner – Вагнер, Wilhelm – Вильгельм.

• The English [h] can be represented in two ways: either by Х: Hailey – Хейли, or byГ:Hamilton – Гамильтон. Thus some words acquire two forms in Russian:Hoffman – Хофман, Гофман.

• [N] is transliterated byНГ: Jennings – Дженнингс.

• The vowel [з:] after the consonant corresponds to the RussianЁ:Burns – Бёрнс. In the beginning of the word, this sound is represented by the letterЭ: Earl’s Court–Эрлз-Корт.

• [æ] is represented in Russian byЭ/Е/А: Batman – Бэтмен, Jack – Джек, Glasgow – Глазго.

Russian sounds in English transcription are usually represented as follows:

• [j], represented in writing by the letter Й,corresponds to the EnglishY/I in the end of the word:Толстой – Tolstoy, Троцкий – Trotsky/ Trotski; toI in the beginning of the word:Йошкар-Ола – Ioshkar-Ola.If [j] makes part and parcel of a vowel letter(Е, Ё, Ю, Я)it is represented byYor I: Енисей – Yenisei, Порфирьевич – Porfirievich, Югославия – Yugoslavia, Ялта – Yalta.

• The Russian [ж] is rendered byZH: Житомир – Zhitomir.

• [х] corresponds toKHor, rarely,H: Находка – Nakhodka.

• [ц] is represented byTS: Целиноград – Tselinograd.Care should be taken, however, with foreign words: they usually have their native form:Цюрих – Zurich, Цейлон – Ceylon, Цзянси – Jiangxi.

• [ч] may correspond either toCHor toTCH: Чехов – Chekhov, Чайковский – Tchaikovsky.

• [щ] is represented by the clusterSHCHorSCH: Щелково – Shchelkovo.

• [ы] usually corresponds toY: Куйбышев – Kuibyshev.

One should pay special attention to transcribing East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) words into English and Russian, especially when doing tertiary translation of Asian words from English into Russian or vice versa.

It is neccessary to remember that because of the difference in phonetic systems, East Asian sounds are designated differently in English and Russian. Thus, in Japanese words, the sound symbolized by the English shis somewhere between [s] and [S]; therefore, in Russian it is transcribed by the letterC: e.g.,Hiroshima – Хиросима, shogun – сёгун. The letterLcan indicate the sound quality between [l] and [r]. For example, the name of the Korean presidentKim Il Sungcorresponds in Russian toКим Ир Сен.