Orthodox Metropolitan Filaret: It's Time to Take a Step Toward Unity

Catholic Online ^ | May 6, 2010 | Jesús Colina

[NYer]

VATICAN CITY  (Zenit.org)  - The time is now for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches to take a step toward unity, and for Benedict XVI and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to meet, says the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.

Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Sluck said this Tuesday at the international conference held in Rome on "The Poor Are the Precious Treasure of the Church: Orthodox and Catholics Together on the Path of Charity."
 
During the conference, which was promoted by the Sant'Egidio Community, participants reflected on the reception of the most frail in our societies, the testimony of the Fathers of the Church, and the challenges dictated by new social problems.

According to Metropolitan Filaret, the time has come to take decisive steps toward unity, reported the country's Catholic news service.
 
The Orthodox leader added that both Churches seek to establish full unity, and stressed that he has come to this conclusion based on the fraternal dialogue and the meetings that they have held with representatives of the Catholic Church.
 
If Benedict XVI and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia were to meet, it would be a first for the two pastors of Rome and Moscow.
 
Metropolitan Filaret's statements coincide with the announcement of the "Days of Russian Culture and Spirituality in the Vatican," which will be held May 19-20, and which will culminate with a concert offered to Benedict XVI by Kirill I.

The musical event will include compositions of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for Foreign Relations of the Patriarchy of Moscow.
 
On Wednesday, Metropolitan Filaret visited the Holy Shroud of Turin and Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop of Turin.
 

[annalex]

OK, but "пръст", for example, has no tendency to be in any way lesser or shorter. It is just another vowel. In a song, one could sing it, пръ-ъ-ъст.

At least that is the case with modern Bulgarian.

It is interesting to look at the transliteration rules from English. Primarily, 'ъ" is used for closed 'u', as in Къстер (Custer). But it also indicates a half-sound, as in Картър (Carter) or even Бийтълз (Beatles). Note the ingenious way to transliterate an open 'e'.

[kosta50]

Yes, I a agree wholeheartedly, Bulgarian transliteration is superior. Other Slavic Cyrillic languages would greatly profit from aodptiong the same convention but I think nationalist pride is a great obstacle

[annalex]

Matter of fact, Custer becomes Къстър. The Russians would have it Кастер.

It does look a bit silly, no matter what you do.

[kosta50]

Matter of fact, Custer becomes Къстър. The Russians would have it Кастер.

The Serbs would have spelled it just like the Russians, with Serbs vocalizing it as KAstEr, and the Russsian, I suppose as KAHstyer. But neither the Russian/Serbian nor the Bulgarian rendition is correct.  Къстър is incorrect because the U is clearly vocalized as a vowel, i.e. KAStr, (the "e" is silent), so Кaстър or simply Кастр is the closest to how it 's pronunced in English.

[annalex]

Yeah, I'd vote for Кастър, too, if fonetics were the only consideration.

I guess, the Bulgarian solution prefers to reserve slavonic "A" for closed English "A", as in Thatcher (Татчър). Also, around Varna "Ъ" is pronouinced in a rather relaxed way, more readily comparable to "ah". The standard pronunciation is closer to "Y".

Bulgarian ear, anyway, associates "Ъ" with Latin (but not English) "a". Търново is spelled Tarnovo, for tourists.

[kosta50]

Bulgarian ear, anyway, associates "Ъ" with Latin (but not English) "a". Търново is spelled Tarnovo, for tourists.

Yes, I believer they pronounce Бъгария as "Balgaria," although ofifcially their hard sign (golyam er, big yer) is listed as a short u.

But this just goes on to show that ъ is not a full vowel but a muted, nondescript half sound, which is exactly what makes it ideal for those consonant combinations where a sound is heard but it is neither a vowel nor a consonant, such as  търговец, пърст, etc. 

Serbian orthographic reform went one step further and simply dropped the ъ because the nature of the consonants forces you to pronounce them with a half sound in between, such as трговац,  eliminating one extra letter. 

In modern Russian, the hard sign is a vestige which could probably be completely eliminated  since words like съезд can probably be pronounced the same way without it (сезд) or by replacing it with a soft sign (сьезд), which is always involved in palatalization. Where it is normally used in Bulgarian, the Russian will follow the Western mode of inserting a vowel (such as an e) rather than the tvyordy znak (for example Bulg. Сърбия   Rus. Cepбия). 

Serbian is consistent when it comes to Serbian words, such as трг or прст,  but it is consistently inconsistent when it comes to transliterating foreign words. Sometimes they are transliterated by sound, and at other times letter by letter. Thus,  Tina Turner becomes Тина Тарнер (going back to Bulgarian ъ =  Latin a), rather than simply Тина Трнр or even Тина Трнер. 

You nailed it on the head when you said that пърст can be broken down into п-ъ-ъ-ъ-ъ-рст. It clearly shows that Serbian elimination of ъ is incorrect as far as phonetics are concerned. So, then if Кастър is the way to spell Custer, then Търнър is the way to spell Turner.

[annalex]

ъ is not a full vowel but a muted, nondescript half sound

Historically, it is. But in Bulgarian it evolved into a vowel, halfway between Latin "a" and English "i" (or, better, the Russian "ы").

To drop it altogether in Bulgarian would be extremely innatural, since there are plenty of words where that vowel is stressed.

In Russian, there is a three way phonetic difference between съезд, сел, сьел (all three are unrelated words, "council", "sat", "ate", in case someone without the knowledge of the languages involved still is following). I don't know if you are aware of it, but the difference is substantial to a Russian ear. The "ъ" in "съезд" has the task of, on one hand, indicating that "e" is gliding "je" (unlike "сел"), but "с" is still hard unlike in "сьел".

Unlike English, the Russian spelling wants to follow the sound, so I vote no on "сезд" -- it would be simply pronounced "sezzed".

[Zionist Conspirator]

Sluck? I didn’t even know there was a town named Sluck.

Coulda been worse.

[Zionist Conspirator]

It is pronounced Slootsk.

Well that's no fun!

[kosta50]

Historically, it is. But in Bulgarian it evolved into a vowel, halfway between Latin "a" and English "i" (or, better, the Russian "ы").

Unlike the Russians, the Serbs pronouce мы simply as ми. Up until 1868, they used to write Bы, была, etc. but the pronounciation of yeri was nonetheless indistinguishable from и.

Unlike English, the Russian spelling wants to follow the sound, so I vote no on "сезд" -- it would be simply pronounced "sezzed".

I will remember that. Thanks.

[annalex]

Tsk-tsk-tsk.

[annalex]

the pronounciation of yeri was nonetheless indistinguishable from и.

In Russian it is two different phonemes as well as letters. "И" sounds like regular French or Italian or any other Latin "I" (make a smile as you say it) and "Ы" -- like very deep closed English "I".

[Zionist Conspirator]

Tsk-tsk-tsk.

Hey, I'm grateful Muddy Waters (in Rollin' Stone) refers to his hometown as "Rollin' Foik."

[kosta50]

Unlike English, the Russian spelling wants to follow the sound, so I vote no on "сезд" -- it would be simply pronounced "sezzed"

I said I would take your word for it, but on the second thought, how would you pronounce сэзд? Isn't "e" in Russian always pronounced as ye except maybe after ж, or ш,щ, etc.?

[annalex]

oi.

[annalex]

Depending on dialectal differences, "E" in some positions is pronounced rather soft, like English "ye" in "yes", or harder, like the first "E" in "essence". "Э" indicates that the first is not a possibility.

There is a forever "controversy" how to say the "E" in "integral". Since the word is foreign, purists would insist on "интэграл", but the natural instinctive pronunciation would be softer.

However, Ъ and Ь have nothing to do with it! Glide your soft E all you want, you don't get anything but "сезд" without them.

There is no way to express that without talking.

Degrees of softness of E exist in English, comparing, for example, some Southern American accent with Northern or British. A Texan might say "I wyent to byed" or "Don't myess with Tyexas". Ъ and Ь denote the relationship between "С" and "Е" rather than "E" itself.

[kosta50]

Ok, thanks. I suppose Rusissan President Medvedev's name is a perfect example of what you were talking about. Shouldn't his name be transliterated as Medvyedev? Shouldn't Dostoevsky be transliterated as Dostoyevsky?

Interestingly, even in Serbia, Medvedev's name is spelled as Mедведев rather than Meвједев, but Dostoevsky's is spelled as Достојевски. Come to think of it, the J serves exactly the same function as съезд (after all it's old Slavonic name is Yer!). However, it's obviously not applied consistently.

But your explanation makes sense since even Serbian, which tries to stick to one-sound-one-letter rule, deviates in the same way Russian pronunciation of E does.

For example, in Serbian the word лук can be pronounced as a short vowel (onion) or a long vowel (bow). Of course, the context determines how it is pronounced, but that should not be the rule for a language that claims to be phonetic.

The same can be said for the "O" sound. For example the word вода (with the accent on "o", unlike in Russian) has a "short o" but the word кост (bone) has a "long o" like the Greek ω (omega), not quite a double letter but close.

Serbs use double letters only when they are pronounced as double letters, such as једнооки (one-eyed), or најјачи (the strongest), where both double letters are clearly pronounced and are distinctly different from long vowels.

Of course, the greatest variation exists in the letter ye/e  (yat). The eastern and northern Serbian pronounce the yat as a long E (eh), like the Macedonians and Bulgarians. The western dialects pronounce it as long ye/iye (in Bosnia & Montenegro, etc.). The so-called "Croatian" language is a western version of Serbian which the  Croatians accepted as their standard in 1850, so they too use the ye/iye.

But, unlike other vowel variations, the variations in yat are phonemically distinct, leading to two separate but equal orthographic standards for the same language, which is unheard of!

The letter yat was the unifying factor that made a single orthographic standard for both variations possible. Thus, instead of writing victory either as победа or побједа, it used to be spelled побѣда in both dialects, and pronounced accordingly.

But the linguists will argue that the length of a vowel does not require a different grapheme, and point to the fact that e and ye are two distinct sounds that require different spelling, unlike long and short vowels.

Another question I wanted to ask you was the letter Я. The Bolshevik orthographic reform did away with the Yat (Ѣ), which is really not well distinguished phonemically in Russian as it is in Serbian dialects.

In Russian, the Yat was sometimes replaced with an E and sometimes with a Я. The Я is however, not uniformly pronounced as Ya, but varies from Ya to E. I atteneded many Slavonic divine liturgies served by a Russain hieromonk Fr. Arkady and he would say Святий Боже distinctly as Свeтий Боже, pronouncing the O like a short E (the way Serbs do coloquially, but lituregically they say Svyaty Bozhe, which is a corruption brought into the Church in the 18th century, but I don't want to go into this now).

Can you tell me more about the various pronunciations of Я and if there is any rule when it is a Ya and when an E in Russian?

[ArrogantBustard]

1) Have you ever heard "Norfolk" (as in Virginia) pronounced by a native?

2) I seem to recall a Russian tennis player named "Maria Slutskaya". She's very pretty, but I never heard any derogatory allegations. I suppose the name may be related to the city.

[ArrogantBustard]

Sorry ... conflating Irina Slutskaya (ice skater) and Maria Sharapova (tennis player).

[Zionist Conspirator]

1) Have you ever heard "Norfolk" (as in Virginia) pronounced by a native?

Muddy Waters was born in Rolling Fork (I've been there).

2) I seem to recall a Russian tennis player named "Maria Slutskaya". She's very pretty, but I never heard any derogatory allegations. I suppose the name may be related to the city.

I was only funnin'.