Talk:Faux Cyrillic

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I have added a section describing a sort of opposite practice -- using Latin letters (plus a few numbers) to write Russian words in readable Cyrillic, as for example on automobile "vanity tags." Also, I do have available two example photos that I've taken recently, but I'm not sure about the privacy issues involved in uploading photos of a stranger's license plate (although I've already Photoshopped out such identifying details as the issuing U.S. state, and have cropped out the car maker's logos, etc.)Throbert McGee 00:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe someone can give some examples of practice? TETЯIS, дmeЯIкаи would be some, right? --Abdull 10:03, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just saw 7НΣ НUИГ FОЯ RΣD ОСТОВΣЯ on SpikeTV. It manages to combine three alphabets, plus it has something like a backwards 'Г' in place of the 'T' in 'the'. When I saw that, I was stunned...Xyzzyva 18:15, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

I have the DVD of the Hunt for the Red October, and on the introduction (after the boat sails away, and the black screen appears with the title), I can confirm that the title appears in perfect Russian, and then the fonts "swipe/turn" (some kind of cool "morph-like" effect, to the correct title in English (roman alphabet). --Pinnecco 00:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 In Comic Books 2 Band typography 3 S or I 4 Other alphabets 5 List of examples of faux Cyrillic 6 Meta-Faux Cyrillic? 7 What about Toys "я" Us? 8 Health warning? 9 Requested move 9.1 Survey 9.1.1 Survey - in support of the move 9.1.2 Survey - in opposition to the move 9.2 Discussion 10 Licence plates 11 Phonetics 12 WP:MOS

[edit] In Comic Books

In issues of The Flash from the late 1980s, faux Cyrillic in dialog ballons was used to indicate that the character was speaking in Russian. (Similarly, they used English letters styled to look like kanji to indicate Chinese.) This might bear mentioning in this article. 207.31.229.4 20:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Band typography

Isn't it a stretch to say that KoRn and NIN use faux Cyrillic? They seem to merely be typographic tricks that happen to look like some Cyrillic characters, but these bands don't use this elsewhere, or refer to Slavic or Soviet imagery (I'm not closely familiar, so correct me if I'm wrong). —Michael Z. 2005-07-26 14:57 Z

That will be in contrary of the true intentions of KoRn and NIN I supposed, and cannot be considered as faux cyrillic, just as diaeresis is used in certain rock bands and still not associating with places or languages that used diaeresis, such as French and German. Slivester 15:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The bands aren't using them as faux cyrillic, but people on the internet are using the cyrillic unicode characters to create the mirror image, so it's still faux cyrillic in terms of unicode internet use. 67.5.159.38 03:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would say not. Faux Cyrillic is a designer's technique of expression, not a technical function of Unicode code points. —Michael Z. 2006-11-03 17:27 Z

Just to be a nit-picker, a diaresis and an umlaut (mark) are not the same thing, even though they look quite similar. :) -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 13:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the same is also true for Linkin Park; I have removed them from the examples list.--Wasabe3543 11:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] S or I

I'm trying to think of if any of these can be used in User:Georgia guy/Seth Ilys impersonations but there appears to be no letter that is used for an S or an I. Anyone prove me wrong?? Georgia guy 02:21, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ukrainian I and Yi (І, і; Ї, ї) can be Cyrillic substitutes for the Latin I, and I see you've already found the Cyrillic Dze (Ѕ, ѕ). —Michael Z. 2005-11-13 04:58 Z

[edit] Other alphabets

What about other kind of faux such as with Hebrew (I saw some similar jokes with Hebrew on the Simpsons) and Greek (My Big Fat Greek Weding) --Pinnecco 00:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

And Chinese restaurant menu fonts. —Michael Z. 2005-12-11 01:01 Z

I've seen it done with Japanese. -Litefantastic 00:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I've looked around for a good term for the general phenomenon, and the best thing I've found is foreign look font. Anyone interested in starting a new article or just making this article more general in scope?--Pharos 20:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

A new article is a better idea, because this one is not about a style of decorative font, but rather about the repurposing of letters from one script into another similar one.

I think "foreign-look font" is a clearer title, as "foreign" is not obviously an adverb. One might see the name in isolation and wonder what is a "look font", and what about the "domestic look fonts"?

And please be cautious and rely on good references, because many fonts may appear to be representative of something they're really not. For example, I've seen Papyrus font being used for the look of everything from Middle Eastern to Chinese or Japanese, when it was simply intended by its designer to have an ancient appearance. —Michael Z. 2007-07-10 00:51 Z

[edit] List of examples of faux Cyrillic

Let's keep two or three good examples, and remove the rest of this bit-dump. —Michael Z. 2006-02-08 18:58 Z

[edit] Meta-Faux Cyrillic?

Is the messed up spelling of the film "Night Watch" a true example of faux Cyrillic? My impression was that faux Cyrillic was used primarily to give a Russian feel to languages that don't use the Cyrillic alphabet. Since this is a faux Cyrillic spelling of the English way of spelling the Russian title, it seems like it might not qualify as bona fide faux Cyrillic. The only alternative name for this type of spelling that I can come with would be something like "meta-faux Cyrillic." I realize I'm asking for a strict definition of a made-up concept, but it's fun as an exercise in pilpul. Plus, that spelling makes my brain hurt. Did the film's producers think that would have any meaning to anyone? Sparkyfry 16:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It's the romanized Latin spelling "NOCHNOI dOZOR", but rendered with Cyrillic-looking type: an example of faux Cyrillic. —Michael Z. 2006-06-29 21:24 Z

[edit] What about Toys "я" Us?

My most-hated use of Faux Cyrillic Rachel Pearce 12:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Please read the talk page and the article. That is an imitation of a child's mirror-image writing. It in no way tries to imply an Eastern European heritage for toys. —Michael Z. 2006-08-14 13:13 Z

Oops! Sorry. I never knew that about Toys я Us. I will still call it Toys Ya Us though. Rachel Pearce 13:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Me too. —Michael Z. 2006-11-03 17:28 Z

[edit] Health warning?

A health warning on some of the articles may be in order; viewing faux Cyrillic text causes me to experience dizziness and nausea. Looking at a page full of it is pretty bad, especially when not actively trying to avoid parsing it. My first language is Bulgarian. I don't know if there is any research into this effect but it's very real. It seems to be similar to the effect of flashing images in bright colours. Krum Stanoev 12:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Where do you find pages full of it? —Michael Z. 2006-12-15 17:07 Z

I meant specifically this one: List_of_examples_of_faux_Cyrillic_typography The way normal English text and faux Cyrillic English alternates is particularly bad. Krum Stanoev 22:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough for that page. Perhaps it can be cleaned up by starting each line with an example of faux-Cyrillic text, followed by the description. —Michael Z. 2006-12-16 00:32 Z

It read a lot easier now than it did last year! Thanks to everyone :) Krum Stanoev (talk) 14:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, I know this effect just too good. My first language is Russian and I instinctively read the faux Cyrillic as true one - then comes a natural wtf?-reaction from the brain and then the nausea. It takes a long time and quite some patience to read a short line in it even if I know it's faux. Interesting to know I'm not alone.:) 84.167.197.48 15:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

yep, same here Dunkelfalke 22:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Licence plates

The stuff about licence plates is entertaining, and perhaps it is related to informal romanizations of Russian, but it has nothing to do with graphic design or typography. —Michael Z. 2007-06-18 14:21 Z

I've removed a lot of random but only slightly related material. The Paul McCartney album title is simply in Russian, not some form of reverse faux Latin. The licence plate material may warrant its own article if it can be adequately sourced, but it is a pop-culture phenomenon, and not a graphic-design practice. Please note the articles Russian Chat Alphabet, Translit, Volapuk encoding, and Informal romanizations of Russian, which are related topics (and possibly should be merged). —Michael Z. 2007-06-18 15:01 Z

Chochopk, please don't revert without responding in talk. I think I've explained why the material I removed was irrelevant to this article, or simply factually incorrect. If I'm wrong, please discuss instead of reverting. —Michael Z. 2007-06-19 06:09 Z

Perhaps the "Real" Cyrillic written with Latin typefaces material could go in the Volapuk encoding article, as an example of usage? --catslash 08:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetics

-- The phonetic example for pronouncing for В (Ve) is vase, this is ambigous as it doesnt clarify whether it means British English or American English (vah-se or vay-se), should there not be a different example maybe? BritBoy (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It's the Cyrillic equivalent of the Latin consonant 'V'. I don't think it matters which vowel follows it in the example - but feel free to pick an alternative (van perhaps?). --catslash (talk) 18:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MOS

MOS says to use consistency throughout Wikipedia with the spelling of words. Toys "R" Us and Korn are the actual names of the articles, if you want to change it to the typeset, change the context of the article to say: Korn (typeset as KoЯn). Making the legitimate link to the article a redirect because of the typeset is unacceptable. — Κaiba 23:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.

Please note that Toys "R" Us does not use a letter ya, implying that children worldwide have Eastern European characteristics, and Nine inch Nails does not use a Cyrillic i. These are simply reversed Latin letters, which have no etymological or scribal relationship to the similar Cyrillic letters (Latin N n is related to Cyrillic Н н, through Greek Η ν). Although the Latin typographic forms have influenced the Cyrillic, these look-alike pairs don't even have symmetry in most serif and some sans-serif fonts.

ЯR  NИ  ЯR  NИ

 —Michael Z. 2008-05-29 01:14 z

Yes it's surely a backwards R not a Я in Toys Я Us and KoЯn - but it would be clearer if shown rather than described. Would a pipe ( [[Toys "R" Us|Toys Я Us]] rendering as Toys Я Us) be acceptable? --catslash (talk) 12:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I was only objecting to the phrasing "For example, Toys "R" Us and Korn use a Ya (Я)," and "The "NIИ" wordmark of Nine Inch Nails uses a I (И)". I changed it to include "similar to Cyrillic Ya, Я", which still includes the comparison without implying the false relationship. —Michael Z. 2008-05-29 15:23 z