Pectopah and Russian Scrabble

Michelle’s travel journal

Moscow

 

I do not have any particular gift for languages.  A little bit of French, a smattering of Latin (do they still teach Latin?), and some helpful Yiddish phrases handed down from my grandmother, saw me through my European travels. 

 

But that will only take you so far.  If you are planning to travel for business, the least you can do is take some time to learn the basic niceties for meetings with your hosts.  Tom had been invited to Moscow to meet with business partners.  And with that in mind project “Learn Russian” began.

 

This is a business trip.  Tom receives an official invitation from his Russian colleagues that he can parlay into a business visa.  The plan is for Tom to get the business part of the trip done up front, visiting exciting warehouses in Siberia and I will join him at the tail end to tour Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

 

Apparently, I will need a visa too.  It is very simple.  I use a different surname than Tom so, first I will need to have a copy of our marriage certificate translated and notarized to prove I am the real wife, or in the alternative I will have to become Tom’s employee to show some business purpose for going.  Since I don’t think that our marriage will be improved by calling Tom “boss man”, I dig up the twenty year-old document for translation. 

 

Next step Russian lessons.  The beauty of living in Toronto, the multi-cultural center of Canada, is that Tom can go to language lessons across the street from his office.  He signs up for ten.  (The trip is six weeks away.)

 

We start with the alphabet.  This will allow “us” to feel more comfortable. Why?  Because it will prevent the absolutely helpless feeling that comes with being totally illiterate.

 

We are told that Russian is a very phonetic language, that is, that things are generally pronounced the way they are written.  We reserve judgement.  My initial take is that it will take six weeks to learn how to wrap my mouth around the harsh consonants, let alone attempt conversation.

The Cyrillic alphabet was named after a mad monk[1] who either had a terrible classics background, or suffered from 10th century dyslexia.  There is no other explanation for the random use of Greek and Latin alphabets to represent the various phonemes, with some mystery letters thrown in for good measure.

We start: there is an A sound with an Aa representation.  So good.  There is a B sound, but it doesn’t use the Latin Bb.  The Latin Bb is pronounced Vv.  An anomaly that I ignore–it’s close.  ( I figure if we buy enough bodka no one will quibble with the pronunciation.)

  

Then we get to the next letter—the Greek gamma.  I have a math background so this is not my first glimpse at Greek letters, and wrap my mind around “G”amma=Gg.    Moving right along in the lesson, I learn that the Greek delta (Dd), pi (Pp), and kappa (Kk) will be of use in my Russian studies.  I only lose it when we get to the Ff sound.  Apparently this is the classical Greek phi, but to me it is a circle with a stick in it.

 

 

 

 

phi YK!!

They say that when you learn to swear in a language, that you are well on your way to its mastery.  Notwithstanding the truisms, we need to practice.

 

Business cards are made over into Cyrillic alphabet flash cards with letter on one side and sound on the other.  Tom and I play Russian “scrabble”.  We use the flashcards to write out short English words using the Russian alphabet.  It’s fun, but we are hopeless.

 

Of course, you can see the problem—we have no useful Russian vocabulary yet and our trip is looming. 

 

A couple of Tom’s employees have Russian roots and lend us their children’s books to help.  I pronounce every letter as directed.  I find myself liberally spitting (the polite term is “aspirating”) out consonants.  I practice by saying “Dostoyevsky, Tchychosky, and Rachmoninoff” quickly three times.

 

Tom departs for Russian business adventure and I join him in progress.

 

In retrospect, learning the Cyrillic alphabet was a good move.  We can use public transit without getting too lost (although it takes a faster computer than my brain to translate a Russian place name to my English map before we miss our station).  We read the advertisements and land tickets for the ballet (Romeo and Juliet spelled phonetically).

 

We discover that almost all new words added to the language since 1812 come from the English or French (blame Russian high society) and these merely adopt a Cyrillic spelling, which we can now decode.  We are home free.  We celebrate with a bottle of bodka at one of the many PECTOPAHs (restaurants) lining the streets.

 

 

[1] Cyrillic alphabet (Кириллица)

The Cyrillic alphabet is named after St. Cyril, a missionary from Byzantium. It was invented sometime during the 10th century AD, possibly by St. Kliment of Ohrid, to write the Old Church Slavonic language. The Cyrillic alphabet achieved its current form in 1708 during the reign of Peter the Great. Four letters were eliminated from the alphabet in a 1917/18 reform.The Cyrillic alphabet has been adapted to write over 50 different languages, mainly in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In many cases additional letters are used, some of which are adaptations of standard Cyrillic letters, while others are taken from the Greek or Latin alphabets.