On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:42:00 +0100, Marco Cimarosti
<marco.cimarosti@...> wrote:

> Well, consider that Yushchenko is "Juschtschenko" on German newspapers,
> which makes a seven-to-one ratio:
>
> http://www.taz.de/pt/2004/11/24/a0157.nf/text

I love it! Thanks.

>> (Does "Mtskheta" become shorter in Georgian? One letter shorter?)
>
> I guess two letters shorter: both "ts" and "kh" are letters in the
> Georgian alphabet.

Thanks, again. I should have checked...

>> I can recall some very incomplete attempts by my father (a native
>> Russian speaker)
>
> How comes your surname is "Bodley"?

My father married the daughter of an English immigrant couple.
"Bessaraboff" (Modern tr'lit. would be "...ov") was utterly hopeless for a
nation that can't cope with the names Murray and Swain, both being too
difficult for many people to spell or pronounce, as awful as that may
seem. The other influence was the onset of the Cold War and the rise of
Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The whole family changed its name.

(Btw, some significant number of us in the USA can't even spell "off" and
"too" correctly...)

>> Would "Kach" correctly represent the name as spoken?
>
> Perhaps "Katch" would be more expressive.

Of course. The "ch" would be ambiguous, possibly being equiv. to "kh".
This reminds me that it's really "Kazakstan"; Stalin got it wrong, so the
story goes, thinking they were "Kazakhs".

Best regards,

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Libranet GNU/Linux: No bit rot!
Google gave about 3,600 hits for ["slightly unique"]