Conveying of proper names from English into Ukrainian and vice versa.

There are no finally established rules yet as to how different kinds and types of English proper names should be translated into Ukrainian, though Ukrainian proper names of people and family names are mostly conveyed on the basis of their phonemic/orthographic structure, i.e., are transliterated in English. E.g.: Антоніна Antonina; Віра Vira;

Far from all Ukrainian proper names can be conveyed by way of literal translating, however. This is because some of our vowels and consonants have no equivalent sounds/phonemes in English and must be substituted for approximately similar sounds. Ukraine as a newly independent state makes efforts to get rid of her former colonial past. One of the ways to assure this internation­ally was the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the Romanization System which enabled the conveying of our personal names, family names (onomastics) and also all Ukrainian geographical names (toponymy) in accordance with some rules.

The adopted Romanization System will also serve well as an aid to correct pronunciation of Ukrainian proper names by the foreigners, capable of reading the Roman letters, which more or less correctly convey the sounding forms of any Ukrainian name. The adopted Romanization System is internally consistent and based on sound lin­guistic principles. It is to be strictly observed by the students of foreign languages and the people responsible for its absolute implementation in this country and abroad.

As to the Ukrainian consonant phonemes, which have no direct equivalents in the English language, they can mostly be conveyed through analogous English sounds, sometimes formed by different letter combinations. Thus, the Ukrainian /r/ sound is to be conveyed through the similar though not identical voiceless English /h/ phoneme: Гаврило Havrylo, Григір Hryhir, Гайдай Haydai, Григораш Hryhorash, Громак Hromak, Гмиря Hmyrya. This sound is also observed in such nouns/proper names as hobby гоббі, maharajah магараджа, Hyderabad Гайдерабад, Huxley Гакслі, etc.

The methods of conveying English vowels in Ukrainian are also different. The choice of them and the sphere of their use may be pre­determined by some lingual as well as extralingual factors. These are as follows: a) the position of the phoneme in the English word/proper name; b) the environment of the phoneme; c) the origin of the proper name; d) the tradition (if any) of conveying the name in Ukrainian, when the name is common in the two languages.

The students must bear it in mind that some geographical names have in English their historically established forms/variants too: Кольський півострів Kola Peninsula, Ладозьке озеро Ladoga, Онезьке озеро Onega, Мала Азія Asia Minor, Середня Азія Central Asia, Неаполь (It. Napoli) Naples, Hebrides Гібриди/Гібридські острови (also Western Isles), etc.

Ukrainian geographical names should be translated into English as close to their source language form as possible unless other of their forms are historically or traditionally established.

Many English place names, along with other geographical and proper names, are conveyed in Ukrainian partly with the help of transcription and partly via transliteration. This can be observed in the two-syllable names in the examples below.

A few geographical names and some proper names of people have a traditionally established orthographical form which does not reflect in any way their pronunciation or their real orthographic form in the English language: the Arctic Ocean Північний Льодовитий океан; Maine Мен (штат США); Mexico Мехіко; New Orleans Новий Орлеан; Ulster Ольстер; Texas Texac (штат США), Lake Superior Озеро Верхнє.

Names of seas, oceans, bays, archipelagos, isthmuses, straits, channels, administrative territories and compound names of countries having the structure of word-combinations are always translated: