Help with Russian/Cyrillic text and design! A Clockwork Orange question!

[theclaud]

OK this is going to be an obscure question, or rather a series of obscure related questions. I need help from someone who speaks both English and preferably Russian, but in any case someone who can read the Cyrillic alphabet. Oh, and graphic designers, who might see my problem.

I want to use a combination of English and Cyrillic text on a poster. The Cyrillic is mainly for graphic design effect/connotation, but because it's about Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and is concerned with his linguistic interests, it matters a lot that it doesn't look weird, silly, or plain incomprehensible to, say, a Russian speaker. On the other hand, it is mainly to be seen/read/understood by English-speakers with no knowledge of Cyrillic at all, so it would be better for the purposes of the poster if the text rendered in Cyrillic could be at least partly recognisable (if only from context) to such a reader.

For the latter reason I've had my designer play with straight transliteration from Latin to Cyrillic of both the title and some of the Nadsat words. With the title this gives me:

а цлоцкьорк оранге

which looks very nice and is recognisable, but how does it read if you can read it, if you see what I mean? One alternative is to use a Russian translation:

Заводной апельсин

which hopefully makes more sense to a Russian speaker, but from an English and graphical point of view it's lost me an indefinite article, and gives me no clues about what it means.

The Nadsat words introduce another level of complication altogether, being Russian-derived but existing in Latin, if you see what I mean. So what is the effect if I pop a word like "bezoomny" through the transliterator and end up with безоомны? If I check out a concordance, I get the word origin as безумный, which I could use, but then that's just Russian, not Nadsat.

What do I do?

As you can see, I have very high expectations of the brilliance and boffinry of Cyclechatters.

 

[Theseus]

I fall far below your expectations. It's all Greek to me.

 

[Archie_tect]

TC, I can't see how someone who can't read Russian would be able to recognise any adaptation of Cyrillic so I'd go with the direct Russian translation with the added 'a' in cyrillic for completeness as the visual effect will be the same for the English speaker, on the understanding that a Russian who sees your poster could appreciate what you wanted them to know as it will then make perfect sense to them too.

You could then include the Russian text explaining everything about your publication in Cyrillic as a coded message on a faded ticker-tape running behind the English banner?

 

[dmoan]

I like the first one, but running it through google translate gives 'and tslotskork Orang', which is Klingon, if I'm not mistaken...

 

[theclaud]

TC, I can't see how someone who can't read Russian would be able to recognise any adaptation of Cyrillic so I'd go with the direct Russian translation with the added 'a' in cyrillic for completeness as the visual effect will be the same for the English speaker, on the understanding that a Russian who sees your poster could appreciate what you wanted them to know as it will then make perfect sense to them too.

You could then include the Russian text explaining everything about your publication in Cyrillic as a coded message on a faded ticker-tape running behind the English banner?

I'm not sure I'm being clear. The title will appear in both English and Cyrillic, but it is an English-language poster with Cyrillic for effect, not a bilingual poster. Hypothetical Russian readers are incidental. However, I don't want the Cyrillic to be meaningless or random, like some unknown slogan you might get on a t-shirt at TK Maxx, because that would be doing a disservice to Burgess and the novel. I am not normally overly concerned about authorial intentions, but as it's specifically a production designed to revisit the things that are interesting about the text, where the popular consciousness is dominated by the film, I don't want to set him a-spinning in his grave...

 

[theclaud]

I like the first one, but running it through google translate gives 'and tslotskork Orang', which is Klingon, if I'm not mistaken...

Running anything through Google translate results in Klingon, in my experience...

 

[DTD]

Could you use a cyrillic looking font such as Eastern Bloc?

 

[SportMonkey]

Cyrillic is Bulgarian, they happily read Latin script and Cyrillic, as do most countries who use a Cyrillic alphabet. You quite easily become able to switch between the two.

The answer is therefore the first one, I can read it as is nicely too

 

[Archie_tect]

I'm not sure I'm being clear. The title will appear in both English and Cyrillic, but it is an English-language poster with Cyrillic for effect, not a bilingual poster. Hypothetical Russian readers are incidental. However, I don't want the Cyrillic to be meaningless or random, like some unknown slogan you might get on a t-shirt at TK Maxx, because that would be doing a disservice to Burgess and the novel. I am not normally overly concerned about authorial intentions, but as it's specifically a production designed to revisit the things that are interesting about the text, where the popular consciousness is dominated by the film, I don't want to set him a-spinning in his grave...

Definitely go with the literal Russian translation as a shadow or a reflection below the English text so people connect the two.

 

[User482]

Right, here's Mrs R's advice:

The transliteration gives you something like a tslotskork oranga, with oranga pronounced as in "orangutan". There's no "w" sound in Russian.

The closest transliteration might be а клокьорк оранже which gives "a clockork oranzhe", with the "zhe" as in the "su" in pleasure.


She thinks that the google translation is "clockwork orange" but isn't sure if the gender agreement is correct.

She does point out that her Russian is somewhat rusty.

Na Sdorovye!

 

[Slim]

Go with the correct Russian translation.

I can read Greek fairly well. I once came across a situation where, to make a publication title look "clever" Greek characters had been used. The thing was, they had used capital Sigmas (which make an S sound) to replace the English letter E. They also used the character "P" (which, in Greek is the letter Ro and makes an "R" sound). I really couldn't figure out what the title was and had to have someone else explain it to me.

When I see Greek characters I look for Greek words,

 

[Aperitif]

It's the 'dog's nads' at least!

 

[theclaud]

Right, here's Mrs R's advice:

The transliteration gives you something like a tslotskork oranga, with oranga pronounced as in "orangutan". There's no "w" sound in Russian.

The closest transliteration might be а клокьорк оранже which gives "a clockork oranzhe", with the "zhe" as in the "su" in pleasure.


She thinks that the google translation is "clockwork orange" but isn't sure if the gender agreement is correct.

She does point out that her Russian is somewhat rusty.

Na Sdorovye!

Interesting! In that case I don't think we can use the transliteration. I'll use the Russian I think, but I am a bit disappointed it doesn't mirror the English/Latin visually. My Russian translation of the title isn't from Google or anything - it's from a Russian edition of the novel. But what happens to the indefinite article? Is it just implied, or is it contained in the form of the other words?

I ran my Russian title (with its transliteration of Burgess's name) back into English/Latin, and the indefinite article played hide and seek. So if I translate Энтони Берджес. Заводной апельсин, I get Anthony Berdzhes. A clockwork orange. But if I just translate Заводной апельсин, I get Clockwork orange, without the article. Where has it gone?

 

[theclaud]

Go with the correct Russian translation.

I can read Greek fairly well. I once came across a situation where, to make a publication title look "clever" Greek characters had been used. The thing was, they had used capital Sigmas (which make an S sound) to replace the English letter E. They also used the character "P" (which, in Greek is the letter Ro and makes an "R" sound). I really couldn't figure out what the title was and had to have someone else explain it to me.

When I see Greek characters I look for Greek words,

Thanks - that's useful.

 

[theclaud]

Could you use a cyrillic looking font such as Eastern Bloc?

There are some good ones, but for various reasons I need to use particular fonts, and I don't want a font frenzy because we're aiming for something rather minimalist.