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I'm wondering about the best way to transcribe the Cyrillic letter Ъ (yer) in medieval Slavic names. For example, what is the best way to write иоанъ in Latin letters?
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Thanks everyone, I've used u for Ъ in older Slavic names.
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As previous posters have said that's a hard one, since the letter yer doesn't have a Latin letters equivalent. No one is sure how the letter was pronounced in Old Church Slavic, but it's assumed that it's a short 'u' sounds and therefore it's sometimes written as ŭ (as Christo said that's the case in Romanian).
Every Slavic language has a slightly different Cyrillic alphabet, so that for example in modern Serbian alphabet (created at the beginning of the 20th century) the letter Ъ doesn't exist. From what I understand in Russian the letter Ъ is used only to modify the letter in front of it and isn't transliterated into Latin letters at all (if someone here speaks Russian maybe they can give a more detailed explanation). In Bulgarian u is used for ъ, and the name of the country in Bulgarian Cyrillic is Република България (= Republika Bulgaria).
I guess your best bet with names like иоанъ would be to use ŭ or u for ъ, so it’d be Ioanŭ or Ioanu.
But in general it depends on the source language.
Every Slavic language has a slightly different Cyrillic alphabet, so that for example in modern Serbian alphabet (created at the beginning of the 20th century) the letter Ъ doesn't exist. From what I understand in Russian the letter Ъ is used only to modify the letter in front of it and isn't transliterated into Latin letters at all (if someone here speaks Russian maybe they can give a more detailed explanation). In Bulgarian u is used for ъ, and the name of the country in Bulgarian Cyrillic is Република България (= Republika Bulgaria).
I guess your best bet with names like иоанъ would be to use ŭ or u for ъ, so it’d be Ioanŭ or Ioanu.
But in general it depends on the source language.
This message was edited 7/28/2009, 1:21 PM
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If you do not like diacritics, I cannot help.
Otherwise, I suggest Ioanŭ.
When Romanian was converted from Cyrillic to Roman script, Ъ was converted to ŭ.
Otherwise, I suggest Ioanŭ.
When Romanian was converted from Cyrillic to Roman script, Ъ was converted to ŭ.
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That's a tough one :)
If it is of any help - the closest sound to "Ъ" is the sound in "hut" in English. But how it would be read in English at the end of a word, I do not know.
If it is of any help - the closest sound to "Ъ" is the sound in "hut" in English. But how it would be read in English at the end of a word, I do not know.
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