cyrillic hat

December 2, 2005 9:39 PM

Can anyone translate the cyrillic text on my hat?

I got this great hat from the Salvation Army, but I don't know what it says! This wouldn't normally bother me, but with the gun I don't know how menacing or innocuous the writing is...Babelfish didn't work...

posted by apetpsychic to writing & language (14 comments total)

Um, I forgot to include the picture of the hat...


posted by apetpsychic at 9:43 PM on December 2, 2005

My Russian skills are limited to some transliteration, but that looks like nonsense to me. Something like

Lphkh Apptsbn Nbmburch Uirrch

which doesn't have enough vowels, or in the right places. Possibly similar to all the nonsense Chinese tattoos people get.

The gun does look like a Beretta 93R, though.
posted by dhartung at 10:03 PM on December 2, 2005

So maybe babelfish did work. That's about what I got from it. Thanks.
posted by apetpsychic at 10:10 PM on December 2, 2005

Looks like gobledygook to me. I'm not native level but if it made sense, I'm pretty sure I'd recognize it as the language at least. Unless it's the equivalent of r33tsp34k or some other specialized lingo.
posted by lorrer at 11:24 PM on December 2, 2005

Yeah...unless word forms in Russian make some kind of freakish transformation once you get past the, uh, first year or so, it's total gibberish. But I'm hardly an expert...maybe it's the Russian equivalent of 'leet-speak. Either way, it's a great hat, and makes me think that there's probably enough Cyrillic Engrish (well, maybe reverse-Engrish) to start a wacky blog, if one was so inclined.

on preview: whoa, jinx!
posted by Vervain at 11:29 PM on December 2, 2005

Just a thought - could it be cryptographic English a la the kind of thing you get if you type normally using a Symbol font to get faux-Greek? Also, that's not what an L looks like in Russian, but a numeral 1 wouldn't make much sense there either...

Waaaitaminute, it is a 1. 1st Annual. That makes the b-letter actually an A - I think I've seen this font before, where the designers just stuck the Cyrillic alphabet on top of an English code-point mapping with no regard for order.

After a bit of work, I get 1st Annual Makarov Shoot.
posted by wanderingmind at 11:30 PM on December 2, 2005

If this doesn't call for languagehat, I don't know what would.

On looking at the text, my Russian isn't too great, but those words look... off. Like someone stole some of their vowels.

On preview, if wanderingmind is right then his is a detective god
posted by atrazine at 11:32 PM on December 2, 2005

Accoring to Google, Makarov is a Russian (and elsewhere) made handgun.

Maybe some gun collectors had a get-together and made some clever hats?
posted by sevenless at 11:58 PM on December 2, 2005

After a bit of work, I get 1st Annual Makarov Shoot.
posted by wanderingmind at 11:30 PM PST on December 2

Well done.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:40 AM on December 3, 2005

Yes, it definitely looks like a Makarov, a cheap but reasonably well-built pistol that's flooded the West since the East opened up. Uses a short 9mm cartridge.

Interesting though, that 93R is a Beretta model (and the gun in that picture is not a 93R). There is no Makarov 93r that I know of. Is there some cyrillic use for "r" such that "93r" would mean 1993 something? Month? Just something tacked onto a year to mean annual? Anyone?
posted by mumeishi at 5:56 AM on December 3, 2005

93г could be an abbreviation for 93 года, which is I think how you could say 1993 in Russian. It's pronounced either "goda" or "gada" (I forget where the stress falls, which affects the pronunciation).
posted by komilnefopa at 10:01 AM on December 3, 2005

Threads like this remind me why I love this community :-)
posted by ceri richard at 10:28 AM on December 3, 2005

All I could have told you was that it wasn't Russian (or any other language I'm familiar with); wanderingmind actually deciphered it. All glory to wanderingmind!
posted by languagehat at 11:51 AM on December 3, 2005

that's pretty cool peice of work wanderingmind
posted by edgeways at 12:25 PM on December 3, 2005