"Joker"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Joker's post-bombing Tweets include "Ain't no love in the heart of the
city. Stay safe, people" and "I'm just a carefree kind of guy."

The sociopath next door.

JL


On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Joker"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  From the more Russian perspective, most North-Caucasian names are
> spelled as "dz" (e.g., a soccer player "Dzagoev"). But occasional "dzh"
> does appear (two letters, of course--i.g., a 1980s cosmo/astronaut was
> named "Dzhanibekov"; it turned out that was not his real name, as my
> father recognized him from AF days as a fresh recruit by the name of
> "Krysin", i.e., "rat-guy"). In any case, I have no idea how the name was
> spelled with the Cyrillic script, other than to say that passport
> officials are pretty good at transliteration but not so good at
> recognizing the underlying name. So "Dzh" is probably what the passport
> says. Furthermore, Russian has no [h], so any names that start out with
> an [h] sound before being transcribed into Cyrillic script will be
> changed to either "g" or "kh". I'm assuming that the initial consonant
> is best approximated by "J" and the middle one by "h".
>
> The kid himself started referring to himself as "Jahar". In the light of
> what I wrote above, that seems just right (the vowel alteration is
> pretty meaningless as it could be similar to Ashkenazi/Sephardic
> distinction that is essentially just an question of dialectal accent
> variation).
>
> As for the older brother, the Russian pronunciation would be [tah-m at r
> LAHN], with secondary initial stress.
>
> Interesting point on the family name. The -ev suffixation corresponds to
> Russification of North-Caucasian names--something that seems to have
> happened mostly in Muslim regions and in Latvia (where names lost that
> -s suffix that has since been reacquired, and women's names followed
> Russian suffixation until 1993 or so, and some still do). The uncle's
> name is "Tsarni", not "Tsarnaev". Despite the situation in Chechnya,
> apparently only about 200 Chechens came to the US over the past two
> decades, with most of them residing in the Boston area (with the uncle
> in Maryland and two sisters in NYC as exceptions, oddly enough). Most
> Chechen refugees ended up in Turkey (with many in Kurdistan) and some in
> Afghanistan, for more or less nefarious reasons. The "fiercely
> independent" description seems to be a code for "violently
> nationalistic" or just plain "violent" (wife-beating is normal within
> the subculture and Chechens are significantly overrepresented with the
> Russian mob). These two, unfortunately, lived up to the stereotype.
>
>      VS-)
>
>
> On 4/23/2013 2:30 PM, W Brewer wrote:
> > Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev
> >
> > Dumbing down Wikipedia's IPA, <Dzhokhar> reflects a Russian
> (approximating
> > Chechen) pronunciation [joe-KHAR], <KH> being like German ach-laut;
> > anglified [joe-HAR].
> > Russified <Tsarnaev> [tsahr-NA-yeff] variously anglified: [zar-NA-yev],
> > even heard an early [Sarnoff]. The patronymic <Anzorovich> identifies the
> > alleged father, <Anzor>. Black hat Tamerlan [tammer-LANN] (no doubt
> yearned
> > to live up to his namesake, Tamerlane 1336-1405, <When I rise from the
> > dead, the world shall tremble!>)
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Is "Joker" what they're using because an acquaintance from Dzhokhar
> >> Tsarnaev's Cambridge schooldays said that was the nickname that had
> >> been bestowed on him?
> >>
> >> The New York Times (April 20) gives the pronunciation "joe-HARR",
> >> which I've been hearing more and more.  (And "tsar-NAH-yev"; and for
> >> his brother "tam-arr-lawn" --apparently unaccented).  Seems to me
> >> "Joeharr" is just as easy for Anglos to pronounce -- but perhaps less
> >> humorous or derogatory (or exalted, for a fan of Batman).
> >>
> >> And I'm wondering about the "joe" sound.  Is that what corresponds to
> >> the sound of the (transliterated, I assume) "Dzho"?  Or is it closer
> >> to the French "jeux"?
> >>
> >> Joel
>
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