[freeciv-data] Re: Russian.ruleset

[Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

scripsit Dmitriy Genzel:
> 
> > +leader=3D"Ekaterina Velikaja", "Ivan Groznyj", "Iosef Stalin",
> > "P=EBtr V= elikij"
> 
> That should be "Iosif", not "Iosef". Also, I would not use =EB, since
> that'= s pretty much never used in Russian transliteration. Use plain
> "e" instead.

Yikes!  Your mail client seems not to like ISO 8859-1 very much!

The use of `ë' to represented the stressed `e' pronounced as 'jo' is
actually pretty common in the US at least.  At any rate, as I mentioned
in my previous e-mail, I based my transliteration on the system
recommended by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems [1].
That document states that it is "based on the official system of the
Main Administration of Geodesy and Cartography of the former Soviet
Union, also known as the GOST 1983 system."  My only change was
substituting `ch' for c-with-hachek, `zh' for z-with-hacheck, etc. (and
`ts' for `c'), because we can't do hachecks in ISO Latin-1.  If Freeciv
every goes UTF-8, of course, we can do it really properly--but then we
don't really need to transliterate at all.

> > +"Kiev", "Moskva", "Minsk", "Smolensk", "Nizhnij Novgorod",=20
> > +"Jaroslavl'", "Poltava", "Chernigov", "Novgorod", "Rjazan",=20
> 
> Rjazan should be Rjazan'.

Whoops.  I really wish they'd chosen something other than apostrophes to
do soft signs.  They get lost too easily!

> > +"Grodno", "Kursk", "Pskov", "Tula", "Brest", "Gomel'",=20
> > +"Chernovtsy", "Brjansk", "L'vov", "Hlynov", "Vitebsk",=20
> 
> What's "Hlynov"? 

It was renamed Vjatka in 1780, Kirov in 1934, and back to Vjatka 1992.

> I am curious, how did you pick the cities? I am pretty
> sure that this is not even a region center.

I used www.world-gazetteer.com, which lists estimated populations for
several hundred cities.  I used the top 50 in population, except those
which were suburbs of Moscow or another major city, plus all capitals of
republics, oblasts, etc.  I also added a small number of historically
important cities which have small populations today -- old Rostov is an
example.

> > +"Lipetsk", "Vladimir", "Tver'", "Vologda", "Luchesk",=20
> > +"Kostroma", "Mogil=EBv", "Zhitomir", "Pinsk", "Cherkassy",=20
> > +"Rovno", "Rostov", "Samara", "Sankt-Peterburg",=20
> > +"Tsaritsyn", "Ufa", "Saratov", "Cheboksary", "Voronezh",=20
> > +"Har'kov", "Krasnyj Jar (hills, mountains)", "Tomsk",
> 
> Krasnyj Jar? Do you mean Krasnojarsk maybe?
> =20

Yes.  Krasnyj Jar was, according to encyclopedia.com, the original name
when it was founded in 1628.  I remember reading that at some point the
Imperial government decided to try to standardize names, with cities
above a certain size having masculine `*sk' names and towns below having
neuter `*oe' names.  That may be apocryphal, but it sounds like
something the 19th century bureaucrats would decree.

> > +"Or=EBl", "Kuznetsk", "Arhangel'sk", "Simbirsk", "Kurgan",=20
> 
> I would change Or=EBl to Orel

See above for `ë'.

> > +"Irkutsk", "Ekaterinburg", "Joshkar-Ola", "Omsk", "Penza",=20
> > +"Cheljabinsk", "Syktyvkar", "Ulan-Ud=E8", "Tambov",=20
> 
> Ulan-Ud=E8 -> Ulan-Ude

The UN system uses `è' for the "backwards" `e', to denote that the
preceding consonant is not palatized. My source has a "backwards" `e'
there, not a Latin-style one.

> > +"Izhevsk", "Saransk", "Chita", "Sumy",=20
> > +"Rostov-na-Donu (river)", "Blagoveshchensk", "Jakutsk",=20
> > +"Dnepropetrovsk", "Orenburg", "Perm", "Zaporozh'e",
> 
> Perm should be Perm'.
> =20

Hmm.  The World Gazetteer has a typo there, I see.  Thanks for catching
it.

> > +"Nizhnij Tagil", "Petrozavodsk", "Odessa", "Barnaul",=20
> > +"Tjumen'", "Juzhno-Sahalinsk", "Ekaterinodar", "Abakan",=20
> > +"Nikovaev", "Habarovsk", "Elisavetgrad", "Petropavlovsk",
> 
> Isn't Elisavetgrad an old name for Dnepropetrovsk? I don't think they
> changed it back.
> =20

No Dnepropetrovsk is a different city, although nearby.  Elisavetgrad =
Kirovograd (Ukrainskij).

> > +"Stavropol'", "Naberezhne Chelny (river)", "Lugansk",=20
> 
> That's Naberezhnye Chelny

Damn.  Another Gazetteer typo; they were missing the `bI' (=`y').  It
should actually be `Naberezhnyje Chelny' -- it looks like just a normal
neuter-adjective ending.  

> > +"Kemerovo", "Sevastopol'", "Ivanovo", "Vladikavkaz",=20
> > +"Dudinka", "Kaluga", "Donets'k", "Nalchik", "Vladivostok",
> 
> Donets'k -> Donetsk, Nalchik -> Nal'chik
> =20

Silly apostrophes.  Thanks.

> > +"Petrovsk", "Groznyj", "Aginskoe", "Novonikolajevsk",=20
> > +"Magadan", "=C8lista", "Gorno-Altajsk (hills, mountains)",=20
> 
> =C8lista -> Elista

See above, in re Ulan-Udè.

> I should mention that I don't recognize a number of cities (or, rather,
> towns) on your list, and I am pretty good at Russian geogrpahy. Also, I am
> unclear as to the ordering.

Some of them are, indeed, pretty small--five thousand reindeer herders
up in the Arctic and capital of an autonomous region ;) 

Others you may be more familiar with modern names, like Krasnyj Jar =
Krasnojarsk or Hlynov = Kirov.  Throughout, I tried to use their
original names, rather than Soviet-era ones, even if they haven't been
changed back (like Elisavetgrad).

I sorted according to Mika Kornhonen's algorithm, as posted on
freeciv.org [2].  Actually, I customized Jarda Benkovsky's Perl
implementation of the Kornhonen algorithm add the terrain tags; that did
the sorting, not me ;)

Regarding transliteration, I stand by my choice of system, given the
limitations of ISO Latin-1.  I note that, when the modifications
necessary to use Latin-1 encoding are made, ISO 9:1995 is virtually
identical to what I've done, too.  If there is a consensus that there is
an alternative transliteration scheme which is superior to those
recommended by the United Nations and the International Organization for
Standardization, I'm happy to make that change.  However, the reason I
chose what I did is to avoid a (IMO) pointless debate over which system
is superior, or whether to use German-style or American-style phonetic
notation, or whatever.

I've attached a diff from russian.ruleset modified to account for the
typos Dmitri caught.

References

1. <http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ru.pdf>
2. <http://arch.freeciv.org/freeciv-dev-199910/msg00030.html> 

-- 
Thanasis Kinias
Web Developer, Information Technology
Graduate Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul



-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --

--- russian.ruleset.20020430    Tue Apr 30 18:30:19 2002
+++ russian.ruleset     Sat May  4 20:01:14 2002
@@ -2,14 +2,14 @@
 
 name=_("Russian")
 plural=_("?plural:Russians")
-leader="Catherine II", "Ivan the Terrible", "Stalin", "Peter", "Anne"
-leader_sex="Female", "Male", "Male", "Male", "Female"
+leader="Ekaterina Velikaja", "Ivan Groznyj", "Iosif Stalin", "Pëtr Velikij"
+leader_sex="Female", "Male", "Male", "Male"
 flag="f.russia"
 flag_alt = "-"
 city_style = "European"
 
 ruler_titles = { "government",      "male_title",      "female_title",
-                 "Monarchy",        _("Czar"),         _("Czarina")
+                 "Monarchy",        _("Tsar"),         _("Tsarina")
                  "Fundamentalism",  _("Patriarch"),    _("Matriarch")
                }
 
@@ -25,10 +25,32 @@
 government="Communism"
 
 cities =
-  "Moskva", "St. Petersburg", "Tver", "Novgorod",
-  "Yekaterinburg", "Samara", "Pskov", "Ryazan", "Vladimir",
-  "Yaroslavl",  "Novosibirsk", "Smolensk", "Briansk", "Oriel",
-  "Voronezh", "Saransk", "Uralsk", "Petrozavodsk", "Perm", "Ufa",
-  "Saratov", "Volgograd", "Rostov", "Tomsk", "Omsk", "Chelyabinsk",
-  "Irkutsk",  "Vladivostok",  "Khabarovsk",  "Krasnoyarsk",
-  "Vologda",  "Murmansk",  "Arkhangelsk",  "Krasnodar",  "Stavropol"
+"Kiev", "Moskva", "Minsk", "Smolensk", "Nizhnij Novgorod", 
+"Jaroslavl'", "Poltava", "Chernigov", "Novgorod", 
+"Rjazan'", "Grodno", "Kursk", "Pskov", "Tula", "Brest", 
+"Gomel'", "Chernovtsy", "Brjansk", "L'vov", "Hlynov", 
+"Vitebsk", "Lipetsk", "Vladimir", "Tver'", "Vologda", 
+"Luchesk", "Kostroma", "Mogilëv", "Zhitomir", "Pinsk", 
+"Cherkassy", "Rovno (plains, grassland)", "Rostov", 
+"Samara", "Sankt-Peterburg", "Tsaritsyn", "Ufa", "Saratov", 
+"Cheboksary", "Voronezh", "Har'kov", 
+"Krasnyj Jar (hills, mountains)", "Tomsk", "Orël", 
+"Kuznetsk", "Arhangel'sk", "Simbirsk", "Kurgan", "Irkutsk", 
+"Ekaterinburg", "Joshkar-Ola", "Omsk", "Penza", 
+"Cheljabinsk", "Syktyvkar", "Ulan-Udè", "Tambov", 
+"Izhevsk", "Saransk", "Chita", "Sumy", 
+"Rostov-na-Donu (river)", "Blagoveshchensk", "Jakutsk", 
+"Dnepropetrovsk", "Orenburg", "Perm'", "Zaporozh'e", 
+"Nizhnij Tagil", "Petrozavodsk", "Odessa", "Barnaul", 
+"Tjumen'", "Juzhno-Sahalinsk", "Ekaterinodar", "Abakan", 
+"Nikovaev", "Habarovsk", "Elisavetgrad", "Petropavlovsk", 
+"Stavropol'", "Naberezhne Chelny (river)", "Lugansk", 
+"Kemerovo", "Sevastopol'", "Ivanovo", "Vladikavkaz", 
+"Dudinka", "Kaluga", "Donetsk", "Nal'chik", "Vladivostok", 
+"Petrovsk", "Groznyj", "Aginskoe", "Novonikolajevsk", 
+"Magadan", "Èlista", "Gorno-Altajsk (hills, mountains)", 
+"Majkop", "Hanty-Mansijsk", "Kudymkar", "Salehadr", 
+"Sochi", "Narjan-Mar", "Ust'-Ordynskij (ocean, river)", 
+"Murmansk", "Anadyr'", "Magnitogorsk (mountains)", "Tura", 
+"Palana", "Birobidzhan", "Novyj Stavropol'" 
+