Paris book fair, Russian authors

[Steven Hill]

Dear colleagues & Prof Israeli:

It's interesting that the French may have made a slight change in their
transliteration system (from Russian cyrillic alph. to French Latin alph.).

In the posted list of Russian authors (attached below), I see that the ubiquitous
suffix of Russian surnames,  "-OV," is now being transliterated by the French the
same as in English Latin alph.  I.e., the old French traditional transliteration
"-OFF" seems gone, replaced by "-OV."

On the other hand, the traditional French renditions of "-OVICH" as "-OVITCH" and
of "-IN" as "-INE" remain as they used to be spelled in French.  No change.

Further, I notice that the traditional French spelling of "U" as "OU," of "SH" as
"CH" (except "MARKISH"), of "S" as "SS," and of "G + front vowel" as "GU + front
vowel" remain as they used to be spelled in French.  (Except for one typo: the
traditional "GUERASSIMOFF" wound up as the slightly incorrect "GUELASSIMOV" [sic].

One nation's system of transliteration is about as good as another, and the
traditional system for French evidently worked as well for the French as the
traditional English system (Libr. of Cong.) worked for English.  Neither is
somehow "better" than the other.  And English is in fact filled with inherited
French spellings (Chaliapine, Tchaikovsky, Tamiroff, etc.).   But it is
interesting to see one traditional French treatment ("-OFF") seemingly being
anglicized to "-OV."

Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois (USA).
_______________ _ __ __ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

>Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:50:39 -0800
>From: Adam Siegel <apsiegel at UCDAVIS.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Russian book awards
>
>Could this be the Salon du livre 2005 event?  It started today.  One of
>the themes is Russian lit, and the following authors have been invited (I
>see Aksenov and Sedakova):
>
> 1 -Boris AKOUNINE Presses de la Cit
>2 - Svetlana ALEXIEVITCH JC Latts et Presses de la Renaissance
>3 -Vassili AXIONOV Actes Sud et Gallimard
>4 -Serguei BOLMAT Robert Laffont
>5 - Dmitri BORTNIKOV Seuil
>6 - Dmitri BYKOV Denol
>7 - Andre BITOV Albin Michel
>8 - Vladimir CHAROV Phbus et Actes Sud
>9 - Mikhal CHICHKINE Fayard et Noir sur Blanc
>10 - Andre DMITRIEV Fayard
>11 - Assar EPPEL Robert Laffont et anthologie Fayard
>12 - Victor EROFEEV Albin Michel
>13 - Evgueni GRICHKOVETS Les Solitaires intempestifs
>14 - Andre GUELASSIMOV Actes Sud
>15 - Leonid GUIRCHOVITCH Verdier
>16 - Natalia JOURAVLIOVA LInventaire
>17 - Alexandre KABAKOV Bourgois
>18 - Mark KHARITONOV Fayard
>19 - Nikola KONONOV Cherche-Midi
>20 - Anatoli KOROLIOV Calmann-Levy
>21 - Alexandre KOUCHNER Anthologie La Diffrence
>22 - Vladimir MAKANINE Flammarion, Actes Sud et Gallimard
>23 - Iouri MAMLEIEV Serpent  plumes et Robert Laffont
>24 - Alexandra MARININA Seuil
>25 - David MARKISH Noir sur Blanc
>26 - Irina MOURAVIEVA Jacqueline Chambon
>27 - Anatoly NAYMAN Anthologie La Diffrence
>28 - Ludmila OULITSKAIA Gallimard
>29 - Oleg PAVLOV Anthologie Fayard
>30 - Viacheslav PIETSOUKH Actes Sud
>31  Evgueni POPOV Le Seuil
>32 - Dmitri PRIGOV Caractres
>33 - Lev RUBINSTEIN Rumeur des Ages
>34 - Olga SEDAKOVA Caractres et Clmence Hiver
>35 - Alexei SLAPOVSKI Albin Michel
>36 - Olga SLAVNIKOVA Gallimard
>37 - Vladimir SOROKINE LOlivier et Gallimard
>38 - Tatiana TOLSTOI Robert Laffont
>39  Serguei TUTUNNIK Presses de la Renaissance
>40 - Marina VICHNEVETSKAIA Actes Sud
>41 - Andre VOZNESSENSKI Gallimard et Caractres
>42 - Leonid YOUZEFOVITCH Noir sur Blanc
>
>No mention of prizes yet--nu?
>
>Adam
>
>===========
>Adam Siegel
>Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Librarian
>Peter J. Shields Library
>100 North West Quad
>University of California, Davis
>Davis, CA 95616
>apsiegel at ucdavis.edu
_ __ __ __ __ __ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ __ __ __ _

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 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/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------