Re: Proto-Slavic "bear"

[Gene]:

> One more thing on my use of 'U' for the Russian 'back i' sound. I
> really don't like to use 'y' to transcribe it because it creates a lot
> of confusion - the same letter is also used to transcribe the 'short
> i', and I've come across quite a few Slavic last names with both sounds
> present in them. Slavic 'back i' is a very peculiar sound not found in
> most other IE branches (I think Portuguese has it, but I can't remember
> any more). When people who don't speak Russian see this letter in a
> Russian word, they first think of a sound like in English "yes", then
> of a French 'u' sound...
>
> Anyway, I think it's all quite ambiguous and I wish there was a
> different way of transcribing it.
>
> Gene
>
> PS: For those unfamiliar with the sound in question, try to pronounce a
> long 'u' as in "foot" but with your lips stretched as if you were
> saying the long 'i' as in "feet".
>

Hi Gene,
You are quite right - using "y" letter for the transliteration of Russian words
is ambiguous.
Let's take Russian masc. ajective which means 'quick' : "bystryy" where 1st and
2nd "y" stand for 'back i' and 3rd "y" for 'short i'.

About 'back i' in non-Slavic IE languages (BTW in Turkic languages this is one
of the most popular vowels). My ear hears this sound in some German words like
"sind", "Tisch" or "Ziffer" (at least as these words are pronounced in Russia
;-).
Besides, the 'back i' letter is widely used to write in Russian the names of
Romanian towns like Tirgu-Mures, Tirgoviste, Iasi and other (unfortunately I
don't know how they sound).

A question to English native-speakers: don't you pronounce actually a variant of
'back i' when saying words containing the SHI combination (shiver, shin, shit
etc.)? (Of course, if your SH is really a hard [sh], not a soft [shch]).

Alexander