This is snipped from the AP news feed. Many of us Americans have great difficulty coping with Slavic names, particularly when the squiggles have been stripped from the letters, tho' a majority of Americans have not the least idea what the squiggles stand for.

 

I offer this as a prime example of AmE 'eye-spelling', our home-grown, hopelessly unscientific, hopelessly imprecise phonetic spelling system.

 

--start quote--

Prounouncers for Key Yugoslav Newsmakers
The Associated Press

 

            Vojislav Kostunica - VAW-yee-slahv
            kosh-TOO'-nee-tzuh

 

            Slobodan Milosevic - slaw-BAW'-dahn
            mee-LAW'-sheh-vitch

 

            Milan Panic - MEE'-lan PAN'-itch

 

            Milan Milutinovic - MEE'-lan mee-loo-TEE'-naw-vitch

 

            Nebojsa Pavkovic - NEH'-boy-shah PAHV'-kaw-vitch

 

            Dragan Tomic - DRAH'-gahn TAW'-mitch.
--end quote--

 

Even tho' I do know better, 'Milan Panic' is sounded in my mind's ear as with terror in a northern Italian city. 'Nebojsa' is about as alien-looking as it gets.

 

Even before he became notorious, the name 'Slobodan' provoked giggles in English, first because of the apparent element 'slob' in his name, and among older Americans, associations from the old comic strip L'il Abner and it's joke nation of 'Lower Slobbovia', a frozen realm where everyone spoke a fractured faux-Yiddish/Russian.