Joseph Stalin

[ynie92992]

How do you pronounce Joseph Stalin's birth name?
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili?

[L-A]

About this way.

I heard it once or twice before, and I think the software is pretty spot-on.

[Relic]

my best guess, spelled out pheonetically for your viewing pleasure:

Yosef Veesari-on-oveech Joogosh-veelee

[EddieN]

Yeah, the "dzh" is the Russian way of transliterating of the "j" or "g" sound (as in "gem"). That letter exists as a single character in Georgian but not in Russian. But, conversely, there is no "f" in Georgian (they substitute it with a "p"), so what the hell is it doing there? So what you have is a Georgian name tranliterated into Russian characters then into English. Cut out the Russian middleman & you might get Yosif (or Yosip?) Vissarianovich Jugashvili. I'm sorry.

[Relic]

Originally Posted by EddieN

Yeah, the "dzh" is the Russian way of transliterating of the "j" or "g" sound (as in "gem"). That letter exists as a single character in Georgian but not in Russian. But, conversely, there is no "f" in Georgian (they substitute it with a "p"), so what the hell is it doing there? So what you have is a Georgian name tranliterated into Russian characters then into English. Cut out the Russian middleman & you might get Yosif (or Yosip?) Vissarianovich Jugashvili. I'm sorry.

Quite interesting regarding the "f" vs "p" trait in Georgian. I did not know that.
My great grandfather had what I always thought was an unusual sounding version of "Stefan" for a name. My grandmom used to tell me his name was pronounced "Stepan". Might that be a Georgian version? Odd that she never mentioned he was Georgian though.

[Deluge Of Sound]

I'd just call him Stalin.

[The Crusader]

you should ask Beyondhairy, his family is from that part of the world.

[mvw356]

ask major metal, he should know.

[EddieN]

I don't know if Stepan, spelled that way, is or isn't a Georgian name honestly (I couldn't find a variation of Stephen on the lone list I found & can't recall ever seeing one) but that spelling is popular in Russia, Ukraine & I think I've seen it attached to Bulgarian as well. Georgian is completely unrelated to those Slavic languages, BTW, despite the close proximity.

[Phalex]

His homies just called him crazy Joey.

[Relic]

Originally Posted by EddieN

I don't know if Stepan, spelled that way, is or isn't a Georgian name honestly (I couldn't find a variation of Stephen on the lone list I found & can't recall ever seeing one) but that spelling is popular in Russia, Ukraine & I think I've seen it attached to Bulgarian as well. Georgian is completely unrelated to those Slavic languages, BTW, despite the close proximity.

Odd that it seems more prevelant in the Cyrillic countries..or maybe it's just coincidence, pretty neat though. Languages, ethnic origins etc are a keen interest of mine so I find conversations such as this quite a bit of fun.
I'm definitely aware of Georgian not being Slavic, but something I am curious about - what linguistic group does it belong to? Any relation to Armenian, or Turkish for instance?

[EddieN]

Originally Posted by Relic

Odd that it seems more prevelant in the Cyrillic countries..or maybe it's just coincidence, pretty neat though. Languages, ethnic origins etc are a keen interest of mine so I find conversations such as this quite a bit of fun.
I'm definitely aware of Georgian not being Slavic, but something I am curious about - what linguistic group does it belong to? Any relation to Armenian, or Turkish for instance?

None. It may be related to even lesser known languages in the immediate region but I don't think anyone has conclusively proven even that.

Armenian actually is its own little branch of the Indo-European language family related (rather distantly) to English. Albanian & Greek share this distinction of being their own unique branches of Indo-European.

Azerbaijani, spoken in that third nation around there that was once a Soviet republic, IS a Turkic language.

[kserg]

Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили

Type that into http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/speech.asp (select russian)

EDIT: http://tts.imtranslator.net/2fAi <- ha! you can do that!


I think that's the closest i can get it (from Russian aspect and how i heard that name pronounced). At least i think i spelled it right...:/

The father name could be slightly different in Georgian though... They might use different accents...




Good luck.

[Relic]

Originally Posted by EddieN

None. It may be related to even lesser known languages in the immediate region but I don't think anyone has conclusively proven even that.

Armenian actually is its own little branch of the Indo-European language family related (rather distantly) to English. Albanian & Greek share this distinction of being their own unique branches of Indo-European.

Azerbaijani, spoken in that third nation around there that was once a Soviet republic, IS a Turkic language.

So it's not even established at this point as to whether it's Indo-European? Or am I misunderstanding? Is their alphabet also unique?
Very cool. Kind of reminds me of Hungarian in a way - an established language but unrelated to it's neighbors. (I think Finnish might have some sort of distant relation though)

[kserg]

Originally Posted by EddieN

None. It may be related to even lesser known languages in the immediate region but I don't think anyone has conclusively proven even that.

Yeah, according so wiki, it came out of Mingrelian and Laz (both languages coming from that region... )


I actually knew some Georgian when i was a kid, not anymore, forgot everything... Sucks, it's a really cool language to know...

[EddieN]

Originally Posted by Relic

So it's not even established at this point as to whether it's Indo-European? Or am I misunderstanding? Is their alphabet also unique?
Very cool. Kind of reminds me of Hungarian in a way - an established language but unrelated to it's neighbors. (I think Finnish might have some sort of distant relation though)

Definitely NOT an Indo-European language and possibly no linguistic relatives (at least any major language relatives). It has its own, unique alphabet, as does Armenian, but both were ultimately derived from the Greek alphabet.

Yep, Hungarian & Finnish are related as is Estonian to them. Estonian & Finnish are a bit like Spanish & Portuguese with Hungarian a lot more distant. Say like Spanish & German or something.

[EddieN]

Originally Posted by kserg

Yeah, according so wiki, it came out of Mingrelian and Laz (both languages coming from that region... )


I actually knew some Georgian when i was a kid, not anymore, forgot everything... Sucks, it's a really cool language to know...

And damned near impossible to pronounce!

[Relic]

Originally Posted by EddieN

And damned near impossible to pronounce!

I'd actually like to explore learning some Georgian just for that reason. Now even more so, I had no clue that it was so unique.
As far as difficult pronunciation, I spent some time in Poland and learned a bit of the language, now THAT's some tricky pronunciation. Before I lived there, I had no idea you could cram so many consonants into a single word

W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie.

[EddieN]

Yeah, Polish uses alot of so-called digraphs, two letters to make one sound. "Sz" in Polish has the same pronounciation as "sh" in English.

Here's a silly Czech one.

Strč prst skrz krk.

It means "stick your finger through the neck."

[Relic]

Originally Posted by EddieN

Yeah, Polish uses alot of so-called digraphs, two letters to make one sound. "Sz" in Polish has the same pronounciation as "sh" in English.

Here's a silly Czech one.

Strč prst skrz krk.

It means "stick your finger through the neck."

Yep, it has two forms of the "sh" sound, one hard, one soft (sz and ś) I believe Ukrainian has three forms. Very hard to pick up at first for Anglo-speakers. We tend to crunch everything into a single "sh" sound.

If I may ask - what line of work/study are you in? You seem quite knowledgable on the subject. I've leaned some new stuff within 3 posts, cool!