From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 18/05/2024 8:57 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:   
   > On 2024-05-17, Ross Clark  wrote:   
   >   
   >>> The Russian title is: Гёдель, Ешер, Бах: Эта   
   бесконечная гирлянда   
   >>   
   >> I don't know why, but the Russian title shows first, then the Bulgarian,   
   >> where they spell it Гьодел. Russian ё normally spells /jo/; here it   
   >> seems to be rendering the foreign vowel /ö/, perhaps just because it   
   >> looks a bit like the German letter. But the Bulgarians seem to be   
   >> representing it as /jo/ -- could the Bulgarian version be a   
   >> re-translation of the Russian?   
   >   
   > There are a lot of things in here.   
   >   
   > I'll start by stressing that in the modern Slavic languages the   
   > iotated vowel letters primarily indicate that the preceding consonant   
   > is palatalized.  Only in special positions, e.g. at the start of   
   > the word, do the iotated vowel letters also represent an actual   
   > glide consonant /j/ preceding the vowel.   
   >   
   > If you look across the modern variants of the Cyrillic alphabet as   
   > used by the Eastern Slavic languages and Bulgarian, as well as   
   > historical versions, you will notice that there are iotated versions   
   > of a, e, and u, but there is no iotated o.  (Bear with me.)   
   > I assume that reflects a historical phonotactical restraint such   
   > that there were no palatalized consonants before o.  I don't know   
   > enough about the history of the Slavic languages for details.  On   
   > the rare occasions that the modern languages have a palatalized   
   > consonant before o, Ukrainian and Bulgarian use a soft sign + o   
   > spelling, i.e., <ьо>.   
      
   I'm remembering, without consulting any books, but I think there is no   
   actual palatalization before (historic) a,o,u, as one might expect.   
   The Russian я following palatalized consonant comes from the front nasal   
   vowel *ę; the ё, as you mentioned, results from *e > o in a certain   
   environment; and unless I'm mistaken ю only represents /ju/ in native   
   Slavic words -- Cю sequences occur in borrowed words like сюрприз   
   'surprise'.   
      
   > Russian stands out because it has a sort of iotated o, <ё>.  However,   
   > that is the result of a late soundshift, where stressed /e/ after   
   > but not before a palatalized consonant shifted somewhat inconsistently   
   > to /o/.  This continued to be written <е> until <ё> was created   
   > around 1800, and even today <ё> is not consistently differentiated   
   > from <е> in Russian orthographic practice.   
   >   
   > Belarusian also has <ё>.   
   >   
   > When it comes to transcribing the German (French) front vowels   
   > represented by ö (eu) and ü (u), Russian uses the iotated vowels   
   > <ё> and <ю>.  This could be related to the fact that the Russian   
   > vowels have fronted allophones after (ё) or between (ю) palatalized   
   > consonants.   
      
   Yes, this is a better reason for using ё and ю. It also accounts for the   
   Bulgarians using ьо /jo/. (Found another example: шофьор 'driver'.)   
      
   > Ukrainian picks <е> and <ю> for transcribing the same foreign vowels,   
   > i.e., it unrounds the mid vowel.   
   >   
   > Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is rendered like this:   
   > ru: Герхард Шрёдер   
   > uk: Герхард Шредер   
   > bg: Герхард Шрьодер   
   >   
   > There is another aspect that might have some bearing on this.   
   > Although a language like German (or English or French) does not   
   > _distinguish_ between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants,   
   > there is presumably some degree of allophonic palatalization happening   
   > before front vowels.  So maybe my pronunciation of München has an   
   > initial /mʲ/ to Russian ears, making the transcription Мюнхен quite   
   > natural.  I don't know.   
   >   
      
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