-- R.G. Menzies
LIBERTARIAN/CONSERVATIVE DIGEST AND COMMENTARY FROM AN ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGIST in Brisbane, Australia. My academic publications are widely read
Click on the title of any post to bring up the sidebar
USSR
Does anybody reading this know what "USSR" represents? I doubt that younger readers do, such is the state of modern education -- but no doubt some of my older readers recognize it as the name of the old Soviet Union -- centred on Russia.
But what does "USSR" actually stand for? Now we're getting tricky! I'm guessing that only a subset of those who know what the USSR was remember what the term "USSR" actually stood for. It stands for "The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics". And I won't embarrass anyone by asking what a "Soviet" was.
But now comes the really hard bit: Why did the USSR in fact always refer to itself as the "CCCP"?
Give up? It's because "CCCP" looks like it's in the Latin alphabet that we use but it is not. It is in the Cyrillic alphabet. St. Cyril adapted the Greek alphabet to represent the sounds of Slavic languages and Slavic countries use it to this day. So "CCCP" transliterated into the Latin alphabet would be "SSSR", which stands for the "Sodality of the Soviet Socialist Republics".
So now you have to be au fait with both "Soviet" and "Sodality" to be fully knowledgeable about the matter! If you want to be ...
Another way in which Cyrillic can be confusing has been noted by almost every recent visitor to Russia. They learn by experience to look out for a sign that says PECTOPAH. Why? Because the Cyrillic PECTOPAH is pronounced as "Restoran" (Restaurant)!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
So I guess 29 makes me an older reader. Oh dear...
ReplyDeleteBut don't get me started on the abysmal ignorance of our youth... Did you know that the French ministry of education has just dropped Napoleon from the curriculum? The kids will study some African empire from the 16th century instead.
I thought that the first "S" / "C" in "CCCP" stood for "Soyuz", the Russian word for "union".
ReplyDeleteAs in: "Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik"
Yes. You are right. It is Soyuz. I was relying on a youthful memory there
ReplyDeleteJR
Sodality is still a good word, though
ReplyDeleteI have now remembered the details of my youthful thinking on the matter
ReplyDeleteThe question is: How do you translate "soyuz"
Russian dictionaries give a variety of translations, of which "Union" is only one.
I chose the rather obscure "sodality" as both preserving the meaning AND the initial letter
What a clever youth I was!