# h > Russian х or г



## Gavril

Foreign words or names containing the sound "h" seem to be rendered in Russian with either or *х *or *г*. For example, "hockey" has been rendered as *х*оккей_, _but "hamburger" as *г*амбургер. Is there a clear pattern to which of these two sounds is used for replacing "h"?

Thanks for any info


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## Budspok

There’s no clear pattern that I know of. 

For example: the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl is Гельмут Коль, 
however, Latvian ice-hockey player Helmut Baldaris is Хельмут Балдарис…


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## ahvalj

Yes, there is. There was never a h-sound in the proper Russian, but the influence of the Ukrainian church tradition in the 17th century brought the fashion to pronounce the letter "г" in the church texts as the Ukrainian "h", so that in the following couple of centuries the letter "г" could stand for both sounds and, in particular, used for foreign "h" as well as "g". With time, this double pronunciation disappeared, now preserved only in the pronunciation of the word "бог" as "бох", and this change of every "г" back to "g" affected the borrowings. Since the pattern was already established, new words kept being borrowed with "g", e. g. Гитлер, Гиммлер, even Гюго, where "h" is purely orthographical. However, since some moment in the 20th century, a tendency to use "х" in newer borrowings started to emerge, so that now we have "х" as a default, while keeping "г" in almost all the words borrowed in the past.

Latvian "h" is pronounced like the Russian "х", therefore "Хелмутс", or "Хельмутс" in a strange hybrid Latvian-German mix.

The Greek "h" is omitted in older borrowings since it disappeared in the Byzantine period, but is otherwise rendered as "г", except for words obtained through other languages, like the monstruous "холокост" (must be "голокауст" like "голография" and "каустик").


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## Dendr

There's no actual pattern. All variations (for any debatable cases, such as "h"="*х*/*г*", "w"="*в*/*у*" etc.) depend on the origin of the word and the period of time, when it was loaned.

The word "_hockey_" came to Russia in the end of XIX century. At this time speaking English was very popular (as well as German and French, you could see it in "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoi), that's why all transliterating of loaned words was as close to the original pronunciation as possible. In hockey's case it was English, so it's "_*х*оккЕй_".

On the other hand, the word "_hamburger_" came to Russia only in the end of XX century (I suppose, but am not sure). It means that it should start from the "*х*". But here's a big difference! The "original origin" of this word is the name of the German city _Hamburg_. This word was brought to Russia in the end of XVII century by Peter I the Great who preferred to speak Dutch himself and made others to do the same. 
Now. In Dutch, "h" is much more voiced than in English, and for Russian ear sounds closer to "*г*". Since then this rule works for almost all proper nouns (names). Hence _Hamburg_ became _*Г*Амбург_, _Hans _became _*Г*анс,_ even _Harry_ became _*Г*Арри _and _Hawaii_ became _*Г*авАйи_. I can't recall any exception for this.
As the result, "_hamburger_"="_*г*Амбургер_".

*General conclusion.
*If you see the word which starts with "h" and you know that it is somebody's name or name of some place (or it came from one of them), it's more likely transferring into "*г*" in Russian. If not, use "*х*".


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## ahvalj

Хокинг, Харрингтон, Хольцбах, де Хооп Схеффер, Херман ван Ромпёй, Хайек, Хепбёрн, Хадсон, Хоффман, Хэнкс, Хонеккер, Хайнлайн, Хаббл, Хиггс, Хаксли, Хэмингуэй, Хилтон, Хичкок, Холмс, Хьюстон


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## learnerr

ahvalj said:


> Хаксли


Олдос Хаксли. And his grandfather Томас Гексли.


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## ahvalj

This "h" was part of a learned pronunciation, like the residual nasalization or "zh" etc. in some recent English borrowings from French ("genre", "fiancé"). As time passes, the language normalizes those artificialities. This "h" existed for a couple of centuries in the pronunciation of educated people, and therefore was used to convey the foreign "h". The new generations of speakers got rid of this Ukrainian-influenced "h", which unexpectedly affected the borrowings as well.


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## ahvalj

learnerr said:


> Олдос Хаксли. And his grandfather Томас Гексли.


Or Гудзон but миссис Хадсон.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Yes, there is. There was never a h-sound in the proper Russian


Define "proper Russian". 
If we are speaking about the literary language, then yes, in the XVIII century there WAS a voiced h-like sound (mostly in Church Slavonic loanwords), which was phonemically opposed to the plosive [g].


			
				М.В.Ломоносов said:
			
		

> Бугристы берега, благоприятны влаги,
> О горы с гроздами,  где греет юг ягнят,
> О грады, где торги, где мозгокружны браги,
> И деньги, и гостей,  и годы их губят.
> Драгие ангелы, пригожие богини,
> Бегущие всегда от  гадкия гордыни,
> Пугливы голуби из мягкого гнезда,
> Угодность с негою, огромные чертоги,
> Недуги наглые и гнусные остроги,
> Богатство, нагота, слуги и господа.
> Угрюмы взглядами, игрени, пеги, смуглы,
> Багровые глаза, продолговаты, круглы,
> И кто  горазд гадать  и лгать, да не мигать,
> Играть, гулять, рыгать и ногти огрызать,
> Ногаи, болгары, гуроны, геты, гунны,
> Тугие головы, о иготи чугунны,
> Гневливые враги и гладкословный друг,
> Толпыги, щеголи, когда вам есть досуг.
> От вас совета жду, я вам даю на волю:
> Скажите, где быть га и где стоять глаголю?


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## ahvalj

Well, strictly speaking there was never any h-sound across the entire Russian language area with all its registers, except in the interjections «ага», «ого», «угу» and probably in some remote past in the formant he- (Russian это, Belarusian гэта). Otherwise, in the southern dialects there is a fricative γ, present in the literary language in the word «бухгалтер» and its derivatives, and I guess this was the pronunciation of «г» in the Ukrainian-influenced Church Slavonic as well as in the borrowings. Not sure if it ever developed into a phonemic opposition with the proper g.

Update. There are strictly speaking no Church Slavonic loanwords, it was a higher register of the Russian language since the beginning of the Christianity on these lands. That the Church Slavonic had a Balkanic origin was forgotten for many centuries and was only rediscovered in the last third of the 19th century.



			
				В. С. Соловьёв said:
			
		

> Горизонты вертикальные
> В шоколадных небесах,
> Как мечты полузеркальные
> В лавровишневых лесах.
> 
> Призрак льдины огнедышащей
> В ярком сумраке погас,
> И стоит меня не слышащий
> Гиацинтовый Пегас.
> 
> Мандрагоры имманентные
> Зашуршали в камышах,
> А шершаво-декадентные
> Вирши в вянущих ушах.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Update. There are strictly speaking no Church Slavonic loanwords, it was a higher register of the Russian language since the beginning of the Christianity on these lands.


The Church Slavonic _as a whole_ was a higher register of the Russian language? Well, I'd call it a huge exaggeration. Consider the differences in grammar at least. And while the Church Slavonic of X-XII centuries still could be called, at a stretch, the same language as Old Russian, for the next centuries it isn't so already, even despite the influence continued.


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## ahvalj

The foreign language is a language perceived as such. While the Church Slavonic in the, say, 17th century was obviously not the same idiom as the one used in the everyday speech, it was the only medium to convey the higher style, like e. g. for a dialect speaker of German it was the literary German in the 19th century. Of course, there is no strict boundary, and there are occasions when it is convenient to regard the two languages as two registers of the same idiom, and those when they are better treated as different languages. What I want to say is that the Church Slavonic elements in Russian are not borrowings in the same sense as the words taken from any other language.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

_npubem_, ahvalj.

I was impressed by one of your statements:

"_...like the residual nasalization or "zh" etc. in some recent English borrowings from French ("genre", "fiancé")._"

My impression is that.

1. in the French — and in the French-influenced English — pronunciation of "genre", the nasalization affects not the first consonant (/ʒ/), but rather the following "e(n)"(/ã/);

2. Neither in the original French nor in the French-influenced English loanword "fiancé" do we have the sound /ʒ/. What we do have is a nasalization of "a(n)" (/ã/).

What's your impression?

GS


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## ahvalj

_…the residual nasalization _(genre, fiancé) _*or* "zh" _(genre)…
Hopefully, it is clearer now.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

So sorry, ahvalj: I read "or" but I thought of "of".

Best.

GS


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## ahvalj

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> So sorry, ahvalj: I read "or" but I thought of "of".
> 
> Best.
> 
> GS


,-)


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## amazingenough

Gavril said:


> Is there a clear pattern to which of these two sounds is used for replacing "h"?
> 
> Thanks for any info



As far as i know there is no pattern but i`ve got the impression that in these cases we aspire to repeat the original sound especially if it fits well our own sound system which doesn`t happen always however. Generally it`s pretty random and diverse especially with names. For example, there are loads of people who will say "Гельмут" but many will say "Хельмут".


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## Gavril

Thanks for all the answers so far!

So would it be fair to say that when Russian speakers substitute "*г*" for foreign "h", it's not because they mishear the sound "h" as "g", but because they are following an existing pattern seen in other words (perhaps originally due to the change of _g > h _in Ukrainian)?


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> Thanks for all the answers so far!
> 
> So would it be fair to say that when Russian speakers substitute "*г*" for foreign "h", it's not because they mishear the sound "h" as "g", but because they are following an existing pattern seen in other words (perhaps originally due to the change of _g > h _in Ukrainian)?


Exactly.


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## learnerr

Gavril said:


> So would it be fair to say that when Russian speakers substitute "*г*" for foreign "h", it's not because they mishear "h" as "g", but because they are following an existing pattern seen in other words (perhaps originally due to the change of _g > h _in Ukrainian)?


Actually, I don't think we hear that much of foreign talking… So, no mishearing at all here. We borrow written words and then deal with them how it turns to be convenient: by virtue of our alphabet, we need first to find a good spelling, to which corresponds a convenient pronunciation, and follow it in talking.


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## franknagy

[QUOTE Dendr]There's no actual pattern. All variations (for any debatable cases, such as "h"="*х*/*г*", "w"="*в*/*у*" etc.) depend on the origin of the word and the period of time, when it was loaned.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with Dendr that the transcription of "h" and "w" depends *on time an on mediating language.*
It is true in reverse direction, too.
A living person named "Строго*в*" would write on his family on his mailbox in Hungary either in English spelling "Strogov" or in Hungarian "Sztrogov" but the J. Verne's Russian hero "Михаил Строго*в*" was written in the French original as "Michel Strogoff" and it has been used in the Hungarian editions as "Sztrogoff Mihály".  

The Hungarian word "unoka" means "внук"  but the village of the airport near Moscow "Внуково" is written as "Vnukovo".

The transcription of Russian *х *is changed from the 19th century when "ch" was used from German influence to the present "h": Астрахань-> Asztrachan | Asztrahány.


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## ahvalj

There is a subtle difference between your examples and the topic we have been discussing: your examples concern the orthography, while h>г/х concerns the actual pronunciation.

Hungarian "unoka" reflects the development vъ->u- characteristic of the Serbo-Croatian ("unuk") and possibly also of the assimilated Slavic Pannonian dialects, but unknown in Russian that has a straightforward vъ->v- (or vo- before some consonant clusters and in a number of Church Slavonic words).


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## bibax

In Czech we have a common word - *chuligán, chuligánství* (хулиган, хулиганство). Although it is a word of English origin, we pronounce it with [x] (and not [ɦ] like in hokej) as it is a borrowing from Russian (for me an archetype of chuligán is the Wolf in _Nu, pogodi_ and větroplach/ветрогон in _Dunno in Sun City)._


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