Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014202, Tue, 28 Nov 2006 13:12:49 -0500

Subject
"C" "K" "S" in PF solution (Caesar, Kaiser, Tsar)
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Date
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Dear SB,

Actually, Jansy's question strikes at the heart of the solution to the
Pale
Fire puzzle - - my solution I guess I should say. It is the confusion
of c,
k, and s that gave me the first inkling of what was afoot.

The index title page tells us that the three main characters of the
book are
G, K, & S. After staring at those three letters for quite some time I
began
to see the G as a modified C and then the solution came to me: C = K =
S.

By coincidence (so far as I know) the disparate sounds /k/ and /s/ are
represented in the Greek and Roman alphabets as "c".

That is, in Greek "c" respresents the sound /s/
whereas in Latin "c" represents the sound /k/,
hence Caesar in Latin was pronounced something like Kaiser.

But in English the letter "c" can represent either sound. So we
pronounce
Caesar as if it began with an /s/ sound. The word "Cyrillic"
illustrates
both uses of "c".

Do you see?

Carolyn

*In some slavic languages the sound /ts/ can also be represented by
"c",
hence in Russian Caesar came to be pronounced tsar.



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