From: Marc Verhaegen
Message: 4194
Date: 2000-10-09
P.S. Nikolaj Mikhailovich Przewalski (or Przhevalskij in transliterated Russian) was a Russian officer, explorere and naturalist. His father's family was Polish, however, and so was his name. As it is mispronounced in a variety of ways, let it be known on Cybalist that the Polish pronunciation is [pSe'valski] (S = "sh", or rather the sort of sound that may result from the devoicing of English "r"). Something like "pre-VAL-skee" would be good enough. "pur-zhe-VAL-skee" is absurd and "she-VAL-skee", while marginally better, sounds like a French folk-etymology (Cheval-ski).:-) Piotr, is this rzh something like the r (+ accent circonflexe upside down) in Czech Dvorak? --Marc