APPENDIX E I realize that many of my readers would rather see naked women and get their vicarious thrills reading about my legendary exploits. For those to whom this applies, I’ve given you over 1000 pages of what you wanted. Go jerk off, and give those with more intellectual curiosity than yourselves an opportunity to learn something useful. This appendix was painstakingly prepared for the few who would rather feed their brains than their Kleenex. If my phonetic spellings of some Russian words and names in this book left something to be desired, help is now at hand. Character Name Pronunciation A a Б б B в Г г Д д E e Ё ё Жж З з Ии Йй K к Л л Mм H н O o П п P p C c T т У у Фф X x Ц ц Ч ч Шш Щщ Э э Юю Я я Ыы Ъъ Ь ь ah beh veh geh deh yeh yoh zheh zeh ee y kah ell em en oh peh err ess the oo eff khah tseh cheh shah sheh eh yoo yah yery --------- a as in atom b as in big v as in vain g as in girl d as in deck ye as in yes yo as in yolk zh as in treasure z as in zone ee as in teeth y as in yawn k as in like l as in love m as in moon n as in night o as in go p as in pet rr as in grr! s as in cement t as in time oo as in root f as in fun ch as in mach ts as in tse-tse ch as in chin sh as in shoe tch as in watch e as in pet u as in use ya as in yacht y as in bury hard sign soft sign i Notes always hard or glided as in buy or broader as in bought rolled always soft Upper case is smaller See note below See note below The last two characters listed in the table are the stress/unstress modifiers mentioned earlier. There are no English equivalents of these. The use of Ъ can be illustrated using the word ‘object’. If pronounced ‘ób-ject’, it’s a noun; if pronounced ‘ob-jéct’, it’s a verb. Let’s pretend, for the sake of this example, that ‘object’ is a Russian noun, pronounced as we would in English. In order to make it a verb, the Russians would spell it ‘objъect. The soft sign ‘Ь’ is used to indicate that a syllable should not (or need not) be stressed, as might be the case with the pronunciation of the English word ‘harass’, which in phonetic Russian could be approximated with the spelling ‘xapЬac’. I say ‘approximated’ because Russian has no exact equivalent of the ‘h’ sound. This Russian spelling would produce a word sounding like khah-rahs, not quite correct, but much better than ha-ráss (a dead giveaway of ill-bred roots and an incomplete secondary education). You should also learn one very common dipthong ‘ай’. This is how the Russians spell the long ‘I’ sound (as in ‘eye’). A few foreign words, which have been adopted in the English language, require letters other than the 26 in the Standard English alphabet to be spelled correctly (e.g. the ‘ç’ in garcon, the ‘â’ in château, or the ‘ñ’ in mañana). The argument could be made that these are merely standard characters of the English alphabet with diacriticals, but that argument would hold only for château (because one acceptable spelling omits the circumflex). In the cases of garçon and mañana, both have been adopted into English, but the only acceptable spellings require letters that are not part of our standard alphabet. The letter ‘ñ’ is a full member of the Spanish alphabet, and should be considered a full member of ours, just as our letters ‘k’ and ‘w’ have been added to their alphabet and that of the French (for words of ours such as Kodak and sweater). The Russian alphabet contains a few such characters that are rarely seen, except to allow the spelling of foreign or archaic words. They have not been included here. I did provide a full pronouncing guide to the 33 commonly used Cyrillic characters. Learning them will be surprisingly easy because, unlike the English alphabet, all but two letters are pronounced predictably. You’ll appreciate your newfound knowledge when you visit Russia and have your eye on a cutie with a nametag (hotel or airline personnel, waitresses, public officials, or girls who’ve just enrolled in high school). Being able to read her name will help charm her panties off. Later, when your groin glistens with body fluids, you’ll be glad you took the time to study your АБВs. There’s yet another reason to learn the Russian alphabet, the splendid Russian obscenities I have interspersed. Learning their pronunciation will be up to you. ii
