Thread: is it wrong to use ё for names that end in io

i never seen names that end in "io" using "ё", but when they end in "ia" or "iu" they nearly always get translated using the soft vowels (я and ю)

for example, I've seen Fabio get translated as Фабио, but not Фабиё..

other examples..

Maria = Мария (я instead of а)
Mario = Марио (o, but not ё...)

Julia = Юлия or Юля
Julio = Юлиё or Юлё ??? (never seen this, but seen Жулио instead)

any reason for not use иё and instead use ио ?

This is the way it is. We say Фабио, Марио with clear o in the end. http://sayandpost.com/j65s5681x8.mp3
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I've never seen Жулио, only Хулио or Джулио.
As for Юлия, Мария, etc, they are not actually translations, we just have those names in Russian.

Originally Posted by Оля

I've never seen Жулио, only Хулио or Джулио.
As for Юлия, Мария, etc, they are not actually translations, we just have those names in Russian.

Мария - имя еврейское, в "оригинале" оно вообще звучит как Мириам ( מִרְיָם ), поэтому во всех языках звучит приблизительно одинаково.
Кстати, возможно, что корни у этого имени вообще египетские, т. е. оно было известно ещё до Исхода.

Юлия - от Юлий, римское (латинское) имя, которое в оригинале, насколько я знаю читается как Юлиус (Julius).

However, nobody has answered the question directly yet.

I see at least two reasons why not to use -ё for cyrillization of foreign names with -io.

1) In Russian, as you probably know, ё is always stressed. In foreign names in -io, the stress does not usually fall to the end.

So, if you spell Mario as Мариё, most of Russians will read it as ма-ри-Ё. However, it should be МА-ри-о. Compare with native Russian words which end in -ё: копьё, ружьё, остриё. All of them have their stress on the FINAL syllable.

2) Another reason is that the letter Ё, unfortunately, is rarely seen in Russian books. Russians often omit the dots and write Е instead of Ё. In most of cases, it does not lead to any problems when reading. We know how to pronounce such words as копье, ружье, острие. Every Russian understands that the final letter is Ё here. However, it often results in confusion when spelling foreign names and some loan-words. That's why it's better to avoid using Ё in them.

It's the same reason why we write Jan = Ян but Johan = Йохан.

Боб, those points are great, but I don't think they really are the reasons why we don't write Mario as Мариё, Fabio as Фабиё etc. The main reason, I think, is just that they have -io in the original spelling and we use that spelling in Russian, too (only in Cyrillic).

We may rather talk about the reason why names like Мария, Сесилия, Джулия, Лавиния, Октавия etc have -ия and not -иа at the end (in the Russian trancription). I think it's just because we have many of those names in Russian and if we write Мариа, Джулиа, Лавиниа, they would look extremely strange and unusual to ours. In any case we would pronounce them with -ия at the end, as we're used to pronounce it. So, I think it's just a tradition.

Not only personal names: Италия, Венеция, but Онтарио, Огайо.

Moreover, examine the initial position: (Скотланд-)Ярд, янки, Юкатан (I can't remember any Russian spelling of foreign words with Йа-, Йу-, maybe there are very few of them). But: (Нью-)Йорк, Йокогама, Йоханнесбург. We write Yamaha = Ямаха but Toyota = Тойота (actually, they are Japanese, but it does not change things).

We obviously have a general tendancy. I still think there are internal phonetic reasons for that.

The reason is, ио and йо (ё) sound very different in Russian, so the question "why io isn't pronounced as ё" is incorrect.
Some of Russian words do end on -ё (вороньё, бельё etc)

Originally Posted by Indra

The reason is, ио and йо (ё) sound very different in Russian, so the question "why io isn't pronounced as ё" is incorrect.
Some of Russian words do end on -ё (вороньё, бельё etc)

That's not what was the question about.

1) Yes, we do have RUSSIAN words ending in -ё (see one of my posts above). But we are talking about FOREIGN names spelt in Russian.

2) Yes, in Russian PRONUNCIATION, ИО is not the same as Ё. But the question was why not to substitute foreign IO = ИО with Russian ИЁ the same way as we do it for foreign IA = ИА -> Russian ИЯ.

Yes, in Russian we say Венеция which is not the same as if it were Венециа according to its original Italian spelling: Venezia. However, we do it.

That`s all for the specific morphonologic universals in the Russian language. The idea explained is that only certain types of sounds can appear in this or that combination. "Always accented" ё [jo] is a big myth from this point of view (it`s better to say that accentuation is a tendency in natural speech). The most understandable explanation is that ё-sign is mainly ascribed to only Russian words in origin. At least it`s me who is sure about that.

I think the reasons are mostly historical. Female names ending with "-ия" came to Russian language with Christianity. It is anybody's guess how exactly the name Maria was pronounced the translators of the Bible into Old Slavic, but Russians started pronouncing it and similar names with "ийа" at the end. I guess that sounded more natural to native speakers of that time than "иа" (and it surely does sound more natural today). The existing spelling is a result of the fact the letter "я" was (and still is) the most common way to represent the "йа" sound combo in the Russian civil alphabet introduced by Peter the Great.

Male names ending in -io appeared in Russian much, much later. They are Spanish or Italian in origin, and mostly came with translations of Spanish and Italian books and drama. Apparently, translators (for the most part, at least) knew very well how the names are supposed to be pronounced. And it would never occur to them to pronounce their endings as "ийо", since (a) it was not how they are pronounced in Spanish in Italian, and (b) sounded very strange to a Russian ear. Thus, the name Fabio, for example, came to be tranlated either as Фабио (the most common way, and pretty much the only possible way today) or Фабьо (pronounced as "Фаб(ь)йо" - you can find this spelling in some of Lozinsky's translations of Lope de Vega). One could ask why didn't Lozinsky spell it as "Фабьё." Well, there are at least two reasons, and both have been mentioned in this discussion: (1) "ё" usually appears as "e" in print, which could have lead to confusion of many readers, and (2) risk of misplaced accent by readers who are not well-aquanted with the name.

To sum it up: with female names ending in "ия", pronunciation preceded spelling, and the spelling reflects the accepted pronunciation. Later borrowings from foreign languages (Венеция, Джулия etc.) simply followed the already existing pattern.

With male names ending with "io", spelling and pronunciation were decided upon at the same time by translators, and were aimed at approximating the original pronunciation.

Originally Posted by Оля

I've never seen Жулио, only Хулио or Джулио.
As for Юлия, Мария, etc, they are not actually translations, we just have those names in Russian.

По-моему, у Носова в "Незнайке на Луне" был Жулио. Поскольку у Носова там практически все имена "говорящие" (Скуперфильд и т.д.), то Жулио, ясное дело, был жуликом

Боб Уайтман
I see now

thx for all the replies

Боб had great points about this