Thread: Russian Lawmaker Wants to Abolish the Letter 'ы'

From The Atlantic:

Russian Lawmaker Wants to Abolish the Letter 'ы'
Vladimir Zhirinovsky says the "nasty Asiatic" vowel is hurting Russia's image in Europe.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist Russian politician known for outrageous remarks on everything from migrant laborers to terrorism, has now targeted a letter in the Russian alphabet.
The letter in question is the vowel "ы"—a difficult-to-pronounce sound for non-native Russian speakers that is usually transliterated simply as "y" in English. Zhirinovsky says he wants the letter removed from the Russian alphabet, calling it a "nasty Asiatic" import. The vowel came to the Russian language from the Mongols, Zhirinovsky was quoted as telling the State Duma on March 12.
"Only animals make this sound, 'ы- ы,'" he said, adding that the regular 'и' ('i') is enough for the Russian alphabet. 'Ы' doesn't exist in any other European language, argued Zhirinovsky. "This primitive, Asiatic sound is the reason people don't like us in Europe," he told lawmakers.
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OK, I know, the guy is a bit off...
For what it's worth, C, Q, X, and Z were supposed to be dropped from Americanized English 200 years ago.

Zhirinovsky's mental condition has been worrying me for quite some time by now. He's not as much fun as he used to be.

Жириновский закинул очередной топор, даже не алебарду. Нашли на что внимание обращать.

As far as I know, the Mongolians added hardly any words to the Russian lexicon, except for лощадь (which the Mongolians themselves borrowed from the Turks) and деньги (native to Mongolian) -- and neither of these words has the sound ы!

лошадь*

Oops, thanks!

Жириновский, как обычно, жжОт)))

Originally Posted by capecoddah

From The Atlantic:

Russian Lawmaker Wants to Abolish the Letter 'ы'
Vladimir Zhirinovsky says the "nasty Asiatic" vowel is hurting Russia's image in Europe.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist Russian politician known for outrageous remarks on everything from migrant laborers to terrorism, has now targeted a letter in the Russian alphabet.
The letter in question is the vowel "ы"—a difficult-to-pronounce sound for non-native Russian speakers that is usually transliterated simply as "y" in English. Zhirinovsky says he wants the letter removed from the Russian alphabet, calling it a "nasty Asiatic" import. The vowel came to the Russian language from the Mongols, Zhirinovsky was quoted as telling the State Duma on March 12.
"Only animals make this sound, 'ы- ы,'" he said, adding that the regular 'и' ('i') is enough for the Russian alphabet. 'Ы' doesn't exist in any other European language, argued Zhirinovsky. "This primitive, Asiatic sound is the reason people don't like us in Europe," he told lawmakers.
______________________
OK, I know, the guy is a bit off...
For what it's worth, C, Q, X, and Z were supposed to be dropped from Americanized English 200 years ago.

Так ЖЫриновский еще и лингвист, вдобавок ко всем своим грехам!
Его надо в Казахстан, пусть переводит казахский на латиницу)))

Владимир Вольфыч, вы большой учёный...

He is right that this letter is confusing to European language speakers!
Took me several months to feel comfortable about it - thanks to help from somebody here.

The idea is extremely silly though. The sound exists in Russian and needs a letter.
I actually appreciate that Russian is quite phonetic with an appropriate letter for each sound.
Compare with English etc where the spelling / pronunciation is often completely random.

He is undermining his reputation and that of his party by this kind of nonsense. Hardly worth discussing is it?

Originally Posted by Hanna

He is undermining his reputation

Quite the contrary.