Roman Mykulchyk

Technical Committee for Scientific and Technical Terminology Standardization,

L'viv Polytechnic National University

THE ISSUE OF UKRAINIAN PHYSICAL EPONYMIC TERMS SPELLING

© Mykulchyk R. B., 2017

The paper deals with orthography problems of foreign surnames and derivative terms in Ukrainian language. The ways of those problems solution are proposed.

Keywords: Ukrainian language, orthography, eponym, name, terminology, physics.

There was a stormy debate around Ukrainian orthography in the late 1990s. Three main positions concerning orthography were formed. The first position is supported by scientists, who prefer the current orthography edition of 1993.  Another group of scholars advocated a return to the orthography of 1928 (the so-called Kharkiv orthography or "skrypnykivka"). The third group of researchers supports "Ukrainian orthography. The newest edition", developed under supervision of V. V. Nimchuk in 1998.

Transliteration of foreign proper names, including surnames, by the means of Ukrainian language is a very important issue. There are two approaches to foreign proper names writing: traditional and phonetic. The supporters of the traditional approach suggest writing foreign names "as usuall", based on current Ukrainian orthography. The followers of phonetic way consider it necessary to write the name as it is pronounced in the source language.

The problem of transferring various parts of names with the same spelling as in the source language goes beyond the bounds of physical terminology and is common. On the basis of analysed samples we can state that eponyms of physical terminology are characterized by variable spelling of names and their components within terms.

On the basis of analysed samples we can state that eponyms of physical terminology are characterised by the variability of spelling names and their derivatives as parts of terms.

Ukrainian physical terminology as well as Ukrainian orthography in general have a number of problems with the spelling of foreign names and their derivatives. In our opinion, the only way to solve these problems might be a combination of Ukrainian spelling phonetic principle and world-recognized principle: the name and its derivatives are written in the same way.

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