HARRY KASPAROV?
bob cunningham
MM> "Gazza"?
I can't comment on the specific question, but since the
subject of Kasparov's name has come up, it seems a good time to
mention a point that has intrigued me for some time:
All students of the Russian language know that an English "h"
is transliterated and pronounced as a Russian "g". For example,
"Hollywood" would be transliterated as "Gollywood", and "Homer"
would be transliterated as "Gomer".
Looking at the two "r"s in Kasparov's first name it seems
reasonable to me that it should be transliterated into English as
"Harry" instead of "Garry". So, is the world's best chess player
really Harry Kasparov rather than Garry Kasparov?
It is also interesting that I once met a lady from the
Ukraine who spoke Russian fluently, but pronounced Russian "g"s
like English "h"s. She would have pronounced Kasparov's name as
"Harry".
I would like to hear comments on this from other students of
Russian. I hope, however, that nobody will bring up the well-
known fact that Kasparov's *last* name was originally something
else, and that his reason for changing it may have been to make it
sound less Jewish.
* RM 1.3 00847 * "At my age, you don't even buy green bananas." -- Geo. Burns
Tim Thompson
[ ... ]
>
> Looking at the two "r"s in Kasparov's first name it seems
>reasonable to me that it should be transliterated into English as
>"Harry" instead of "Garry". So, is the world's best chess player
>really Harry Kasparov rather than Garry Kasparov?
>
Russian 'G' into anything but an English 'G'. I have seen the odd Russian
'X' go into 'kh' as in Kholmov.
> It is also interesting that I once met a lady from the
>Ukraine who spoke Russian fluently, but pronounced Russian "g"s
>like English "h"s. She would have pronounced Kasparov's name as
>"Harry".
>
This I am almost sure is a regional dialect. One of my teachers was
from Latvia (or somwhere around the Baltic) and pronounced all of his
o's long, while the Muscovite Russians only lengthen stressed o's.
He would say 'khorosho' versus the Moscow 'kharasho'.
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Exclam
writes:
> Looking at the two "r"s in Kasparov's first name it seems
>reasonable to me that it should be transliterated into English as
>"Harry" instead of "Garry". So, is the world's best chess player
>really Harry Kasparov rather than Garry Kasparov?
I've heard Eric Schiller explain that he met Kasparov quite early in his
career and advised him that the name "Gary," not "Garry" or "Harry," would
be the most natural and easy-to-remember for Western audiences. And that's
how it happened.
By the way, another correspondent disputed the G/H equivalent, but I've
also been told that this is quite correct. A lot depends on the
transliteration system. For example, Gurevich and Horowitz are two very
different transliterations of the same in Russian name.
Frank Elley
exc...@aol.com
Kevin D. Blair
I know that I have read (Shelby Lyman's column I think) that
Garry Kasparov's name is really Harry Weinstein. That the last
name is taken from his grandfather (mother's side) and is not
only because of the Jewish connection, but because he lived with
his grandparents following the death of his father. The first name
is a western pronunciation of the Russian name. This was at
least four years ago, mayboe more that I can recall reading this
info.
--
Bob Young
>I've heard Eric Schiller explain that he met Kasparov quite early in his
>career and advised him that the name "Gary," not "Garry" or "Harry," would
>be the most natural and easy-to-remember for Western audiences. And that's
>how it happened.
>
In Kotov's Train Like A Grandmaster (early 80s) there is a section discussing
various players from the various Soviet chess schools, and they refer to
Kasparov as "Harry". They mention that he showed a lot of promise...
bob
bob cunningham
TT> >reasonable to me that it should be transliterated into English as
TT> >"Harry" instead of "Garry". So, is the world's best chess player
TT> >really Harry Kasparov rather than Garry Kasparov?
TT> >
I have received a number of comments on my proposition that
Kasparov's name should be pronounced "Harry" by English speakers.
Most of them were by private e-mail, so I can't quote them
directly.
One responder, who seemed to have a good knowledge of
Russian, agreed with me that the double "r" is not found in native
Russian words. All of the words he could think of were foreign
importations. This seems to make it clear that the name "Garry"
came from somewhere outside Russian. The fact that his father had
a Western European sounding name (which I don't remember at the
moment) strongly suggests to me that "Garry" came from the name
"Harry", which probably came from the family's western roots.
Another responder said that he had discussed Kasparov's first
name with him early in Kasparov's career. Apparently Kasparov
wanted help in deciding how his name should be expressed in the
international chess community. "Garry", "Gary", and "Harry" were
considered, and the aforementioned responder recommended "Gary".
I personally believe that when a name is a transliteration
from English, it should resume its original English spelling when
translated back. If a Russian writer wanted to talk about our
President Harrison, he would spell it and pronounce it "Garrison",
but if I were translating his work into English I would spell it
and pronounce it "Harrison".
One responder mentioned an example of English retaining the
slavic transliteration: He said that the name "Gurevich" was
originally a slavic rendition of "Horowitz". I find about
nineteen non-anglicized versions in my local 'phone book (divided
among Gurevich, Gurewitz, Gurevitz, and Gurevitch).
Anyhow, until I hear otherwise from Kasparov or someone with
authority to speak for him, I am going to think of the world's
best chess player as Harry Kasparov.
TT> > It is also interesting that I once met a lady from the
TT> >Ukraine who spoke Russian fluently, but pronounced Russian "g"s
TT> >like English "h"s. She would have pronounced Kasparov's name as
TT> >"Harry".
TT> >
TT> This I am almost sure is a regional dialect.
Not really. The reason she pronounced "g" that way is that
the "g" in Ukrainian is most commonly pronounced like "h" in
"hush". Russian was a foreign language to her, and she gave the
"g" the sound it had in her native language. But anyway, the
reason I brought it up is that it illustrates the close
relationship of the two sounds among the Slavic speaking peoples.
Russian has no sound corresponding to our "h" so they
transliterated it as closely as they could by using "g". ("g" is
pretty close to being an "h" with a palatal stop added.) (And,
please, don't anybody bring up the Russian "X". It has a sound
like the Scottish "ch" in "loch", but with less gargle.)
* RM 1.3 00847 * bob.cun...@mogur.com (Northridge, California)
Mr. E. Nowell
I'm just wild about Harry
And he's just wild about me
The heavenly blisses
Of his kisses
Fill me with ecstacy
As sung by Al Jolson.
Eric Nowell
Boy Cosmonaut
[lotsa stuff deleted]
> Not really. The reason she pronounced "g" that way is that
>the "g" in Ukrainian is most commonly pronounced like "h" in
>"hush". Russian was a foreign language to her, and she gave the
>"g" the sound it had in her native language. But anyway, the
>reason I brought it up is that it illustrates the close
>relationship of the two sounds among the Slavic speaking peoples.
>Russian has no sound corresponding to our "h" so they
>transliterated it as closely as they could by using "g". ("g" is
>pretty close to being an "h" with a palatal stop added.) (And,
>please, don't anybody bring up the Russian "X". It has a sound
>like the Scottish "ch" in "loch", but with less gargle.)
Why not bring up the Russian "X" ? "Houston" is transliterated
into Russian as "XbIOCTOH." (That "IO" is supposed to be a "yu.")
Matt
Dawn Technologies
After many years of extensive research I have determined that Kasparov's
first name is really Henry and that he is in fact the great-grandson of
the creator of Henry Weinstein's Private Reserve Ale in Oregon. Apparently
his great-grandfather had traveled across the Berring Straits down the entire
coast of what is now Canada and established the brewery in Oregon.
But seriously folks. What I understand is that Garry's passport says
Garry on it (or maybe Gary, Garey, or Garrey, but they all sound the same)
and that before he legally changed his first name to Garry, his name was the
Russian equivalent of Gregory (Gary is a common nickname for Gregory). This
is from a friend of mine who immigrated from Russia last March.
- Mark
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ Mark Soloway _/
_/ Director of Software Development _/
_/ Dawn Technologies, Inc. _/
_/ _/
_/ sol...@dawntech.com _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Alexander V Kravchuk
Dawn Technologies <d...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <Cu7vG...@freenet.buffalo.edu> ab...@freenet.buffalo.edu (Kevin D
. Blair) writes:
>>
>But seriously folks. What I understand is that Garry's passport says
>Garry on it (or maybe Gary, Garey, or Garrey, but they all sound the same)
>and that before he legally changed his first name to Garry, his name was the
>Russian equivalent of Gregory (Gary is a common nickname for Gregory). This
Just cannot let this go in such way. So:
- a common nickname for Gregory is Grisha;
- Gary (Garry) is a common nickname for Genrikh (sorry, I don't
know English equivalent).
>is from a friend of mine who immigrated from Russia last March.
>
>- Mark
>
Alex, who has not immigrated yet.
Dawn Technologies
My friend states that "Grisha" is also a valid nickname for Gregory and if the
name Genrikh even exists, then it is very rare. Even so, Gary (as well as
Greg) is a common English nickname for Gregory.
- Mark
B
Alexander V Kravchuk
and I've read somewhere that most of Garry's name changes were
supposed to distinguish him from "that" Kasparyan.
And I'd like to finish this discussion in following way. If a name
is transliterated from Russian to English (or vice versa), one should
not look for analogies, because in this case we will come up with
something like Ivan Mayor (=John Major) or even worse.:-)
Alex.