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srw
The Russian Item (Po Russkij) Mark Unseen   Jan 24 06:28 UTC 1994

I have decided to learn Russian (again). I have a number of
textbooks and dictionaries left over from when I was a grad student.
This is so long ago that books were actually inexpensive. Anyway my
Russion is too weak for me to start posting much in it.

Also posting in Russian without Cyrillic is pretty hard to take in
any quantity. Nevertheless, it is possible (I think).

I have a Cyrillic font for my mac, but the keys are mapped so
randomly that it is really hard to get used to. It's sort of like
learning the Cyrillic Alphabet *and* Dvorak keyboard at the same
time.

Does anyone know where the keys ought to be on a Cyrillic keyboard?
Does anyone know how to transliterate the soft sign?

Spasibo.

-srw
15 responses total.
slappy
response 1 of 15: Mark Unseen   Oct 28 03:45 UTC 1994

I usually have seen the miyaki znak (soft sighn) transliterated by using an
apostrophe.
brighn
response 2 of 15: Mark Unseen   Oct 28 17:18 UTC 1994

I've seen a variety of ways to distribute to keys in Cyrillic; there doesn't
seem to be a standard, although for Americans the first priority seems to be
phonemic similarity and the second visual similarity.
e.g. Cyr. C on S, Cyr. 3 on Z, etc.
then shch (or sh, but not as often) on W, yu on H, etc.
then whatever's left over wherever it will fit -- ya on Q, for instance
srw
response 3 of 15: Mark Unseen   Oct 29 01:46 UTC 1994

The lack of a standard seems to be the theme here.
I have some Cyrillic fonts for my Mac, but the keyboard combinations seemed
random (no phonemic similarity). So I guessed that perhaps it was from the
kind of Cyrillic keyboard they use in Russia. A quick check with a friend at 
work who is fluent in Russian and had lots of experience typing on those old
Cyrillic typewriters proved that guess to be completely wrong. <sigh>
brighn
response 4 of 15: Mark Unseen   Oct 29 04:42 UTC 1994

Second that, Steve.  My experience with Cyrillic keyboards (a few hours 
here and there three summers back) was that they were fairly intuitive 
if you knew the American keyboard, and not a bit like the Mac font I was
using.

The best thing, of course, is to get KeyMapper or Fontographer (the latter
of which is overkill for this purpose) and rearrange the font the way you 
like.  Considering I use Ukrainian Cyrillic (4 extra characters, and missing
three or four), that's about the only choice I have anyway.
keesan
response 5 of 15: Mark Unseen   Jan 12 02:25 UTC 1998

Would anyone like older editions of Smirnitsky or Myuller, for $1.25 each?
(I just replaced them with slightly newer editions).  Cunning, do you actually
read Ukrainian well?  And even write it?  I translate Russian and sometimes
they send me Ukrainian by mistake, and I could use a bit of help.  Have you
met Kristina who sells vegetables at the farmer's market?
albaugh
response 6 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 19 17:05 UTC 1998

Can anyone provide some basic "chatty" kinds of Russian phrases, and show the
approximate phonetic pronunciation?  Some examples I'd like to see:

Hi!
How are you?
How's it going?
Bye.
etc.

srw
response 7 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 23 03:43 UTC 1998

Sindi should know.
albaugh
response 8 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 24 15:13 UTC 1998

I found a small, useful Russian tutorial program called "rustu15.zip".  You
may be able to find this many places, including the Simtel collection.  The
URL I used from Alta Vista search was
"http://www.bsoftware.com/v2/a19c85p1.htm"
keesan
response 9 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 26 19:24 UTC 1998

Steve Weiss got the Smirnitsky dictionary

Hello - zdravstvuytye
How are things - kak dela (stress the a)
Bye - Do svidaniya - pronounced dasvidaniya (stress second a)
        meaning see you again.
My name is - menya zovut, pronounced minya zavut (stress 2nd sylls)
Good day - dobry den', pronounced roughly dobree dyain.
I love you - Ya tebya lyublyu.  pronounced with all final syllables
  stressed, tibya, the u is like in tune.
Russia - Rossiya - pronounced rasiya (2nd syll stressed, i as in machine)
atticus
response 10 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 27 12:16 UTC 1998

Sindi, what does "raduga" mean? Is it "progress"? I am asking this 
because the publishing house which was known as "Progress Publishers"
changed their name to "Raduga Publishers" post-Perestroika. 
keesan
response 11 of 15: Mark Unseen   Mar 31 02:49 UTC 1998

Rainbow.  Related words refer to iridescence, opalescence, or the presence
of many colors of the rainbow together.  What sorts of things do they publish?
atticus
response 12 of 15: Mark Unseen   Apr 29 22:38 UTC 1998

They used to publish Russian literature and a lot of translations into a 
number of Indian languages, including my mother tongue. The books used 
of very high quality and quite cheap (I guess the government was 
subsidizing them).
albaugh
response 13 of 15: Mark Unseen   Aug 26 16:43 UTC 1998

Aa 6 B |^ /| Ee E:e: >|<* 3 |/| |7| K JI M H Oo II Pp Cc T Yy (|) Xx II\
7 III III\ bI -) IO S|

Transliteration = TpaHcJIbIT-)pe|7|IIIaH  :-)
orinoco
response 14 of 15: Mark Unseen   Aug 26 22:30 UTC 1998

<rolls eyes>
albaugh
response 15 of 15: Mark Unseen   Aug 27 16:09 UTC 1998

poJI3 a|7|3  8-)
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