Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/15

Rh

Our only divergences from the Slavonic Library transliteration are that we completely ignore the ъ or "hard sign," whilst in the case of the ь or "soft sign" we ignore it as a terminal letter as far as personal names are concerned. Thus we write Gor'kii, where the soft sign is medial, but Pestel, though in the Russian there is a soft sign at the end of this name. In the transliteration of Russian words other than personal names we similarly ignore the hard sign, but reproduce the soft sign, both medial and ﬁnal, writing "krest'janin" (peasant) and "knjaz'" (prince). Certain Russian words used repeatedly in the text, words with which many English readers are already familiar, such as "volost" and "artel," are treated as English words, the terminal soft sign being dropped, at any rate after their first use. Finally, we have preferred to retain "th" for the transliteration of ѳ (thus distinguishing that letter from ф), though in the most recent form of the Slavonic Library transliteration ѳ, like ф, is rendered by "f."

Even an elaborate treatise can hardly convey to English readers the niceties of Russian pronunciation, and it must suffice to give the following hints:—the Russian "g" is always hard, as in "gander"; "r" is strongly trilled; "ž" is pronounced like z in "azure;" "h" is strongly aspirated even