The Russians write and spell Basilius with the consonant w;[1] yet as we have grown into the habit of writing and spelling it with a b, I have not thought it necessary to write it with the w; c placed before an aspirate, should not be pronounced ci or schi, as some nations are accustomed to write it, but khi, after the manner of the Germans, as in the words Chiovia, Chan, Chlinov, Chlopigorod, etc. But when a double z is prefixed, it should be pronounced in a rather more sonorous manner,—as Czeremisse, Czernigo, Czilma, Czunkas, etc. The Russians express g with an aspirated h more strongly than is the custom of other Sclavonians, and almost after the Bohemian fashion,—as when they write Iugra, Wolga, they pronounce Iuhra, Wolha.
The letter i receives the fullest force of a consonant,—as in Iausa, Iaroslaw, Iamma, Ieropolchus, etc.
Th is pronounced almost like ph,—thus, Theodore is called Pheodore or Feodore.
When v has the force of a consonant, I have put in the place of it w, which the Germans express by double u, as in Wolodimeria, Worothin, Wedrasch, Wisma, Wladislaus. But when the same letter is placed in the middle or at the end of a word, it receives the force or sound of the Greek letter phi,—as Oczakow [Ochakov], Rostow [Rostov], Asow [Azov], Owka [Ovka]. The reader will carefully observe the force of this letter, lest by a careless pronunciation one and the same word might seem to imply different things.
Moreover, in treating of the annals, origin, and deeds of the Russians, I have not used our number of years, but theirs;[2] lest in differing from their documents, I might seem to assume the character rather of a corrector than of a faithful interpreter.
- ↑ The reader is begged to observe that this is Herberstein’s explanation of his own mode of expressing the force of Russian letters in Roman character. The Russians spell Basilius with a letter of the form of our b, and holding the third place in their alphabet, but having the sound of the English v and the German w. This accounts for Herberstein, who was a German, representing this sound by the letter w; but there is no w in Russian.
- ↑ The era of Constantinople, which was adopted by the Russians from the Greek church, and continued in use until the reign of Peter the Great, fixes the creation of the world in the 5508th year before Christ, the year of whose incarnation fell in the 5509th of this era.
