aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] [Fwd: [mova] Harper or KHarper ?!]

["Max Pyziur" <pyz@brama.com>]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [mova] Harper or KHarper  ?!
From:    "K&I Bell" <kib@magma.ca>
Date:    Fri, February 3, 2006 6:07 pm
To:      mova@brama.com
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Hello Mova Folks -
       I hope H vs KH can be nipped in the bud !  I have already seen
Canadian prime-minister-elect Stephen Harper's name written in Ukrainian
as  KHarper  instead of Harper !  ('X' - sorry, I don't have cyrillic
script in  my e-mail)
         The actual pronunciation of the English 'H', and Harper's name, is
much, much, closer to the Ukr 'H' than to 'KH'.  So why not use it - in 
Ukrainian, H in Harper should be used rather than KHarper.
         In Russian, there is no 'H', and there the 'KH' sound is probably
closest.  But Ukrainian has an H.  In Ukraine it now seems to be accepted 
that transcription and transliteration should go directly between two 
languages and not through a third language (in this case, Russian), as had
 unfortunately been done in the years of the Soviet Union.  Going from 
English through Russian to Ukrainian created the unintelligible 'KHello' 
pronunciation instead of Hello, Khokei instead of Hoki,  and 'KHow are 
you', instead of 'How are you'.
         Thankfully, correct Ukrainian to English transliteration has had
more prominence lately, and so presumably we will no longer have
references  to Gnatishin instead of Hnatyshyn, and official Ukrainian
gov't
correspondence with 'vul. Grushevskogo' on letterheads.
         But the English-to-Ukrainian KH vs H problem is very irritating,
and the Harper case may be the opportunity to bring attention to
correcting  this.
                                                 Irena Bell ,   Ottawa


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