Speaking as a Chesnokov, there’s
nothing worse than having your name butchered by someone else. The NHL is such
an international League with the best non-North American born players that this
butchering happens virtually daily.
There are different reasons for it,
including the simple fact that some of these foreign names are not even spelled
correctly in English. This is especially true for Russian-born players, and
players from other countries that do not use the English alphabet.
The discrepancies in how foreign names
are transcribed are the direct result of the difference in alphabets. For
example, the Russian
alphabet had 33 letters (two of which don’t even have a sound) while the
English alphabet, for example, has only 26.
For years, stemming back from the
Soviet days, Russian names in Russian travel passports were transcribed into
how they would be spelled in one of the two "working" languages of the United
Nations — French.
It created all sorts of troubles that
finally the Russian national team, and Washington Capitals goaltender Semyon
Varlamov requested
the IIHF change how the organization spells players’ names. Specifically,
Varlamov wanted to have his first name spelled just the way it sounds: Semyon,
instead of the incorrect "Semen." The IIHF agreed.
Now, the IIHF is making a serious push
to reform the spelling and presentation of Russian player names around the
hockey world — and on Google.
Q: So what has
been wrong with how the names were transcribed until 2010?A: Simply, the English transcription didn’t reflect how
Russians really pronounce their names. And this is the whole point of
transcription – to write Russian names with Roman letters so it comes as close
as possible to the original pronunciation.Q: Can you give some examples of that?
A: Take a name like Fyodor. It most places it was "Fedor"
which is wrong. The Pittsburgh Penguins star Malkin’s first name must be spelled Yevgeni
and not "Evgeni" or "Evgeny". Very few Russian first names start with an
"E-sound". Two examples are Enver and Eduard. The first sound in the original
spelling of Malkin’s first name is Cyrillic "E", which looks like the Roman "E"
but is pronounced "Ye". Thus: Yevgeni.
The IIHF added, "We are three years
away from the first Olympic hockey tournaments in Russia. We felt that come
Sochi 2014, the names of the hosting country should be transcribed correctly.
It’s long overdue already. But primarily, we wanted to get it right."
The IIHF worked together with the
Slavic faculty of the University of Zurich and its professor in Russian
language on standardizing names.
Apparently, the IIHF used the 2011 IIHF
World U20 Championship in Buffalo earlier this year, which
the Russians won, to introduce a new, modified standard for the
transcription of names which are originally written with the Cyrillic alphabet.
The same rule was used for players from
Belarus and Kazakhstan. A different standard will be used for the Ukrainian
language, according to the IIHF. Forwards Semyon Valuiski and Artyom Voronin
are the two examples of the new transcription.
Here’s the IIHF transcription guide (.pdf):
It is unclear at this point if the NHL
will adopt the same standards, as most players are free to request the League
spell their names just the way they want them to — once again, Varlamov’s case
comes to mind.
The IIHF has "already contacted Google
about this and hopefully also the NHL and other sports bodies will eventually
adopt this standard."
If the NHL does, we may see Alexei
Kovalyov and Alexander Syomin. Sergei Fyodorov will become the highest-scoring Russian
born player to have ever competed in the NHL.
What would that mean for marketing?
What would that mean for record books? And will the NHL appear out of step of
the rest of the world spells it "Yevgeni Nabokov?"
Maybe it’s not a big deal; after all, the
Capitals sell Alex Ovechkin Russian
language gear.
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