Happy Halloween and Samhain

[frameacloud]

Comic for Monday, October 30, 2006.


No, it's not about therianthropes or otherkin; this one is somewhat off-topic, although festive. Anyone who looked at the cartoon and is still wondering "who?" then refer to the Wikipedia article about Samhain. It's a Celtic holiday corresponding to Halloween and a modern version of it is celebrated by Wiccans and some Pagans. It's actually pronounced more like "sow-in" or "sa-vin," but the common joke is that newbie Wiccans/Pagans tend to pronounce it the way it's written.

Comments

[irbisgreif.livejournal.com]

sometimes it has to do with trying to represent sounds we don't have in English, or representing letter constructions we don't use.

For example, in German the letters 'st' will sound like 'sht', but in German transliteration, they are often left as st.

For example:

Erst (First) -> Airst / Airsht

Or, it's used to maintain some system. For example, writing tu instead of tsu when transliterating the Japanese symbols つ and ツ. Which are analogous to the symbols た and タ, which stand for ta (NOT tsa).

This is also why Russian Ю, Е, И, Ё, Ю are translated as yu, ye, yi, yo, yu or ju, je, ji, jo, ju in some systems. The 'y' and 'j' aren't really there, but indicate that the vowel is 'soft' in the Russian sense (palatalized).