Russian grammatical questions: Alaska and Hawaii

[John Dingley]

Hi,

"Helsinki" is singular in Finnish. In point of fact this toponym is
Scandinavian of origin, having to do with "Helsingland", cf. modern
Swedish "Helsingborg", modern Danish "Helsingør" ("Elsinore" in
English). The Swedish name for "Helsinki" is "Helsingfors", where
"fors" means "rapids".

By the way, isn't "Xel'sinki", more often than not, indeclinable
in modern Russian? E.g. "Ona zhivet v Xel'sinki".

John Dingley

Quoting William Ryan <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>:

> Nor can Nagasaki or Helsinki, but v Khel'sinkakh and v Nagasakakh, and
> even v Karachakh and v Deliakh are quite common even in formal Russian.
> I have no idea if any of these was originally a plural in the source
> language, like v Del'fakh or v Afinax, but the force of analogy is
> always strong. Perhaps rivers are less prone to this than towns because
> there is no classical model (that I can think of)?
>
> Will
>
>
> On 29/10/2010 18:50, Francoise Rosset wrote:
> > (Not like Mississippi or Missouri which cannot logically pass for a
> > plural?)
>
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