medved' and Medvedev

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Frank Y. Gladney wrote:

> Deborah Hoffman's Mid-VED-dyeff isn't bad, certainly better than Paul
> Gallagher's Mid-VED-iff with its bad syllabification.

Bad for Russian, necessary for English. How else will you get the lax 
("short") vowel? Remember, English prohibits syllables ending with that 
vowel (unless you count r-less British dialects, with "fair" as [fɛ:] etc.).

If you want to syllabify as "Mid-VED-yiff," I suppose that would be 
tolerable, but it still sounds to me like a soft sign is being inserted.

This is inevitably a question of tradeoffs, of finding the least bad 
mispronunciation, and if I have to accept a soft sign to get the correct 
vowel in the stressed syllable, I'll do it. I won't like it, but I'll do 
it, because I won't accept "эй" in the stressed syllable.

> But let's remember that palatalized dental stops in Russian are
> somewhat affricated.  So I propose Midge-VAY-jiff.

<wince>

Up with THAT I will not put.

-- 
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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