Quote Originally Posted by radomir View Post
In Spanish there are some rules about when "b" (and not "v": Barcelona, Valencia, with the same sound) must be written; as well as when "g" (and not "j": Gerona, Jávea, with the same sound again) must be used or when "h" (with no sound) must be present. Even to help this there are some funny phrases; for instance "Must be used "v" after the syllabes: Dijole en clase con mofa... [He said to him with mockery...] Di- jo- le en cla- se- ..." and so in the other cases. However in Russian apart from the few rules rather phonetical of г. х. ж and е, и, ы little more is available. Really there is no additional rule for helping where в or б; и or ы must be used apart from this last case for г. х. ж ?
I have searched in the net with no possitive result up to now.
Thank you.
As for B or Б - many latin or greek words that came to the language long ago (and they are mostly names) have B (pronouncing "V") instead of B in original - варвар, Василий, Варфоломей, вакханалия, Вениамин, Вифлием.
Though when this name are translated from other languages we write them phonetically close to the language we took: Василий, но Бэзил, Базилио, Базиль; Вениамин, но Бенджамен; Бартоломью, Барбара и т.д.

Г, Х, Ж are chosen also historically or close to original transcription: Женева, Гибралтар, Ямайка. Spanish names are written with Х: Хесус, Хосе, though the same name translated from English will be Джозеф, Italian - Джузеппе, German - Йозеф, from Bible - Иосиф, the same in Russian (Stalin for example), but there is another Russian variant - Осип.