Scriabin... Skrjabin? Skryabin? Scriabine? Скрябина? 斯克里亚宾? Skri.. Oh I give up!

Hi,

I was wondering... Scriabin has so many different spellings, it's crazy! I've seen everything from Scriabin to Skrjabin and from Skryabin to Skriabin!

How do you think it should be spelled?

I, for one, think it should be spelled "Скрябина" but that's just because it's what he wrote.

Scriabin.

Scriabine is a French variation.

Skryabin is a Germanic variation.

Skrjabin is a Romanised Russian equivalent.

Скрябина is Cyrillic and therefore not universal.

Similarly, I love how I have to look up Tchaikovsky in the Ch section of my library because they have it listed by its Russian equivalent, Čajkovskij.

Scriabin, Skriabin, Scriavin, Skriabin, Zcriabin, Zkriabin sound exactly the same for me...

But Scriabin is ok

What's the meaning of the chinese scrawls ? :D

I, for one, think it should be spelled "Скрябина" but that's just because it's what he wrote.

It's been years since I learned any Russian, but as far as I know the ending -а in Скрябина merely designates either genitive or accusative case. If he signed his scores with that, I assume it's meant as a genitive, meaning "by/of Scriabin". Just "Scriabin" alone would be Скрябин.

I'm for spelling it Scriabin. Using Cyrillic spelling just opens a huge can of worms as if we start doing that, we'd also have to start spelling names of Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. composers in their respective alphabets, which would in many cases be extremely impractical, since many (or rather most) people would have no clue how to pronounce all of these. So we'd better stick to transcriptions or transliterations in the first place. The choice between transcription and transliteration or a mixture is a much more difficult one. Transliterations are somewhat more universally applicable and aren't specific to the language of the speaker, but transcriptions are much more helpful to quickly get the proper pronunciation of a name across - so often an English-based transcription will be the most efficient choice - and this also seems to be the most popular choice.

Scriabin seems like a fine solution in this respect.

Scriabin.

Scriabine is a French variation.

Skryabin is a Germanic variation.

Skrjabin is a Romanised Russian equivalent.

Скрябина is Cyrillic and therefore not universal.

James post has a nasty implication. The alternate spellings he calls variations are no variations on the "universal" Scirabin. Scriabin is the name transliterated the English way. Just as the others are transliterated to the other languages.

So he implicates that English is the universal language. And one could argue about that ;)

I think it is not unfair to respect the original spelling. I have learned the Russian alphabet to know how to pronounce a name; or at least be able to guess who is mentioned.

Just to complicate things, here is how Scriabin's name would have appeared on his mummy wrappings in ancient Egypt:

LOL

James post has a nasty implication. The alternate spellings he calls variations are no variations on the "universal" Scirabin. Scriabin is the name transliterated the English way. Just as the others are transliterated to the other languages.

So he implicates that English is the universal language. And one could argue about that ;)

I think it is not unfair to respect the original spelling. I have learned the Russian alphabet to know how to pronounce a name; or at least be able to guess who is mentioned.

Well, yes, you have. But texts where a name is mentioned are usually written in a specific language. So it makes perfectly sense that you transcribe names that aren't originally written with latin letters to this language. It doesn't have anything to do with universal languages, if you spell it "Scriabin" in an English text, "Scrjabin" in a German one (although I strangely see Scriabin much more often in German, even though Scrjabin would make a lot more sense there), "Scriabine" in French or again differently in Arabic or Japanese.

agreed, I was only mocking James' (probably unintended) implication.

What? Scriabin. I've never seen the other spellings, except the Russian one. Another problem in writing names with their original alphabets is the encoding - lots of people won't be able to read it properly over the Internet and should switch encodings which is just insane, not to mention they would have no idea how to pronounce it.

Just to complicate things, here is how Scriabin's name would have appeared on his mummy wrappings in ancient Egypt:

That's pretty funny. It looks like he lost an arm and a leg though! And where's the cat? Egyptians ALWAYS had cats!

By the way, do you count the Scriabin Poems (Promethee and the Extasy) as Symphonies 4 & 5 ?

Scriabin did ?

It's been years since I learned any Russian, but as far as I know the ending -а in Скрябина merely designates either genitive or accusative case. If he signed his scores with that, I assume it's meant as a genitive, meaning "by/of Scriabin". Just "Scriabin" alone would be Скрябин.

Holy cow, Gardener, what don't you know?

I'm all for Scriabin. I'm also for Chaikovsky, though I grew up with Tchaikovsky. (Who needs that useless T?)

Egyptians ALWAYS had cats!

Preferably stuffed

just scriabin for us westeners!

Just to complicate things, here is how Scriabin's name would have appeared on his mummy wrappings in ancient Egypt:

Awesome.hope you don't mind if I amend it somewhat:

Transcription: s k rˁ b in

Signs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner%27s_sign_list): S29 V31 C1 D58 A27

This would not only be far more economical to write, but one of the signs also has religious symbolism specifically relevant to Scriabin: C1, rˁ, Middle Egyptian *riˁa, better known as Ra, the Sun God - here with the Uraeus, the holy snake that spits sun-like fire.

I'm pretty sure it's just Скрябин, not Скрябинa (that could hint it's feminine name if it ends in 'a' or 'я') like you have for some reason. Besides, how can you be more correct than the ORIGINAL Russian name?