Re: "New World": Little Russia (Malaja Rus'), Texas

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 22:57:33 -0400, John Cowan <cowan@...>
wrote:

>The final hard signs are the least of it.  The worst part is all those
>pointless jat' characters, the locations of which just have to be
>memorized, and then the random contrasts like "mir" and "mIr" (with
>Ukrainian-style "i").
It's just _yat'_ what I like in the old spelling best. In particular
because it helps to keep many homographs distinct. But this is personal,
indeed...

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 09:12:28 -0400, John Cowan <cowan@...>
wrote:

>On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Danny Wier wrote:
>
>> Doesn't one form of the word mean "peace" and the other "world"?  If
>> so, then different spellings would be a good idea.  Compare to English
>> "meet" and "meat", "see" and "sea"...
>
>Fine and good if you think in English.  But 99% of the Russian system
>is firmly (morpho)phonemic, and having three letters for /i/ and
>two for /je/ stands out like a sore thumb.  Etymology doesn't cut it,
>as very few Russians have the vaguest idea what is ChSl and what is
>native -- IIRC, all present participles are ChSl, about as if we
>had borrowed all past-tense endings from Norse!
...Or personal pronouns ;)

But you are right saying that most Russians are unaware of the
ChSl borrowings.

>The Revolution just finished the work that Peter started by abolishing
>a bunch of redundant letters and parts of letters <...>
>I can see clinging to the old spelling out of fanatical anti-Bolshevism,
>the way Taiwan clings to the Wade-Giles romanization out of fanatical
>anti-mainlandism.
Old Believers who abounded in Siberia and probably would abound in Bush
City might have another reason: they knew Church Slavonic better than
average Russians, and could deny some of Peter's innovations.

[adding to my own comments]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 13:00:58 -0400, Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> wrote:

>On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 16:16:52 -0700, Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:
>>And Bush City, called Bushchina?
>
>The city with the adjacent area, rather than the city itself. But I
>like how it sounds!
>
>I think the official name for the city will be still a transliteration
>(Bush-siti), but colloquially it could be Russified into some Búshevo :)
I've just thought that the inhabitants are probably aware of the meaning
of _bush_ in English. So they could dub their city (with or without the
vicinities) Kustý ('bushes') or, still better, Kustíshchi. And adopt the
obsolete word Kustár' ('self-employed craftsworker'; pl. Kustarí) for
themselves. And some Kustársk(i)y for their dialect. :)


Basilius