Hey people,
Just have a quick and simple(?) question, mostly directed to Russian speaking people (or other who knows the Russian language)
First of all, what is the character “ё” in the Russian language and is it even a character that has official status in the alphabet? The reason why I’m asking is when it comes to Russian music, 99,9% of the time a title includes this character, the actual album cover has the title written as “е”, but digitally in texts they refer to the character “ё”? Please help me understand this, let me give you an example “Моё сердце занято” check out the album cover, it say “Мое сердце занято”.
What is correct and what is not?
I understand both characters share the same sound(or is it?), but why does it differ between when it’s pressed on paper booklet vs digital release?
Let me take Swedish language to compare with, character “a” which basically is a standard “a”, and our special character “ä”, a and ä is not the same character and they don’t share the same sound or purpose, you can’t use them for the same words/purpose. Is it the same for the Russian ё/е or why are they using these ё/е for the same purpose but it depends on where it’s printed (on paper/digitally/etc)?
As I am not Russian speaking, I want to understand this and I’m not only seeking for a quick answer.
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As far as I understand from wikipedia the two are different and sound different, but “The fact that ⟨ё⟩ is frequently replaced with ⟨е⟩ in print often causes some confusion to both Russians and non-Russians, as it makes it more difficult for Russian words and names harder to be transcribed”
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I have investigated this and if I got this correct, the difference between ë [yo] and e [ye] is mostly in sound and in the status of the character. ë [yo] is a fairy “new” character that has an “optional” status in print/text, you can choose yourself to write ë in your text or to just replace this letter with a simple e (ë never reached mandatory status when it was introduced because the dots didn’t fit well in when writing Russian cursive), but you can’t ignore the sound (yo) when pronouncing it. People who talk Russian “will know” when to pronounce [ye] vs [yo]. Not very friendly thinking for non-Russian speakers.
So, in print and in texts, the use of ë is very optional. So, how do we go further with this in the MusicBrainz database? I have since today being so unsure about this, that I have always double checked the cover artwork (which 9 of 10 has replaced ë with e) but it doesn’t feel right to replace a letter with another for this purpose to store information like we do in MusicBrainz, on the other hand it might take some time to replace all the titles that “should” have the ë letter… Titles with e “is correct” in that matter if you follow Russian language rules with the “optional status” but what does it say in the style guideline for Russian language? Anyone from a Russian language area here to confirm or want to join the discussion?
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well this is a real problem even for russians. there’s kind of “war” about what’s right.
“ё” in the literature or in the written language is not always welcome it has a oldfashioned / redneckish image. As far as I know, there’s still a dispute about this.
Using “е” is more elegant, but make it hard to read if you’re not native
Sorry - I know not very usefull. But that’s the current state.
I’ve just checked the russian iTunes store, well it’s not very helpfull. Same situation.
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