Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

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philintma
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Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby philintma » Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:47 pm

Hello!
My name is Sophia and I am 12 years old. Recently I came to a camp in which we study various sciences. Here the children are divided into groups and, led by a tutor, do various projects. We have chosen a project called "Trying to simplify the Russian language for people from other countries to learn". We would like to suggest a text in the simplified version of the Russian language that we have made, so that you can tell if it is easier for you to understand. We will be very thankful for your comments!

The text:
M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ j’il’i v dom nom’ir chetir’i po T’isoviy ul’itsa ‘i vs’igda s gordast gavar’il’i shto an’i slava Бog apsal’utna normalniy l’ud’i. Ush at kavo-kavo a at n’ih n’ikak n’il’z’a бila jdat’ shtoбi an’i papadal’i v kakoy-n’iбut’ straniy ‘il’i zagadashniy s’ituatsi‘a. M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ v’is’ma n’eodoбr’al’i atnas’il’is’ k straniy zagadka ‘i proch’ey ‘erunda.
M’ist’ir Dursl’ vozglavl’al f’irma pod nazvan’i’e “Grann’ings” katoriy pra’izvad’il dr’el’i. Eto бil polniy muщ’ina s och’en’ pishniy usi ‘i och’en tolstiy she’a. Shtj j’e kasa’etsa M’iss’is Dursl’ ana бila toщ’ey бlond’inkoy s sh’e’ey pacht’i vdvo’e dl’in’e’e ch’em poloj’eno pr’i ‘e’o rost.
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Re: Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby Deinonysus » Sat Jul 23, 2022 5:23 pm

Good luck with your project! I have a few suggestions.

First, Russian learners have a lot of trouble with stress because you can't pronounce a word without knowing where the stress is. Would you consider marking stress in your spelling system?

All of the apostrophes are very visually confusing. What I would do instead is i for и, y for ы, and ä, ë, ö, and ü or ja, je, jo, and ju for the other palatalizing vowels, and only using an apostrophe to mark ь. And I would write ий as ij instead of iy since you use j for й in other places..

In romanizations it's very unusual to borrow a letter from another script. Instead you usually use a digraph or a diacritic mark. I'm especially confused about why you would use б instead of b. For щ, you could use ś like in Polish or x like in pinyin (Mandarin Chinese).
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Re: Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby Iversen » Sat Jul 23, 2022 5:36 pm

Deinonysus wrote:All of the apostrophes are very visually confusing. What I would do instead is i for и, y for ы, and ä, ë, ö, and ü or ja, je, jo, and ju for the other palatalizing vowels, and only using an apostrophe to mark ь. And I would write ий as ij instead of iy since you use j for й in other places..


I generally agree with Dionysus, but would strongly recommend using ja, je, jo, ju for palatalized vowels and NOT ä, ë, ö, ü, which are used for non-palatalized vowels in the languages that use them (like German, Swedish, Finnish and Turkish). And then a single j instead of ' would be the logical follow-up (Slovak does use the apostrophe, and it's one of the things that irks me most in the alphabet used for that language). As for the j the Serbs already use a j in their version of Cyrillic, and they seem to live happily with it.

Anglophones might be tempted to use y instead of j because it's how they themselves use that letter, but if j is chosen instead you have the option of using the letter y for Russian ы (i.e. as a vowel). Then Чайко́вский wouldn't be spelled Tchaikovsky any longer, which is grossly misleading, but instead with -ij at the end, and -yj could then be reserved for the sequence -ый with a midtongue vowel after something soft.
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Re: Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby leosmith » Sun Jul 24, 2022 2:44 am

philintma wrote:M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ j’il’i v dom nom’ir chetir’i po T’isoviy ul’itsa ‘i vs’igda s gordast gavar’il’i shto an’i slava Бog apsal’utna normalniy l’ud’i. Ush at kavo-kavo a at n’ih n’ikak n’il’z’a бila jdat’ shtoбi an’i papadal’i v kakoy-n’iбut’ straniy ‘il’i zagadashniy s’ituatsi‘a. M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ v’is’ma n’eodoбr’al’i atnas’il’is’ k straniy zagadka ‘i proch’ey ‘erunda.
M’ist’ir Dursl’ vozglavl’al f’irma pod nazvan’i’e “Grann’ings” katoriy pra’izvad’il dr’el’i. Eto бil polniy muщ’ina s och’en’ pishniy usi ‘i och’en tolstiy she’a. Shtj j’e kasa’etsa M’iss’is Dursl’ ana бila toщ’ey бlond’inkoy s sh’e’ey pacht’i vdvo’e dl’in’e’e ch’em poloj’eno pr’i ‘e’o rost.

What are all those accent marks for? At first I thought they were marking stress, but they aren't. Why not just use standard Russian romanization, with stress marked, if your goal is just to make the orthography more accessible? If you are trying to simplify grammar, get rid of aspect, the case system, and over hall verbs of motion.
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Re: Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby anitarrc » Fri Jul 29, 2022 10:35 am

philintma wrote:The text:
M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ j’il’i v dom nom’ir chetir’i po T’isoviy ul’itsa ‘i vs’igda s gordast gavar’il’i shto an’i slava Бog apsal’utna normalniy l’ud’i. Ush at kavo-kavo a at n’ih n’ikak n’il’z’a бila jdat’ shtoбi an’i papadal’i v kakoy-n’iбut’ straniy ‘il’i zagadashniy s’ituatsi‘a. M’ist’ir ‘i M’iss’is Dursl’ v’is’ma n’eodoбr’al’i atnas’il’is’ k straniy zagadka ‘i proch’ey ‘erunda.
M’ist’ir Dursl’ vozglavl’al f’irma pod nazvan’i’e “Grann’ings” katoriy pra’izvad’il dr’el’i. Eto бil polniy muщ’ina s och’en’ pishniy usi ‘i och’en tolstiy she’a. Shtj j’e kasa’etsa M’iss’is Dursl’ ana бila toщ’ey бlond’inkoy s sh’e’ey pacht’i vdvo’e dl’in’e’e ch’em poloj’eno pr’i ‘e’o rost.


Thank you for your effort.
I am new here so forgive me if I am not familiar with your habits.


First, I have been struggling with Russian for about 3 years. (don't laugh) I did Duolingo Spanish to Russian to the last level, which means I read without effort. But, my written expression is very bad.
Although I read Russian instruction manuals at least twice per week at work, I am unable to read and understand the above.

If you want a transcription and (WHY?) avoid the cyrillic alphabet. try Serbo-croatian. This system is to me the easiest in the world, even simpler than Spanish.
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Re: Experiment: creating an easy-to-learn Russian language

Postby anitarrc » Fri Jul 29, 2022 11:39 am

Hello
Thank you for a great initiative.

I am new here so forgive me if I am not yet familiar with the ins and out of exchanges here.

After struggling with Russian for three years (meaning i finished Spanish to russian on duolingo, reading some easy stories on Yandex) I know that my written expression is still very bad, although I understand 90% of written text. That is a work, concerning mainly machinery instructions

So, let me say humbly it was never the cyrillic alphabet but the grammar that makes it difficult.

If you really want to transcribe, use the good and well established Serbocroatian system- It is very logic, simple and understood in 30 minutes.
That was my experience when I arrived in Beograd 40 years ago and had a French map with roman street names :)
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