Andrew Jameson continues his lecture series on the Russian language. This time the subject is the special status of names in language, and, especially, in Russian.

When you think about it, a name (in the sense of a unique identifier of a person of thing) has a special status in language. People become very agitated if you spell their name wrong. Wrong names can lead to all sorts of conflicts and accidents. “Calling people names” is a curious phrase, meaning “to insult”. Russian names are a constant problem in translation. They are a little piece of (in this case) Russian culture, which protrudes into a foreign language, is obliged to keep its original (sound)form, and is non-negotiable. Domesticate or foreignise? How to explain the resonance of a name in the original culture?

Names take us right back into history and we shall look into: Slav pagan names; Viking/Russian names; Why three “Sofia” cathedrals?; Names and patronymics; Months and seasons; Mongols and fog; the emergence of surnames; Russian surnames and those of other nationalities; Turkic names; Town- and street names in Mediaeval, Imperial and Soviet periods and their uses in politics.

Andrew Jameson came top of course in Russian language and radio technology at the Joint Service Language School, and served in signals intelligence at Flugplatz Gatow in Berlin. At Oxford he played leading roles in Russian plays and first visited Russia when Khrushchev was in power.

At Essex University he formed part of a group who produced ground-breaking BBC Russian courses. At the same time he worked for the Nuffield-funded Russian Language Project, requiring two long stays in Russia as a sound recordist, collecting samples of different styles of Russian, and also set up a sound archive of Russian recordings.

Still in Russia he met prominent Russian linguists, and a number of well-known dissidents of the time. He was able to make further recordings on his own account of Russian bards, etc., and (most importantly) copies of readings at a Russian literary salon which included prominent writers, including Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, Ginzburg and others.

Next he moved to Portsmouth Polytechnic, helped design a new degree in Russian and recruited 25 students at the first intake, before moving to Lancaster University. During a long stay here he created with colleague Mike Kirkwood a well-designed beginners intensive language course to degree level, and developed interests in translation theory, Russian lexicology and substandard Russian (slang). On taking early retirement he worked in Russian AE as before and also as a professional translator, and lectured on English linguistics and English studies for periods of 1-2 months per year in universities in St Petersburg, Moscow and Khabarovsk/Birobidzhan.