Fellow linguists sometimes ask how to pronounce my name, so here it is.
If you can't read Cyrillic or the IPA: "muh-REE-yuh goo-SKOE-vuh."
Otherwise (if you can't read this in your browser, get Firefox):
Notes:
- Stress in Russian is lexical and can fall on any syllable in the word. By an astonishing coincidence, the stress in my name is the same in English and in Russian--it falls on the second syllable in "Ma'ria" and in "Gou'skova." (Na'bokov, Bul'gakov, Tol'stoy, Gorba'chev, and Khru'shchev weren't as lucky. Neither is my dad, whose name is Gou'skov. --I indicate stress as in the IPA, with the stress mark pre'ceding the 'stressed 'syllable.)
- The "ou" in the English spelling is from a time when French transliteration conventions were used in Soviet foreign passports; it represents [u], just as in French orthography.
- The [r] in Russian is either a tap or a trill, and it is palatalized in my first name. The only other palatalized consonant is the [s] in the last name; everything else is velarized.
- The Russian hypocoristic for "Maria" is Masha, following the familiar Slavic ...CVsha template (Sasha, Dasha, Misha, Gesha, Pasha, Natasha). I find being addressed by the hypocoristic somewhat startling in English conversation, especially when it's pronounced "Marcia."
- Don't try the Russian pronunciation if it hurts too much; I'm more than happy with the English pronunciation.
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