# Great Leader



## Sup s kotom

I'm trying to translate Kim Il-sung's title, "Great Leader", into Russian for a teacher. My original attempt was "Великий Дождь", which I found on his Wikipedia page. However, a friend of the teacher's, a native Russian speaker, didn't think that "дождь" was the right word. Would "руководитель" or "лидер" be more appropriate, or is there a better term that I haven't thought of?


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## galaxy man

Sup s kotom said:


> ... My original attempt was "Великий Дождь", which I found on his Wikipedia  page. However, a friend of the teacher's, a native Russian speaker, didn't think that "дождь" was the right word. Would "руководитель" or "лидер" be more appropriate...?



Your teacher's friend is most likely right, considering that *д*ождь=rain, while *в*ождь=leader   Wikipedia, in fact, seems to be of the opinion that the official title of the North Korean politician is Великий руководитель.


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## Sup s kotom

Ugh, I'm really sorry about that idiotic typo. I've used the word "дождь" plenty of times before, so I unthinkingly switched it with "вождь". Thanks for pointing that out.


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## Sobakus

A dictator, or an autocratic political leader is indeed вождь. Lenin and Stalin were вождями, for example, so I think wikipedia's suggestion is perfect.


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## Maroseika

According to Russian traditional interpretation Ким Ир Сен (Kim Il-sung) is Великий Вождь and Ким Чен Ир (Kim Jong-il) *- *Любимый Руководитель and Великий Руководитель (after his father's death).


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## Ben Jamin

Maroseika said:


> According to Russian traditional interpretation Ким *Ир* Сен (Kim *Il*-sung) is Великий Вождь and Ким Чен Ир (Kim Jong-il) *- *Любимый Руководитель and Великий Руководитель (after his father's death).


 Why do the Russian trancription use R where the English has L?


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## Slavianophil

Ben Jamin said:


> Why do the Russian trancription use R where the English has L?


 
Well, as far as I know, in Korean 'R' and 'L' are one and the same phoneme. 

In any case Korean (as well as Japanese and Chinese) writing and phonetic systems are very different from those of both English and Russian, so any English or Russian transliteration or transcription is vastly different from the original.

I have read somewhere that no Korean would recognise his name in Russian transcription!


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## Maroseika

Ben Jamin said:


> Why do the Russian trancription use R where the English has L?


Korean ㄹ may represent l or r sound depending on the surrounding. 
Russian scientific translitaration system of Kontsevich, quite similar to the Latin-based one (in use since 1960),  interprets it as l' (Ким Ильсон), but for the popular texts there are 2 exceptions for Ким Ир Сен and Ким Чен Ир (instead of Ким Джонъиль).
Interestingly, the previous translitaration system of Kholodovich (1916) also did not provide r-sound for such cases. So it's really strange why we write these 2 names like this. Maybe this is the influence of Japan.


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## Tjahzi

Korean phonology is quite different from what we (speakers of Indo-European languages) are used to. 

I very much agree with Maroseika that the rendering of ㄹas /r/ could be a Japanese influence. (Japanese completely lacks /l/ whereas in Korean, ㄹis pronounced as /l/ in a final position (that is, as the last jamo of a word) and as /r/ between vowels. (It does not occur initially in native Korean words, but in loan words that it does, it's either silent or pronounced as /n/)).

I must say that I find it a bit surprising that Russian also prefers _е _over _ё_ in _чен_ as well. But since the form Ким Джонъиль transliteration exists as well, I suppose it's just a matter of tradition vs accuracy. 

My attempt of a transcription of 김정일 would be [kimdʑɔŋil], assuming one pronounce it as a single word.


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## Sup s kotom

Sobakus said:


> A dictator, or an autocratic political leader is indeed вождь. Lenin and Stalin were вождями, for example, so I think wikipedia's suggestion is perfect.



I though that Wikipedia's suggestion would probably be good, because a native speaker likely came up with it.

Спасибо большое за помощь.


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## morzh

After reading all that, the phrase "splitting hairs" comes to mind.
Do you think the teacher is really aware of all this and would even care?


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## Sup s kotom

morzh said:


> After reading all that, the phrase "splitting hairs" comes to mind.
> Do you think the teacher is really aware of all this and would even care?



Yes, he did ask how it would translate into Russian. I told him that there are multiple translations of the word "leader", so he suggested that I inquire about it with someone who speaks the language natively.


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## morzh

What I meant was all these excursions into Korean spelling and phonetics.

For the translation it is sufficient to look in couple of sources - any media, and maybe Wikipedia.
And then it is not even important if the titles may translate a bit different than some think they should - you want to translate in Russian, and there are commonly accepted results.

Commonly accepted names of both sons of a bitches are:

Ким Ир Сен
Ким Чен Ир.

Thereby 

Ким Ир Сен is "Великий вождь маршал товарищ Ким Ир Сен".
Ким Чен Ир is "Высший Руководитель". (as per Constitution Amendment from 2009).


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## Sup s kotom

morzh said:


> What I meant was all these excursions into Korean spelling and phonetics.
> 
> For the translation it is sufficient to look in couple of sources - any media, and maybe Wikipedia.
> And then it is not even important if the titles may translate a bit different than some think they should - you want to translate in Russian, and there are commonly accepted results.
> 
> Commonly accepted names of both sons of a bitches are:
> 
> Ким Ир Сен
> Ким Чен Ир.
> 
> Thereby
> 
> Ким Ир Сен is "Великий вождь маршал товарищ Ким Ир Сен".
> Ким Чен Ир is "Высший Руководитель". (as per Constitution Amendment from 2009).



I agree that the discussion about Korean phonetics and spelling is somewhat irrelevant, but I didn't anticipate it. All I needed to know was the most appropriate translation of Kim Il-sung's official title. There's probably more than one perfectly acceptable way to translate it, but for simplicity's sake I'll go with the Wikipedia translation.


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## Tjahzi

My apologies. I just happen to find phonology to be a very interesting subject and thought it wouldn't hurt, given the fact that we are dealing with the task of making a transcription. I'm sorry if anyone took offense...


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## morzh

There is nothing offensive in it, and you have nothing to apologize for - it is a good thing. Just in this case there was too much info for a simple question requiring a simple answer.


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## Sup s kotom

Tjahzi said:


> My apologies. I just happen to find phonology to be a very interesting subject and thought it wouldn't hurt, given the fact that we are dealing with the task of making a transcription. I'm sorry if anyone took offense...



Don't worry, it wasn't a problem. A little off-topic, but actually pretty interesting. I myself wondered why transcribing Korean names into other languages was so problematic.


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