REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES GEOGRAPHIC BOARD. 



25 



cent literature they must be incorpo- 

 rated here. 



In the table used by the State De- 

 partment also Nos. 35 and 36 are 

 omitted, presumably in accordance 

 with the same principle as the Russian 

 embassy. 



Nos. 17, 28, 30, 35, 36, are omitted 

 from the table received from the War 

 Trade Board; Nos. 28 and 80 are 

 " mute" ; Nos. 35 and 36 probably fol- 

 low the same principles as the State 

 Department. The omission of No. 17 

 is not understood ; it may be an in- 

 advertence. 



Identical equivalents are accepted 

 by all the authorities consulted for 

 the following Russian letters: Nos. 1, 

 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 

 20, 21, 22. 



Following are considerations bear- 

 ing upon each of the remaining Rus- 

 sian letters : 



No. 3. There is, practically, una- 

 nimity in making it v, a few giving an 

 additional parenthetical value f. Be- 

 fore or after a Russian hard conso- 

 nant this letter is given the sound of 

 f whether at the end or in the middle 

 of a name ; but as the present study 

 is less concerned with the sound than 

 with correct transcription, and as the 

 English f would, in a case of retrans- 

 literation, be expressed by No. 22 it 

 seems mandatory to transcribe No. 3 

 simply as v. 



No. 4. All agree on g. Some add 

 parenthetically an old rule of pronun- 

 ciation involving occasional aspiration 

 as if by an h; but that is now of rare 

 usage and is of no interest in mere 

 transcription. 



No. 6. All agree on e. Some add 

 parenthetically ye as indicating the 

 sound when initial at the beginning of 

 words or syllables ; but that is merely 

 a rule of pronunciation independent 

 of the spelling, and, to authorize 

 transcription into ye would introduce 

 confusion with No. 31, which is the ac- 

 cepted equivalent of ye. 



No. 7. The sound is that of the 

 French j or of z in azure, and is vari- 

 ously transcribed as j, zh, sh, sch. 



Having regard for the phonetic values 

 adopted by the Geographic Board, zh 

 is the only combination of letters that 

 seems to produce the required sound; 

 it also has the weight of leading au- 

 thorities. 



No. 10 pre -euts the difficulty of hav- 

 ing much the same sound as No. 9, 

 namely i (as in ravine), and is not 

 distinguished from it in any table ex- 

 cept that of the Library of Congress, 

 which uses a diacritic mark. As used 

 in place names it appears only before 

 vowels, which suggests the greater 

 propriety of transcribing it as with the 

 consonant sound of y, producing it as 

 yi. This will secure correct retrans- 

 literation. It is understood that it is 

 being dropped by Russian reformers. 



No. 11 is in much the same case as 

 No. 10, and is similarly rendered as i 

 in several tables and y in others. Au- 

 thorities concur generally in assigning 

 to it employment only after a vowel 

 with which it forms a diphthong, hav- 

 ing the sound of i short such as char- 

 acterizes the second member of a diph- 

 thong, as in May, bay, etc. The Rus- 

 sian embassy transcribes it as iy, 

 evidently in reproduction of a peculiar 

 inflection. While, except to a Russian 

 ear, the sound of iy may not be very 

 distinctive, that diphthong commends 

 itself as the best avenue of escape 

 from the use of a diacritic. 



No. 23, having the guttural sound 

 of kh in khan, or ch in the Scotch loch, 

 is represented by kh with virtual 

 unanimity. The principal deviation is 

 to ch, by authorities that give to c the 

 hard sound, like k; and this is not ad- 

 missible under the rule adopted by the 

 Geographic Board. 



No. 24 is variously rendered by ts, 

 tz, and z. The weight of authority is 

 for ts, which affords the purest repre- 

 sentation of its sound. 



No. 25 is almost unanimously ren- 

 dered by ch; two deviations, tsch and 

 tch, conform to special rules govern- 

 ing pronunciation in Germany and 

 France but not recognized by the Geo- 

 graphic Board. 



