🚀 go-pugleaf

tim@iss.nus.sg (Tim Poston writes:

>
> jl3j+@andrew.cmu.edu (John Robert Leavitt) writes:
>
>:  Actually, I believe it is from the Russian word "rabotnik" == worker,
>
>The Russian, by the way, is spelled
>with a Russian o as first vowel, only pronounced `a' because
>it's before the stress.  OK to transliterate as `rabotnik',
>I suppose, but only if you write the Russian president's given
>name as `Baris' --- the same shift happens there.

Um, excuse me, but no.  The Russian word is spelled "AIR" "AH" "BEH"
"OH" "TEH" "EN" "EE" "KAH".  I know about the pesky unstressed vowel
shiftes (including the one in Boris), but that is not what is going on
here.  Here, the vowel actually is "AH" and happens to sound the same
as an unstressed "Oh" because it is also unstressed.

> if you write "rabotnik" you should write "sayuz".

If I transliterating based on pronunciation, yes, but as I explained
above, I am not.  I admit that "sayuz" is a better transliteration,
but I was thinking of the Apollo-Soyuz [sic] mission and lost my head.
C'est la vie.

-John.

Follow-ups to alt.language.russian.pedantic