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NL888 Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Abram Ioffe (Joffe)? In German spelling, Joffe is loffe?

Context:
  • In 1905, several articles bearing the name of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein appeared in a German physics journal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annalen_der_Physik. The most fateful among these, was a paper entitled Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper; von A. Einstein, Einstein's supposedly breakthrough paper on the "principle of relativity". Though it was perhaps submitted as coauthored by Mileva Einstein-Marity and Albert Einstein, or solely by Mileva Einstein-Marity, Albert's name appeared in the journal as the exclusive author of their work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Ioffe (Joffe) recounts that the paper was signed "Einstein-Marity". "Marity" is hungarian spelling of Serbian "Maric", Mileva's maiden name. Joffe, who had seen the original 1905 manuscript, is on record as stating, "For Physics, and especially for the Physics of my generation-that of Einstein's contemporaries, Einstein's entrance into the arena of science is unforgettable. In 1905, three articles appeared in the 'Annalen der Physik', which began three very important branches of 20th Century Physics. Those were the theory of Brownian movement, the theory of the photoelectric effect and the theory of relativity. The author of these articles-an unknown person at that time, was a bureaucrat at the Patent Office in Bern, Einstein-Marity (Marity--the maiden name of his wife, which by Swiss custom is added to the husband's family name).". . .
  

Top answer

, and it would be converted to the Latin alphabet for a German publication. In German the letter J is pronounced like a Y in English, so this is the closest match to the sound of his name for a German. An English speaker would pronounce an initial J as a soft G sound, so for an English speaker the name is shown as Ioffe.

  • , and it would be converted to the Latin alphabet for a German publication.
  • In German the letter J is pronounced like a Y in English, so this is the closest match to the sound of his name for a German.
  • An English speaker would pronounce an initial J as a soft G sound, so for an English speaker the name is shown as Ioffe.
  • An English speaker will probably pronounce this E-owe-fee or E-offee which are as close to correct as an English speaker is likely to get.
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1 Answers
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Ioffe was Russian, so at home his name would be spelled in the Cyrillic alphabet as ??´???, and it would be converted to the Latin alphabet for a German publication. In German the letter J is pronounced like a Y in English, so this is the closest match to the sound of his name for a German. An English speaker would pronounce an initial J as a soft G sound, so for an English speaker the name is sho

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