John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth dot com> wrote: > Jony Rosenne scripsit: >> Transcription does not require roundtrip. It is intended in this case >> for the English speaker to be able to deliver an approximate >> pronunciation adapted to his native vocal capabilities. > > Except when it doesn't. We write Tchaikovsky, not Chykoffskee.
"Approximate" is the operative word here. Like English spelling in general, our transcription schemes for personal names have derived from numerous sources across many years, and so are irregular. If we were starting from scratch today, we'd probably do better. (I hope we would retain the "v" sound in "ÐÐÐÐÐÐÑÐÐÐ" instead of converting it to "f".) -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
