Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:02:01 +0300 From: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: internationalization Message-ID: <19980616110201.54724@techunix.technion.ac.il> In-Reply-To: <199806150326.UAA09328@usr05.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Mon, Jun 15, 1998 at 03:26:05AM %2B0000 References: <19980614051600.62407@techunix.technion.ac.il> <199806150326.UAA09328@usr05.primenet.com>
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Terry,
I'll try to find some time to address your large message today;
just a small nitpicker's datum meanwhile. What the heck, this
*is* -chat, isn't it? ;)
> Would you also dismiss Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" as not a
> classic because it is also SF? Jules Verne's "20,000 leagues unders
> the sea"? Carel Kapek's play "R.U.R.", from which we derive the word
> "Robot"?
The frequency of this misspelling (Kapek instead of Capek) has an
interesting explanation. The unfortunate fact is that Capek's name
is frequently misspelled, and even more frequently mispronounced,
in most of the Western countries. The first sound of the name
should really be pronounced as 'ch' in 'church'. Combine this with
the fact that in Slavic languages 'a' is almost universally
pronounced as something like 'u' in 'cut' (and never like 'a' in
'actor'), and you arrive at the correct pronunciation being as
something like 'Chupek', stressed at the first syllable.
Now, of course not every 'c' is pronounced like 'ch' in Czech. 'c'
is pronounced like 'ch' when it has a special sign above it, which
is similar to an inverted French circumflex. So, the name should,
I believe, accurately be written like this:
v
Capek
The Roman alphabet doesn't have such a sign, naturally, and the sign
is almost always omitted, which then results in silly pronunciation
mistakes. For example, ISO-8859-1 doesn't (I think) have such a sign,
although Unicode certainly does.
Another superb Czech writer is Milan Kundera (living in France for
the last 23 years and writing in Czech and French), one of my most
favourites among contemporary writers (he doesn't write SF though ;)).
In one of his latest novels, 'Slowness', there's a touching and funny
passage dedicated exactly to this intricate detail of Czech
orthography. I liked it so much I typed it in so show to my online
friends; I'm sending you a copy in private email, perhaps you'll
like it.
Sincerely,
Anatoly.
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
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