Talk:Pavel Chekov

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Racist

Or just sheer ignorance.

-G

WTF? --EEMeltonIV 19:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Home

Is Chekov from Russia? In one of the books, Crisis on Centaurus, it was clearly stated that he's from a Russian lunar colony. Tualha 23:44, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Even if you accept that novel as canonical, it's not really important. Chekov is firmly grounded in Russian culture; he goes out of his way to mention Russian locations ("This place is better than Leningrad!") and historical figures ("Peter the Great once had a problem like that"). Regardless of whether he was was born on the Moon, he clearly considers himself Russian in every way that matters. -- Pat Berry 23:12, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I clearly recall a scene from Star Trek IV where Chekov continued to pronounce "vessels" as "wessels". As this is unlikely with a Russian accent (it's something more likely with Polish or Bulgarian), does anyone have any ideas? Xyzzyva 23:29, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

While we have both sounds (v and w, however written differently), I think only a very stupid Pole might mispronounce v as w. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.218.41.190 (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it helps, the actor's family immigrated from Lithuania

Incidentally, other sources state that he's from St. Petersberg.

List of what Chekov has credited to Mother Russia

I've got a list started of things Chekov has credited to Russia. I put the ones in that I remembered, if anyone has more I'd hope they would add them to the list.
JesseG 07:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot Wikipedia. ;)--Kross ^Talk 23:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Needs to be cleaned up

There is a section that has:

addendum: The Generations script was hastily written. The parts were intended for Captain Spock and Doctor McCoy. Nimoy refused to be a bit player, and Kelly is rumored to have said, "If he's out, I'm out." Chekov was given McCoy's dialog, Scotty was given Spock's. Hence the two mistakes: Calling Chekov "captain", and the dialog to Scotty, "I'm glad you're an engineer instead of a psychiatrist." Later, after the El-Aurian's are aboard the Enterprise-B, Chekov drafts the reporters into nurses. More McCoy dialog. Wiki-police: Reference the Starlogs and special "Generations" magazines of the time.

This is not properly formatted, but I have no time to fix it.

- jptdrake

Koenig background

The Koenig article indicates that his family is Russian, but they claimed Lithuanian heritage during the McCarthy era. $20 says, however, that the Koenig article is quoting from the IMDb biography, and IMDb isn't exactly always right. Has anyone here actually read his autobiography or have a more reputable source one way or the other? If not, I'd suggest omitting Koenig's ethnicity; anyone who's curious can look at that article, and we can avoid discrepancy between the two. --EEMeltonIV 20:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've read his book, and he's from Lithuania, but is of Russian-Jewish descent [LMA].

Nuclear Wessels

The explanation in the text misses a possibility; that Chekov, a Russia, overcompensates for the lack of a 'w' sound in Russian, and thus makes the mistake of pronouncing 'v' as 'w'. Either that, or he learned English from someone with a specific working-class-London accent that confuses spoken 'v' and 'w'. Argyriou (talk) 17:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's also the possibility of phonetic shift in Russia between now and the 23rd century... - furrykef (Talk at me) 07:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the v-sound in Russian is that it is actually different from what English speakers perceive to be a v-sound. In Russian there is a sound 'v' (in Cyrillic 'B') which is like a 'v' in our language but is pronounced between both lips rather than with the top teeth on the bottom lip as in English. This means that Russian speakers can sound like they are mixing up the 'v' and 'w' sound when they are speaking English. In fact they are making the same sound, which sounds very much like a 'v' to English native speakers when we are expecting to hear 'w' and vice-versa when we are expecting to hear 'v'. In the examples given in the article 'Washington' will indeed sound to us like 'Vashington' but 'Vermont' will sound like 'Wermont'

As he is the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants I assume that Mr Koenig is pronouncing these sounds exactly as a Russian would. I have studied Russian and have spent time in Russian-speaking areas and would say that his pronounciation as Mr Chek(h)ov sounds convincing.

The name Chekov is a bit of a problem though. It could be a Russianisation of the name of someone of Turkic origin or a bastardisation of Chekhov, which is a moderately common name in Russia. As one of Russia's leading literary figures though, Chekhov's name suggests a slight laziness in the scriptwriting. Imagine a Russian Star Trek with an English Lieutenant Shakespeare or Dickens ......

Pravda story

The snopes references doesn't go so far as saying this is outright false. Certainly it is a story that goes back a long way, appearing in a 1968 book, and the Inside Story by Solow/Justman doesn't really try to debunk it - indeed it reproduces a letter Roddenberry sent to Pravda. It might be an interesting project for someone to search Pravda back-issues. :)

But anyway, most sources are relatively open about the whole Monkees thing as well. Poor Koenig had to wear a wig at first! So the whole "Roddenberry made up this story to disguise an attempt to cash in on the Monkees" spin isn't really justified by the sources. Morwen - Talk 18:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quote Section

The first quote from "Mirror, Mirror" should either be taken out, or noted that the line came from Mirror Chekov and not Chekov himself. ST Intergalactic 04:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Name

I'm not sure that the name section is stated in quite the right way. "Chekov" (no "h") appears to be one of several ways in which Anton Chekhov's surname was historically transliterated into English, although it is no longer the most common way. Incidentally, babelfish.altavista.com seems to think that "Чеков" means "checks", although it isn't clear if it means bank checks, checkmarks, or to check on something. 70.20.207.70 (talk) 06:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Чеков" is a form of "чек" which is essentially "a bill" in Russian. I'd say that "Chekhov" is closer to Russian pronunciation of "Чехов" and "Chekov" should spell "Чеков" in Russian. Another thing to consider is that there is no "Андрейвич" patronymic in Russian. The correct one is "Андреевич". --Dr rus (talk) 22:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]