Declension of Acronyms in Written and Spoken Russian

[Katie Janicka]

Hi Tony,

Terence Wade's Comprehensive Russian Grammar has a section on declension of alphabetisms (and an interesting, and related, section on gender of acronyms and alphabetisms).

In a nutshell:

1. Only those alphabetisms decline which are masculine and have the form of first-declension nouns ending in a consonant (долг ВАЗа, риск заразиться СПИДом).

2. Other alphabetisms are not declined.

Notes:
ГЭС (гидроэлектростанция), ООН (UNO) - are of feminine gender and undeclined
ВИЧ (HIV) - is an example of a new form at present undeclined
ЖЭК (жилищно-эксплуатационная контора), МИД (Министерство иностранных дел) - are either left undeclined or (in colloquial styles) are declined

Best,
Katie

Katie M. Janicka
Doctoral Student
Bryn Mawr College


----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony J. Vanchu (JSC-AH)[BARRIOS TECHNOLOGY]" <anthony.j.vanchu at NASA.GOV>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 1:48:55 PM
Subject: [SEELANGS] Declension of Acronyms in Written and Spoken Russian

I'd be grateful if fellow SEELANGtsy could provide some examples of acronyms that decline, in either spoken or written Russian.

The one I'm most familiar with, of course, is ЦУП (TsUP), Mission Control Center, and which yields usages such as в ЦУПе (v TsUPe) and от ЦУПа (ot TsUPa).

What I'm interested in finding out from the examples is to get a better sense of which kinds of acronyms will decline.  So far, it seems that those that do all end in consonants and are spoken as words, but I'm curious to see a wider range of examples from non-aerospace sources.

Many thanks,
Tony Vanchu

Dr. Anthony J. Vanchu, Ph.D.
TechTrans International, Inc.
Director, JSC Language Education Center
NASA Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
(281) 483-0644
(281) 483-4050 (fax)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------