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Dll ndil Mdyakh Lziifi?
Richie: It's in Russian.
Eddie: You just put the R's the wrong way round?!
Richie: THAT'S WHAT RUSSIAN IS!
Iи д loт of Шэsтэяи posтэяs, yoц sээ soмэтнiиg тнaт coцld Ьэ called "Faux Cyrillic" — яэplдcing Lдтiи cндядcтэяs шiтн visцдlly siмilдя Cyяillic oиes, тo мake soмэтнiиg look more Russian. Doи'т эxpэcт тнэм тФ bэ cФпsisтeпт шiтн iт, тнФцgн.
Тнe pэяpэтяaтoяs igиoяэ тнэ fдcт тнaт тнэsэ lэттэяs дяэ, iи acтцal Яцssiди, pяoиoциcэd coмplэтэly diffэяэитly fяoм тнe Lдтiи cндядcтэяs тнey дяэ sцpposэd тo яэpяэsэит, шнicн яэsцlтs iи unintended hilarity for members of the audience who can read Cyrillic script. Тнis is Ьэcдцsэ Cyяillic is Ьдsэd oи д coмЬiиaтioи of Gяээk, Glдgoliтic диd soмэ Нэвяэw lэттэяs (ц and ш), Ьцт dцэ тo яэfoямs Ьy Pэтэя тнэ Gяэдт, iт нas тнe sдмэ Ьдsic dэsigи pяinciplэs дs тнe Lдтiи дlpндЬэт (sтяokэ тнickиэss and placэмeит, sэяifs, этc.).
Bэloш is д lisт of popцlдя lэттэяs цsэd шiтн тнis тяopэ, диd тнэiя pяopэя Lдтiи spэlliиgs:
- R: 'Я' (ya, тнe ТropeNaмer), 'Г' (g).
- N: 'И' (i), 'П' (p)
- A: 'Д' (d)
- O: 'Ф' (f), 'Ю' (yu)
- W: 'Ш' (sн), 'Щ' (sнcн)
- X: 'Ж' (zн) (pяonoцnced like тнe 's' in 'pleдsцяe'), 'X' (kн, like cн in 'locн')
- B: 'В' (v), 'Б' (b), 'Ь' (sФfт sigи), 'Ъ' (ндяd sigи)
- E: 'Э' (æ), 'З' (z), 'е' (ye/e)
- U: 'Ц' (тs)
- Y: 'Ч' (cн) or 'У' (u)
- Н: 'Н' (n)
- 6: 'б' (b)
Sтill мoяэ coцld Ьэ lisтэd нэяэ, Ьцт foя diffэяэnт яэдsoиs, siиce мany Cyяillic lэттэяs look эxдcтly likэ oтнэя Laтiи lэттэяs, Ьцт яэpяэsэит эnтiяэly diffэяэит pнoиэмэs.
Тнis cди дlso ндppэи шiтн дlpндbэтs oтнэя тнaи Cyяillic. Pяobдbly мosт cФммФи iи тнaт cдsэ is тнe цsэ of тнe Gяээk lэттэя sigмд (Σ) дs ди E oя dэlтд (Δ) oя lдмЬdд (Λ) дs ди A, эvэn тнoцgн "E" and "A" aяэ дcтцдlly pэяfэcтly good Gяээk lэттэяs тнэмsэlvэs. (Sigмд, dэlтд диd lдмЬdд дrэ дcтually тнe дnдlogцэs of S, D, диd L, rэspэcтively, alтнougн dэlтд is a нard "тн", дs in " тнen", in мodэrn Grээk.) CФмpдяэ Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut дnd Gratuitous Foreign Language.
Щ (ºД º)Щ
Proper English Version
In a lot of Western posters, you see something that could be called "Faux Cyrillic" — replacing Latin characters by visually similar Cyrillic ones, to make something look more Russian. Don't expect them to be consistent with it, though.
The perpetrators ignore the fact that these letters are, in actual Russian, pronounced completely differently from the Latin characters they are supposed to represent, which results in unintended hilarity for members of the audience who can read Cyrillic script. This is because Cyrillic is based on a combination of Greek, Glagolitic and some Hebrew letters (ц and ш), but due to reforms by Peter the Great it has the same basic design principles as the Latin alphabet (stroke thickness and placement, etc.).
Below is a list of popular letters used with this trope, and their proper Latin spellings:
- R: 'Я' (ya). The Trope Namer.
- N: 'И' (i), 'П' (p)
- A: 'Д' (d)
- O: 'Ф' (f)
- W: 'Ш' (sh), 'Щ' (shch)
- X: 'Ж' (zh) (pronounced like the 's' in 'pleasure'), 'X' (kh, like ch in 'loch')
- B: 'В' (v), 'Б' (b), 'Ь' (soft sign), 'Ъ' (hard sign)
- E: 'Э' (æ), 'З' (z), 'е' (ye/e)
- U: 'Ц' (ts)
- Y: 'Ч' (ch) or 'У' (u)
- H: 'Н' (n)
- 6: 'б' (b)
Many more could be listed here, but for different reasons, since many Cyrillic letters look exactly like other Latin letters, but represent entirely different phonemes.
This can also happen with alphabets other than Cyrillic. Probably most common in that case is the use of the Greek letter sigma (Σ) as an E or delta (Δ) or lambda (Λ) as an A, even though "E" and "A" are actually perfectly good Greek letters themselves. (Sigma, delta, and lambda are actually the analogues of S, D and L, respectively, although delta is a "th" as in " then" in modern Greek.) Compare Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut and Gratuitous Foreign Language.
Щ (ºД º)Щ
CyЯillic Єxamples:
Advertising
- There's a UK insurance ad featuring a Backwards R and Socialist Realism style art.
- Aversion: Toys "Я" Us, probably the most famous backwards R in the U.S., is not an example of this trope. The intent was to imitate the way young children first learn to write the alphabet, with the common mistake of writing some of the letters backwards. Whenever they print their name in normal writing in a catalogue, on their website or otherwise, they just use a normal R.
- Ron Paul's political campaign was called the RON PAUL REVOLUTION, with the letters EVOL printed backwards, such that, if the entire group of letters was reversed as one, it would become LOVE.note Maybe the person responsible for that was reading Zetman? It predates it by a few years, and uses the same typographic trick to name a certain political faction.
- And when Paul's campaign started to tank, someone did the same thing to the letters REVO, so that if this group was reversed, they spelled OVER.
Audio Play
- The Firesign Theatre's LP How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All, with its "All Hail Marx and Lennon" poster, as seen above.
Comic Books
- Averted in an arc of Uncanny X-Men; Colossus, in mourning for Kitty who had seemingly given her life to save the world in a previous arc, had the name "Катя" (the correct Cyrillic spelling of "Katya", his pet name for Kitty) tattooed on his chest.
- Letterer Ken Bruzenak frequently used this trope on American Flagg — particularly in the second series (formally, Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!). In that series, set mostly in a wildly capitalistic future Russia, the series logo itself is in a Faux Cyrillic font.
Fan Works
Film
Literature
- Parodied in Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka. The Ukrainian character Andriy is searching for a girl called Vagvaga Riskegipd, who wrote down her name for him when he met her on a trip to England as a young boy. In the end he realises that although he's been reading it as Cyrillic, she actually wrote it in Roman script, and her name is Barbara Pickering.
- Inverted in a Hercule Poirot novel, where the initials on a handkerchief read "A.P", so he questions all people with the initials "A.P." However, the Cyrillic "R" looks like a "P". Guess where someone Poirot never suspects comes from...
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of MacGyver we see a bottle labeled in Cyrillic: it's supposed to say "Etil Alkogol" ( = "Ethyl Alcohol"); what it actually says is "Ztil Alkogop". If it was supposed to be Russian, then it should've said "Etilovyj spirt".
- From an episode of Bottom, where Eddie mocks the unconvincing nature of the fake birthday cards Richie sends himself every year:
Eddie: ...And this one's from "The Peoples of the Soviet Union in grateful thanks to Comrade Richie"!
Richie: It's in Russian!
Eddie: You just put the R's the wrong way round!
Richie: That's what Russian is!
- The Discovery Channel program Wild Russia uses backwards R's when displaying the title.
- The 2013 Doctor Who episode "Cold War" is called "COLD WAYA" on the poster.
Meta
- The image◊ that currently illustrates the Red Scare trope. Literally, it reads: "d— uftsya -yazz-fm dyaz ^e-fi- tf ts-" ("-" means "gobbledygook", i.e. not a Cyrillic letter, and "^" is an accent).
Music
- Type O Negative's final album Dead Again has all of the lyrics and liner notes written in Faux Cyrillic for absolutely no good reason at all (there is a picture of Rasputin on the cover, but other than that...). Just as an example, the band's name and album title are written as "TЧРЕ O ИЭGАТIѴЭ : DЭДD ДGДIИ," which— because Cyrillic doesn't have a letter shaped like "D" or "G"; "I" replaces "И" in Ukrainian and "Ѵ" is an archaic letter translatable as either "i" or "v" depending on the context— would read "-CHRYE O IE-ATIVE : -ED- D-DII."
- The band ¡Forward, Russia! are in love with this trope.
- So are the Leningrad Cowboys a.k.a. Lɘиiиɢяad Cowʙoys who aren't even from Russia. The covers of their album Happy Together and their Total Balalaika Show live video take this Up to Eleven by mimicking a Pravda frontpage complete with a font which borrows a lot from the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets plus some mirrored or upside-down letters and the German ß (sharp s) in lieu of the capital B. Only "Pravda" itself is written in real Cyrillic.
- The Welsh band Manic Street Preachers had all of the R's backwards for their album The Holy Bible◊, perfectly fitting with the flavour of the release - this went back to normal for a few albums, then made a return for Send Away The Tigers◊ and follow up Journal For Plague Lovers◊.
- Franz Ferdinand did this very consciously in the video for "This Fire" off their self-titled first album. That whole album they were going for a Soviet Constructivist look, which goes remarkably well with their sound.
- BT's sixth album is titled THЭSЭ HOPЭFUL MACHINЭS. The song titles also have their E's reversed.
- Angelic Upstarts (or ДИ☭eLIC UФSTДRTS) did this on their Anthems Against Scum◊ album.
- Norther, a Finnish band (Finnish uses the Roman alphabet, FYI, despite being part of Russia up until WWI), uses the Д as an A on their album N.
- Feind Hört Mit◊ ("Enemy Eavesdropping") by Austrian band Stahlhammer uses this too: The title (keeping in mind each "M" is a flipped "Ш," "І" replaces "И" in Ukrainian and "Ѕ" is an archaic letter translatable as "dz," now only used in Macedonian) turns into "DZTDN-NASHSHYEYA : -YEIP- NFYAT SHIT" when transcribed.
- Linkin Park
- Nine Inch Nails is often written as ИIИE IИCH ИAILS in different media.
- DJ Vadim's name is usually written with a Д for the A and an inverted Щ for the M.
- In the Romanian band TNT's video "Vodka, Vodka" has the words "Vodka Дямач" in the around a red star in the back throughout the video. This is a good example, because the sound for the actual Russian word for armies, армии, is basically like the English word army (though it refers to the plural in Russian), and even the singular word for army, армия (armiya) would be easily recognizable for English-speakers as referring to an army, whereas Дямч would sound like Dyamch (that is, if the word "army" is being used at all instead of "land forces". Of course, given the Soviet-styled emblem, "army" makes a lot of sense in this context). Obviously, with reading a different alphabet the cognates often won't work for non-Cyrillic readers, so unless you want it to be meaningless for most people, you need to do use this trope if you want to use Cyrillic in this case.
- Also, the TИT in the middle of the emblem, for the band's name, TNT. TИT said out loud would sound like "teat" or "tit".
- The Bemani J-pop band TЁЯRA ("Tyoyara").
- The Finnish Doom Metal band Курск, although their name is correct Cyrillic for Kursk, uses faux Cyrillic text on their website.
- The cover for KMFDM's Opium has the band's name written KMFДM. F doesn't exist in Cyrillic, the equivalent would be Ф. Also, XTOЯT.
- KoЯn.
- Reina Tanaka's rock band has the somewhat bizarre name of LoVendoЯ.
Tabletop Games
- The game supplement GURPS Russia features the TS and D characters for U and A respectively, plus several others◊. For a Splat Book that's supposed to educate about the place.
Video Games
- The logo for the computer game DEFCON, which would actually be "DEFCOI" if the backwards N was read properly.
- Tetris was titled "TETЯIS" in several Western releases, particularly those by Mirrorsoft and Atari Games/Tengen, just to advertise that the game was developed by a Russian. If the Я were pronounced as in Russian, that would be "Tetyais". "TETRIS" in Cyrillic would properly be "TETPИC", which was used on computer versions distributed by Spectrum Holobyte (though with the C replaced with the Soviet hammer and sickle). Averted since the late 1990s, when artist Roger Dean (mostly known for his Yes album covers) designed a new logo for the newly formed Tetris Company.
- A faux propaganda poster featuring Tetris also invoked this with backwards R's and N's and the Cyrillic letter "er" for the p in "place".
- Republic: The Revolution in addition to speaking pseudo-Russian has all in-game signs and posters written in pseudo-Cyrillic. It also uses other symbols, such as the German "ß".
- The Iron Grip: The Oppression Game Mod had a typical backwards R in its promotional logo.
- The Backwards R has gained notoriety on the Discovery (Freelancer Game Mod) forums features this through Memetic Mutation, as in 'ШHAT SIЯ?'
- Singularity heavily used this trope, including in its logo. Almost excused, when they started using real Russian at the end credits.
- Infamous examples include: the game's title, which is written as SIИGULДЯITУ (Siiguldyaitu) and Katorga-12 being written as KДTФЯGД-12 (Kdtfyagd-12).
- The fourth game in the Deception series, Trapt, spells the title on the cover art as TЯAPT purely for cosmetic reasons, to achieve a mirrored look that the P partially fudges.
- The 1997 version of Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego? includes a scene where you meet Yuri Gagarin. The rocket carrying him has the letters CCCP on it, and your helpful friend indicates that it's an acronym... in English. The instruction book for the game includes a section detailing all the historical inaccuracies introduced to the game in order to make it easier to understand and tells what it really stands for. (Isn't this game supposed to be educational, though?)
- The Krivorozhstal Mill in Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain has its name written on the smokestacks in faux Cyrillic, with Д for R and a reversed Г for T.
- Averted in Metro 2033. What is written in Russian is read in Russian, even swear words in the English subtitles. The best example is the name of the D6 bunker, which is often marked as Д6 in the game world, with no allusions at all to the letter "A". Justified in that the developers of the game aren't American and Metro 2033, the novel the game is an adaptation of, is Russian.
- Blatantly featured in Paradox Interactive's Hearts of Iron series, including the upcoming East Vs West. Nations part of the Comintern (Soviet bloc) would feature faux Cyrillic names, which remains a source of much agony for Cyrillic-reading fans. However, there are mods that allow users to change the typeset.
- The logo of Red Alert 3 Paradox, a mod for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, switches the English letters of "paradox" with visually similar Cyrillic letters (including the backwards 'R'). The result is, obviously, gibberish, but hey, it looks cool.
Web Comics
Web Original
- The USSR speaks like this in World War Two: Simple Version. It's dropped in Cold War: Simple Version because the author was sick of it.
- That comic strip also has USSR say the line "ZД ЯОDIИU". This is clearly meant to be "за родину" (a bit of Gratuitous Russian), but first transliterated ("za rodinu") and then converted to faux Cyrillic. (The result is pronounced "Zd yaodieeu".)
- Parodied in SF Debris when Chuck comments on the U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky`s Cyrillic dedication plaque and, noting a letter that looks like 3 (the Russian Z), accuses Russia of being so poor they have to use numbers when they run out of letters. In a Genius Bonus he later subtly reveals he knows what it really means by spelling the word 'spaz' out loud as 'S, P, A, three!'
- There is actually a web page that will give you fake Cyrillic. http://www.theworldofstuff.com/other/cyrillic.html
Western Animation
- In Anastasia, the train's speedometer reads SPEEФОШЕТЕЯ ("sreyefosheteya").
Real Life
- The pre-reform orthography for Cuengh (pronounced "Shweng", but more commonly known by the Chinese name Zhuang), a language spoken in Guangxi, China, used a combination of the Latin alphabet, IPA symbols, and Cyrillic and pseudo-Cyrillic letters, including five "tone letters" whose shapes are based on Arabic numerals. The result looks a lot like mock Cyrillic. For example, Cuengh was written as "Cueŋƅ" and the full official name of Guangxi was written as "Gvaŋзsiƅ Bouчcueŋƅ Sɯcigiƅ."
- Other Real Life example: The Cherokee syllabary, which looks like the illegitimate child of the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Georgian alphabet and l33tsp33k. Sequoyah didn't know the Latin alphabet, so when he assigned sounds to symbols, he had no idea what these symbols meant, which probably explains the occurrence of a 4 (the syllable “se”).
- Inverted with Volapuk encoding: to write their language using ASCII computers, some Russians used a "faux Latin" transliteration. And yes, this included R as The Backwards Я.*
Although "91" is also used instead.
- Avoided by post-1993 Russian license plates, which use only the letters common to the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.
- Since so many early Soviet consumer electronics were direct ripoffs of Western designs, Russian-language pocket calculators (most notably the programmable Elektronika B3-34) would frequently put "Error" in English if the calculator couldn't make a calculation. Because the letters looked so similar to Cyrillic equivalents with different values*
E to "ye", r to "ge", o to... "o" , Russians would read the word as "yeggog", and the art of calculator hacking became known as "yeggogologiya"* yeggog-ology in Russian.
- Ironically, this precise series of calculators had exactly nothing to do with any western designs. The designers probably did this out of habit and because the Russian word for error, "ошибка", is nigh impossible to represent on a calculator's 7-segment display.
- "Khyber Pass Specials", hand-made guns (of sometimes dubious quality, due to a lack of quality materials) generally modeled after mass-produced weapons such as Lee-Enfields or AK-47s (both notably used by countries that previously fought in Afghanistan, the British Empire and the Soviet Union), will often feature engravings with Latin-Cyrilic character switches. This isn't so much that they can't tell the difference, but that they often work with incomplete engraving sets and use the closest match they can find.
Vanity Plate
- The VID mask; according to Wikipedia, the actual Russian spelling of "VID" is not "BИD". As we know and as even Wikipedia noted, that's not exactly what that logo is famous for.
Non-CyЯillic examples:
Anime and Manga
- The language used by the countries of Anatoray and Disith in Last Exile consists of transliterations of English words with Greek and some Cyrillic letters, i.e. the text on the book on the opening screen reads "λαστ εξιλε ιν τηε βοττλε" - "last exile in the bottle". Justified in that it's supposed to be a distant descendant of the languages of Earth rather than an a modern language.
Comics
- In The Books of Magic, Ancient Greeks talk like this "IN THΣ LДNDS ΘF ΘLIVΣ ДND LДURΣL, WHΣRΣ THΣ GΘDS WДLK"*
yes, that's an unholy combination of Latin, faux Greek (Σ for E, Θ for O) and faux Cyrillic (Д for A) . David Langford was scathing about this, and especially Roger Zelazny's admiration for it in the introduction:
Maybe it slips by an awful lot of the audience, but how can a savvy chap like Zelazny read this nonsense as other than, roughly, 'In ths ldnds thf thlivs dnd ldursl, whsrs ths gthds wdlk'?
- Another Vertigo Comics book has a logo that reads GRΣΣK STRΣΣT.
- In Asterix and the Great Crossing, Viking speech uses Å and Ø instead of A and O.
Film
Live-Action TV
- The Doctor Who episode "The Eleventh Hour" has scattered instances of a logo that looks like "MΨTH". Again, presumably we're supposed to read this as MYTH, not MPSTÊ.
- The official name of the college show on ABC Family is GRΣΣK. Of course, in the Greek alphabet, the sigma represents S, not an E. How do you pronounce "Grssk" anyway?
Music
- Dream Theater's logo, which looks almost like this: DREΛM·THEλTER
- The cover for Noxious Emotion's Symbols depicts the band name and album title in faux Greek letters.
- The poster for Madonna's "Can't Stop Esther" tour was filled with faux-Hebrew, with many letters turned around or mangled in order to stand for latin characters.
Video Games
- The Half-Life logo uses the Greek letter lambda instead of an A. The lambda represents "L", so it would be read as "HLLF LIFE". Justified, as this isn't done merely for visual resemblance, but for lambda's use in science to represent the radioactivity decay constant. (Or it could also be a reference to the Lambda Complex.) It also doesn't hurt that (as many fans have noted) it also looks like an arm holding a crowbar, though this may not have been intentional.
- The Wii allows Greek letters when naming a Mii. Many players use the Greek letters for this trope. For example, a Mii going online for Mario Kart Wii might be named "ρlαγεr" rather than "player".
Web Original
- Red vs. Blue uses Ξ (Xi) in place of "e" for the title card of Reconstruction. The series has AIs named after Greek letters throughout, but none of the ones mentioned are named Xi
- Used with tongue firmly planted in cheek at Kiotr.net, a fansite devoted to the X-Men's canon pairing of Kitty Pryde and Peter Rasputin.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Similarly, you can◊ find a number of frat-themed t-shirts out there which use Greek letters this way.
- There is a beauty parlour on Wandsworth Road, London, which has rendered part of its sign in pseudo-Greek as "Ναιλσ" (Nails). However, whoever did this clearly doesn't know about Greek; even if this is a Greek word, it should in any case be "Ναιλς".
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