Thread: Gamburger

This has probably been asked before. Is it to do with Greek, like Greek Gamma was pronounced G in ancient Greek but in modern Greek it is now something sort of H/W song.

But why does Russian use a Г where English uses as H. Also does this have anything to do with Ukrainian's pronunciation of Г as a voiced h sound?

As opposed to saying хамбургер, you mean?

Hitler
Hamburger
etc

A lot of your words starting with the letter H are pronounced with Г.

And if you notice, they are also pronounced as Gamburger.

I am pretty sure it comes from the Ukranian/old style of transliteration. As TATY has already confirmed, in Ukraine their г sounds alot like english unvoice h.

Госпиталь %)

I'm not talking about Gamburg specifically. I didn't ask for a list of examples, I've seen enough examples of this before. I am asking why.

I didn't suggest it was because OF Ukrainian, just maybe it was linked, like did Г used to be a h sound in Russian or something?

TATY there is no link with Ukranian actually
Zhar and then first Russian Emperor Peter the Great was tought in Holland and revealed all kinds of connections with such countries as Holland, Germany and England. The Russian pronunciation of H as G was just a sort of national tradition - initial G does much more difference for your ears and it's much easier for your tongue, besides there are lots of Russian words beginning with G and not so much beginning with H.
I suppose it was just closer to national Russian phonetic.

You can see both Г and X quite often, actually in names it is usually X. Interestingly, in Ukrainian the words that are transliterated through X in Russian also used to be transliterated with X, but now there seems to be a competing standard (to use Г in all cases) and some people do it one way and some the other.

The Gamburgler tried to take my gamburgers the other day, but I stopped gim
-Fantom