Russian rules, Czech geography

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Francoise Rosset wrote:

> Uvazhaemye kollegi:
> 
> A quick question
> (expl.: I have a Czech student in my Russian class).
> 
> If the prepositional/locative rule is that a foreign place name
> ending in -o is not declined, then does that always apply to
> fellow Slavic place names?
> Right now, I'm interested in BRNO. And by all indications,
> the rule holds. The Russian wikipedia entry spells out "v Brno"
> for the locative ... "Shpilbergskaia krepost' v Brno iavilas' etc."
> 
> Now what if the Slavic place name were a cognate of a Russian
> word like "selo" - for me this is purely hypothetical as no
> examples come to mind.
> Does anyone have an example and would that modify the rule?
> Would the cognate simply get translated into the Russian word
> and declined, or could it remain non-Russian and be declined?
> Thanks so much,

Many Slavic place names are cognate with Russian roots, some more 
obviously than others. For example, Hradec kralové seems to be related 
to the Russian root город/град with a diminutive suffix -ec = -ец. But 
these are so obviously non-Russian that AFAIK they are treated as 
foreign and not declined.

A more difficult case would be Czech "Nové město" ("в Новом месте"?); 
some might be tempted to decline it, but given the confusion that would 
result, I'm sure the saner ones would choose not to. On the other hand, 
we do see the Poles decline "w Nowym Jorku"....

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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