(Екб) Про наш город (по-английски), English-speaking zone Опции

[DEDA]

Hi! This is english-speaking zone only. Let's speak about our prefect city. Try to tell us about your district, street or yard at first.

Let's go...

[DEDA]

Ekaterinburg or Yekaterinburg? With the "y" or without the "y" ... and why

Mikhail Brodsky, PhD, Institute of International Relations,Yekaterinburg, Head of Translation Chair

Globalization made us all realize that we are different and unique. We have become more sensitive to our self-identity. That is why in the past decades the tendency to transcribe proper names — write a name in the way locals pronounce it — has won over former ways of translation.

Today, when I open The National Geographic Atlas of the World or maps printed by Webster’s or Oxford University Press, I find there Praha instead of Prague, Roma instead of Rome, and Schweiz instead of Switzerland. On some maps I have even seen Moskva (Moscow) and Sankt-Peterburg (Saint-Petersburg). How about this: Magyarorszag (Hungary)? Could you read it in Hungarian? Well, I couldn’t.

Because Russians pronounce “Russia’s third capital” Ye-ka-te-rin-`boork, it is not quite obvious why so many people write it Ekaterinburg. This issue has already attracted a lot of attention. So, let’s see if we can figure it out.

Sverdlovsk used to be a closed for foreigners city. (I saw my first foreigner when I was 19.) Moreover, we did not have any translation schools. So, when the city got its historical name back, we just did not know how to write its name properly in English. People literally would just flip a coin. Consequently, some stuck to Ekaterinburg (like those working in the UK Consulate General), while others clung to Yekaterinburg (those working in the US Consulate General).

Years went by, and slowly but surely a community of translators appeared and multiplied. Now even junior students who study linguistics and translation theory know some basic rules. The Russian letters я, ю, ё, and е, consist of two sounds. Therefore, the Russian я is rendered as ya (Yalta, Yakut), and ю is rendered as yu (Yulia, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), and ё is rendered as yo (Yoshkar-Ola), and е is rendered as yе (Yeltsin). These sounds are not that unusual for an English ear, for there are words like yard, and Yukon and yo-yo, and Yemen. Come to think of it, many languages have sounds that are rendered by two (or more) letters, e.g. Hungarian busz (bus). But no more Hungarian, ok?

Proper names printed in English-English dictionaries - Yerevan, Yeltsin, Yesenin, Yenisei, Yevtushenko and others — indicate clearly that the only way to write our city in English is Yekaterinburg. All the maps write Yekaterinburg. Why is Ekaterinburg so sticky, then?

When they write Egorov on the jersey of an athlete, it’s because fewer letters save space. Or when airport Koltsovo writes Ekaterinburg, it’s because fewer letters save space, too. When the City Administration chose to write Ekaterinburg on their official site, it’s because they never bothered to ask the opinion of experts. Google maps prefer the spelling Ekaterinburg because they looked at how we ourselves write the name in English, shrugged their shoulders, and agreed to it. So, my guess is that Russians are strangely and stubbornly persistent, while English speakers don’t really care that much. Foreigners come here and ask me all the time: on all our maps we saw Yekaterinburg, so why do you write Ekaterinburg, without the y? Citizens of the world, don’t ask me why. I just don’t know!

When our city’s most popular site E1 (www.e1.ru) proposed a partnership, I agreed. I agreed because I want to see my city become more English-friendly with every coming year. The associates at E1 explained however that they could not change their name. Ekaterinburg is what they must stick to. It was not easy for me to agree with this wrong spelling. We settled on a compromise: Whether you google Yekaterinburg or Ekaterinburg, you are directed to this site anyway. As a linguist and a patriot, I do what I can. I am not going to surrender and raise the white flag of defeat. I may have lost the battle, but — in the long run — I intend to win the war.

In the meantime, enjoy the site and the city! Welcome to Russia, the Urals, and (Y)Ekaterinburg!


Click here