24 



REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES GEOGRAPHIC BOARD. 



pronunciation and retransliteration 

 both require that all the elements of 

 the Russian alphabet shall be repro- 

 duced! in the proposed table of equiva- 

 lents, although some have already been 

 dropped by Russian reformers. This 

 is successfully done by means of dia- 

 critical marks in the translitera- 

 tion table which is used for index 

 cards in the Library of Congress and 

 adopted by the American Library As- 

 sociation. 



The following works have been con- 

 sulted in this study of the subject : 

 How to learn Russian, Riola; Gram- 

 mar of the Russian Language, Mor- 

 flll ; Hugo's Russian Grammar ; Bon- 

 dar's Simplified Russian Method; 

 Golovinsky's Russian and English Dic- 

 tionary ; various contributions to the 

 Geographical Journal, New Englander 

 and Yale Review, and other periodi- 

 cals ; various charts. 



Accompanying this report is also a 

 tabular statement, compiled in the Hy- 

 drographic Office, in January, 1919, of 

 equivalents used, or recommended, by 

 various authorities, supplemented by 

 statements subsequently received from 

 the Departments of State and of War 

 and the War Trade Board, and a com- 

 munication from the Russian embassy 

 in Washington. Among these there are 

 differences in a limited number of en- 

 tries. Where there is actual una- 

 nimity, or a very preponderating con- 

 sensus of authorities of major consid- 

 eration, in favor of a transcription, no 

 attempt has been made to collate the 

 reasonings leading to such transcrip- 

 tion or to do more than simply adopt 

 it; for the others the attempt is made 

 to quote and apply rules previously 

 made by the board or to formulate 

 aach additional rules as may be needed 

 to harmonize the different practices 

 with least violence to any. 



Among the rules that have been 

 adopted by the Geographic Board the 

 following are applicable in this discus- 

 sion and are followed unless otherwise 

 noted : 



The use of diacritical characters will 

 be avoided. 



a has the sound of a in father. 



ch is always soft as in church. 



e has the sound of e in men. 



g is always hard as in Galapagos. 



i has the sound of i in ravine. 



j is pronounced as in Japan ; dj 

 should never be used for this sound. 



u has the sound of oo in boot. 



y Is always used as a consonant, as 

 in yard, and should not be used for the 

 vowel i. 



The first care of the committee has 

 been to produce a table of equivalents 

 under a rigid rule to exclude diacritics. 

 The actual working of the resulting 

 system has then been tested by apply- 

 ing it to a number of Russian place 

 names and noting the practical expe- 

 diency of adopting it or any objections 

 that may seem to make it inexpedient. 

 Finally, another table has been worked 

 out with the single limitation of not 

 using diacritical marks to distinguish 

 any Russian letter that can be as well 

 distinguished by the use of diagraphs 

 without the reproach of inexpediency 

 as exhibited in the list of place names 

 to which the first table is applied for 

 experiment. 



For convenience of reference the 

 Russian letters are numbered serially 

 in accordance with the sequence 

 usually followed. It is observed that 

 in the table of equivalents furnished 

 by the Russian naval attach^ the se- 

 quence is occasionally different. 



The table furnished by the Russian 

 naval attach^ also carries only 34 char- 

 acters, Nos. 35 and 36 being omitted. 

 These omissions are evidently inten- 

 tional, and probably reflect the prac- 

 tice obtaining in some departments of 

 the Russian Government, No. 35 (f) 

 being an exact duplication in sound of 

 No. 22, and No. 36 being universally 

 recognized as " seldom used," the 

 sound being a superfluous one. Their 

 abolition is advocated by reformers 

 and would seem a wise act. Neverthe- 

 less, as they exist in all but most re- 



