Re: Russian o or Russian a

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At 12:38 PM 2/4/2006, you wrote:

Whether a name is KLASS or KLOSS may depend on the
scribe in both Russian and English, so always investigate both
spellings if your surname contains an a or an o. Russian metrical
records are written in script; they are not printed. The difference
between the script a and the script o should depend on where the
continuation line exits the circle. But scribes did not make these
careful distinctions. In a year's Tsarist-era metrical records
written by the same scribe, unless you already know the word,
you will be unable to distinguish the o from the a in 25% of the cases.
This is particularly true at the end of the word. So if looking for
SHAPIRO, be sure to check SHAPIRA.

I agree with Mr Lazerow that this could be an explanation if the difference originated in reading handwriting. In Russian school normative handwriting the script 'a' and 'o' are clearly differentiated, but to recognize this difference in individual writers and in the flow of script on the page can be a real challenge. I'd like to think that I could score better than 75%, but I might need to stare at the page of writing for an hour or two before taking up the challenge.
That pace is not even good enough for government work, as they say.
Jules Levin ---
Sender: Jules Levin <ameliede@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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