juliloquy

I guess "SleazySlimeball MegaDoofus" doesn't translate.

A recent news event is a great excuse for me to revive my neglected party trick. Recognize the following name?

Милорад "Род" Р. Благојевић

It's none other than the infamous Governor of Illinois, Milorad "Rod" R. Blagojevich. I was going to write his name in Cyrillic as I have in other party trick posts, but then I realized I could just hit the Serbian translation of the Wikipedia page, copy, and paste. And it's a good thing I did, too, because the Bulgarian Cyrillic I know doesn't use the "ј" or "ћ" characters. It does not have a letter for the "yeh" sound in his surname, so you'd have to go crazy with the dipthong representation, o-ee-eh.

But what I really want to talk about is what his name means. HPR and I were always charmed by Bulgarian names because they sound so damn hippy. A girl would approach you and introduce herself as Flower. Her male classmate was QuietPeace. I taught students with names that would translate as Happiness, Light, Clover, LightGlory, HappyPeace, and so on. These were common names.

So let's break down Hair Governor's name, shall we?

milo = nice
rad = happy
blago = good
jevich = "son of" or "of"

Thus we have NiceHappy SonOfGood. So aptly named.

Party Trick: The Borat Edition

Dear Borat Movie Poster Designers:

I'm sorry to be the first to tell you this. Although your design skills are--without question--first rate, I must point out that you have made a few major typographical errors.

As I understand it, the movie is named Borat. Your poster, however, reads "Voyadt." And that's being generous, because in reality your Я is backwards.

Wait, is there a chance that you did this on purpose, thinking it's cute to use the Cyrillic Д, in place of a Latin "A"? Saints Cyril and Methodius are rolling in their graves! Listen, no one wants to see a repeat of "My Big Fat Grssk Wedding."

_____

In other news, big chestito*! With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic becomes the third official alphabet of the EU.

*честито = congratulations

unit of energy

It's Friday so it must be time for the party trick again! Today's subject is Karen from The Kilowatthour. I started reading her blog after I saw these awesome photos that she submitted to Sarah Brown's bershon pool on flickr. I thought someone who could be so self-deprecating (and eep! those glasses! which I also had!) must be all kinds of awesome. And I guess I also felt a kind of kinship, because between her early-90s photos and her blog name, she's got that music-physics-geek thing going on, just like my beloved husband.

So here is Karen's name in Cyrillic. Pretty straightforward:

Karen is married to a guy named Philip, whose name I love in Cyrillic because it doesn't look anything like his name in English:

To wrap it up, I thought I'd write Karen's blog name in Cyrillic in all its dipthongy goodness. I have broken it up into two words: Килоуат аур.

I am hereby caught up on the party trick waiting list. The cocktail napkin is always open, just comment or email if you'd like to be my next player. I haven't yet been able to bust out the Cyrillic letters for "v," "g,"  the guttural "h," "ts," "ch," or "sht," but I'd love to have the opportunity. Are there even any English words/names with the "sht" sound? Will I have to talk about chinchillas and shtetels in a future post? It's in your hands, folks.

more fun with Cyrillic, that wacky alphabet

Party trick time! The subject of this edition is my elementary school friend, Jennifer. My family moved from this little town the summer before 6th grade, and Jen and I haven't had much contact since then. The reason for our reacquaintance is sad—Jen's father died recently; my mom told me about it and gave me Jen's email address—but it has been fun catching up. If I can manage to get to ND for my HS reunion next summer (in Minot), Jennifer and I plan to meet up.

You remember another Jennifer from my previous post:

Jennifer has a couple dipthongs in her family! Yay! Her husband is Troy:

Their son is Isaac. YayI I get to use the Cyrillic "z," which looks like a 3.

And their daughter is Cassie. There isn't really an equivalent to how we Americans say the "a" in Cassie, so the closest I can get would sound more like "Cah-see." Could be worse, though. Like, Michigan accent worse.

Let me see that [dip]thong

Next up for our party trick (which I need to step up because I have a bit of a backlog, but hey! I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska!) is Erin of The Looney Bin. You have seen all the letters in Erin's name from my previous posts. I chose the "uh" again because with the "i" it would be Ereen. I don't know whether she grew up there, but Erin currently lives in upstate New York. She recently confessed on her blog that she is a country music fan, which makes me wonder: Do you pronounce "Erin" with more than two syllables? Erin, I'll be happy to update the spelling if you use three or more syllables. Just let me know!

Erin's husband is Mike. I've been waiting for this. I finally get the chance to bust out a dipthong! Before I went to Bulgaria, I didn't realize the prevalence of dipthongs in English pronunciation. Names like Mike, Kate, and Joan look really wacky in Cyrillic. Here is Mike's, whose "i" is composed of "ah" plus "eey":

Erin and Mike's little red-haired girl is Emily:

I did a little research and discovered that the name of Erin's site, The Looney Bin, comes from a nickname she gave to Emily: Emma-looney. So I'm throwing in the Cyrillic version of Emma-looney, rendered in the Lincoln, Nebraska "Cornhusker" Marriott's finest Cyrillic typeface: Емълуни.

Coasting Richly

So you feel all smug, doing your cute party trick to impress the Anglos . . . until a real Bulgarian shows up in the comments section. And not just any Bulgarian, but a hip, smart, yet kindhearted blog star who writes in English better than most native speakers. So I feel rather sheepish, but not sheepish enough to stop . . .

Next up on our virtual cocktail napkin is Jennifer of Coasting Richly. I'm still learning about Jen's life, but I do know that she's an expat living in Costa Rica with her husband (who I believe is a native of Costa Rica) and two unbelievably cute daughters. I look forward to learning more of her back story, specifically how she ended up in Costa Rica, how she met her husband, and the most burning question: Whether their guest room is free this winter. (We won't stay more than five weeks . . . I promise!)

You'll recognize Jennifer's first two letters, just like my name. New in her name are the "n" "f" and "uh" sounds. "Uh sound?" you question, "Shouldn't it be another "e"?" If we left the second "e," it would be pronounced "Jennefair," when it really sounds more like "Jennifur." Therefore the ъ:

Jennifer's daughter Robin looks like this:

"Robin" translated into Bulgarian is червеношийка (cherVENo-SHEEka), literally red-collared or red-breasted.

Julia is Jennifer's other daughter. You might think you take Джули and just add an "A" at the end, but you would be wrong. Instead you get to use another cool letter in Cyrillic, the "ya," or backwards R:

The Bulgarian version of the name Julia is Yulia, and the "yu" character at the front is another cool one: Юлия.

Thanks for playing, ladies! Now go breathe in the scent of fresh ylang ylang for my vicarious delight. Mmmmm.

Shells in a Linguistic Reduction Sauce

Our second volunteer for the party trick is Shelley from But Wait, There's More! Shelley's name uses one of the great letters in Cyrillic, the "sh." It looks like a double-u:

Shelley also asked me to spell Terri's name. Here's another aspect of the beauty and mystery of symbolism in phonetic Cyrillic. "Shelley" and "Terri" have the same number of letters. Keep that in mind if you ever have any domestic disputes. We're all equal in the eyes of Cyrillic. (Terri probably knew this since she majored in Slavic studies.)

One of my Bulgarian students, whom I taught for both his 11th and 12th grade years, told me that my name, Julie, sounded babyish in Bulgarian because of the "ee" ending. He told me that "Julka" sounded much better. So perhaps we should call you Shellka and Terrka?

There is probably a way to translate "Shelley" in Bulgarian, too: an adjective meaning "Having a Lot of Shells." I don't know how to say that, but it does remind me of one of my Peace Corps colleagues. Her surname had eight letters (a double-consonant and an -augh ending) but only two syllables. In Cyrillic the eight letters were reduced to Мида (Mida). Mida means "clam" in Bulgarian. So she was Laura Clam. (If you're out there, hi Laura!)

Any other volunteers? If not, I'll have to start accosting random people from the Internet.

Can I just call you "Bud"?

First up at our virtual cocktail party is that mystery commenter SteveO. He is a man of few words. May I call you Steve? If so, your name in Cyrillic will look like this:

Isn't it cute how the silent "e" disappears, shortening the name to 4 letters? This could make a cool graffiti tag.

Although I don't know much about you, Mr. SteveO, you do seem to be a man of aesthetic integrity. If I may so infer, I'd say you'd prefer a literal transcription of your username. Therefore, with capitalization style intact, and adding that elegant "O" at the tail, you are

Some bonus trivia. Your name, like mine, is not a Bulgarian name. In Bulgaria, you would be Stefan: Стефан. (And still more trivia: Typepad's spell-check suggestion for Стефан was "BUD.")

Stay tuned for our next contestant, Ms. Shelley of New Jersey!

Delta, asterisk, y, long circumflex, backwards N

In my "about" page I mention that I write people's names in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet as a party trick. Well, I decided to bring that trick to these here Internets.

Bulgarian is fantastically phonetic, which means if you can manage to untangle your tongue, you'll be able to pronounce any word you see. (Not quickly—the words are hideously chewy and long.) The phonetic quality also enables you to write any word you hear. Here is my name.

Д + ж make up the "J" sound.
у is "oo"
л is "l"
and и is "ee"

So that is the trick, now bring me the party. I will do your name (and kids! spouses! pets!) absolutely free of charge for you to post on your site or otherwise impress your friends. Just leave a comment or email me. Have a great weekend!