Subj : Re: Russian surnames To : Ardith Hinton From : alexander koryagin Date : Fri Jul 06 2018 22:01:01 From: alexander koryagin Hi, Ardith Hinton! I read your message from 30.07.2013 23:42 about Russian surnames. ak>> This question is for native speakers. When you read in a newspaper ak>> Russian second names, like Dudikoff, Karloff, Degtereff where do ak>> you put an emphasis? At the beginning of the name or at its end? AH> Not at the end, for sure. I regard the suffix as akin to "- son" in AH> British names from the POV that the emphasis belongs on a syllable AH> which helps the listener make distinctions between, e.g., John's AH> son & Jack's son.... :-) It is an original idea to think that "off" is a kind of "-->", that hints that a person belongs to a certain business, expressed in the surname root. In reality, such Russian suffixes (ov/off) indeed tell about some connection between the noun that compose the root and a person who has the surname which ends on "ov/off". For instance, GusArov is connected with the word "hussar," BasArov, with the word "bazaar." Although now, all the assoáiations lost their actuality. Konovalov ("konoval" -- a horse doctor) almost for sure doesn't deal with horses. AH> Re polysyllabic British names, the emphasis is usually on the first AH> syllable... so native speakers of English may use that as a default AH> with names they haven't seen or heard before. One can make AH> generalizations from examples if one has encountered enough AH> *correct* examples. I'm not sure, however, that the examples I've AH> mentioned are accurate from your POV because I haven't heard them AH> pronounced *by native speakers of Russian*. Now that I've run a AH> bunch of examples through my head, I think I'm beginning to figure AH> out where to put the emphasis... but I must point out that my AH> sources are North American here. :-) Horowitz, Asimov, Nabokov / - - / - - / - - Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Moussorgsky - - / - - / - - - - / - - / - Pavlov (from ed. psych.) & Pavlova (the ballerina) / - / - - If you like to know, in Russia we have the following emphases: HOrowitz, AsImov (pronounced as AzEmov), NabOkov, DostoyEvsky, TchaikOvsky, ShostakOvich, MOUssorgsky, PAvlov & PAvlova. AH> Hmm. Now I am making an educated guess that you'd pronounce your AH> surname with the emphasis on the "(y)a". I won't bore my audience AH> with how I made the leap from A to Z unless they're interested, but AH> I think I'm onto something.... ;-) Yes, my surname is KorYAgin. But IMHO the rule is not very strict -- we have the famous composer BorodIn (Borodeen). Suffix "in" also says about an alleged relation to the root. My surname derived from "koryaga" (in English it is a snag -- good for my tenent character ;-))", Borodin derived from "boroda" (a beard). Bye, Ardith! Alexander Koryagin fido7.english-tutor 2013 --- ifmail v.2.15dev5.4 * Origin: NPO RUSnet InterNetNews site (2:5020/400) .