waaay ot- need a translator- russian?? polish?

[deth502]

my day job i work fixing things for the govt. i work in the same building as the police, and they get to be a real pita most of the time, including constantly encroaching on my damn space.

a few months ago they found some "stolen" tombstones in someones house, and of course, stuck them in my garage. they have no clue where they came from to return them, and dont have 2 brain cells to rub together between the lot of them to find out. im hoping that if i can find out what it says, it could help determine where it came from and get it out of my way finally.

reason for posting it here is because of the wide international audience of this forum. figure its my best chance for finding someone who can read it.    thanks in advance.

[janoc]

That looks Russian to me. My rusty Russian tells me that it reads something like:

"Here rests
Toan
Tarnaga

aged 44
died 31 May
(of the) 1908 year
"
(can't read the last two lines, seems to be something like "We remember" and "RIP" in the last row).

It could be also some other slavic language that uses Cyrillic - Ukrainian, maybe Bulgarian or even Serbian - they are quite close to each other. The name is certainly not Russian, but hopefully someone will recognize the language.

Regards,

J.

[Wytnucls]

Ioan Tarnaga

[Kremmen]

And perhaps Ioan Garnaga, eh?

[Wytnucls]

Might be easier with some contrast:

[wraper]

This is not Russian but Ukrainian, maybe even some old mix of the old Ukrainian and old Russian. At that time Ukraine was part of Russia, USSR didn't exist yet.

Here
lies
Ioahn (??)
Garnaga  (?)
lived
44 years
Died 31 May (not completely sure about May as in modern Ukrainian it have different name, but in Russian it might be. Thou at that time May seemed to have different name also in Russian (the same as in Ukrainian now, dunno). Also not sure about last letter.
Year 1908
From village
Surovitcs         (??)
some acronim  (?. ?. ?)

Surovitcs, in google can find only mention in old Russian language link was located in Ukraine according to that. Maybe still exists but name is different.
Edit: eevblog seems to not support Cyrillic letters.

[Wytnucls]

Yes, seems likely a mixture of several languages: (Ukrainian, Serbian)

[wraper]

Bit of research, according to that paper Surovitcs was a part of Sanok county. Which was located in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia_and_Lodomeria
Which was Divided between Poland and Ukraine.
Now it seems that that part where Sanok was located has gone to Poland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanok (if it is the same Sanok).

[wraper]

Anyway this is a question to Polish or Ukrainian historians.

[janoc]

And perhaps Ioan Garnaga, eh?

The first letter looks more like T than I to me. Compare with the "Ty" ("Here") in the the first row. Also I in Cyrillic is written as mirrored N not I.

Ioan would make more sense (it is a common name), but the letter shape doesn't match. Do they use "I" in Ukrainian? Or is it common to mix scripts (latin and cyrillic) in names?

Whether the last name is Garnaga or Tarnaga I wouldn't be that sure. It is hard to see whether the letter is a T or G - compare with the other Ts and Gs, there is a shadow looking like a serif to the left of that letter, G doesn't have anything on the left side.

[Wytnucls]

There is a village or area of that name in Bosnia-Herzegovina, close to the Serbian border:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Surovi%C4%87i,+Bosnia+and+Herzegovina/@43.558743,17.7060513,8z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x475858e3d7e192c3:0xdc7007f4d45bd162

[wraper]

And perhaps Ioan Garnaga, eh?

The first letter looks more like T than I to me. Compare with the "Ty" ("Here") in the the first row. Also I in Cyrillic is written as mirrored N not I.

Ioan would make more sense (it is a common name), but the letter shape doesn't match. Do they use "I" in Ukrainian? Or is it common to mix scripts (latin and cyrillic) in names?

Whether the last name is Garnaga or Tarnaga I wouldn't be that sure. It is hard to see whether the letter is a T or G - compare with the other Ts and Gs, there is a shadow looking like a serif to the left of that letter, G doesn't have anything on the left side.

It is I, there is "_" on the bottom + there is no way that name was Toan. Also the is no common surname Tarnaga, google can't find at all, while Garnaga is pretty common.

[Wytnucls]

Seems like Garnaga is a Serbian surname. There were lots of immigrants to the US in the 18-1900s from that part of the world. The stone was probably taken from a local cemetery.
Check with the local Serb or Bosnian community to find out.

Could also have a Ukrainian origin.

http://vk.com/search?c%5Bq%5D=garnaga&c%5Bsection%5D=people

[wraper]

I'm pretty sure that it is Ukrainian origin. It is most likely that tombstone came from where I wrote. Anyway that language is 100% Ukrainian, not Serbian or whatsoever. I know Russian perfectly as well understand Ukrainian well enough. I used to go to business trips there pretty often until recent fuckup. Up until present day there exists mixes of Ukrainian and Russian in some areas of Ukraine. And Ukrainian language as itself is mostly like a mix of Russian and Polish.

[Wytnucls]

Possibly, but some letters used in the text are Serbian, not modern Ukrainian:

 

[poorchava]

When eastern parts of Poland we a part of Russia, Cyrillic alphabet and Russian language wete the official arrangement, but people also used Latin alphabet to write Russian and Cyrillic to write in polish. The name does not sound Polish or Ukrainian to me, it's of Balkan origin if I had to guess.

[Stonent]

Yeah Polish as far back as I can tell (and Czech too) use the Latin alphabet.
Some of my relatives who passed away in the late 1980s and early 90s spoke fluent Polish, but used it less and less as that part of the family aged and passed away (the had fewer and fewer people to talk to).

Now I'm suddenly craving Kielbasa.

[wraper]

Possibly, but some letters used in the text are Serbian, not modern Ukrainian:

Wrong, this is different letter http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AA
It is used in nowadays Russian sometimes but were used in old Russian writing very often.
If you have looked in the text I gave a link, it is full of this letter. BTW Russian writing at that time was pretty different from modern one, and that text seems to be almanac of some newspaper of those days or something like that.
Edit: added Russian newspaper picture of 1907. So you can compare writing.

[wraper]

About Garnaga surname, here is explanation http://www.ufolog.ru/names/order/%D0%93%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0 , you can google tramslate it. As one version is mentioned that it could be derived from Ukrainian word "garnij" (latin letters) which means good, beautiful.

[wraper]

Funny, now I found that I can preview text in Cyrillic without a problem. However when I post it, it becomes a garbage.

[Wytnucls]

I don't think it represents the Russian hard sign on the stone, but rather a peculiar Serbian letter:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%8B

[XOIIO]

Who the hell steals gravestones? How could they serve any purpose to you?

[wraper]

Seems that I found what is this writing: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%95%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B6%D0%BA%D0%B0
Again google translate if you want.
Basically this was a way how to write Ukrainian with Russian alphabet at that time.

[wraper]

I don't think it represents the Russian hard sign on the stone, but rather a peculiar Serbian letter:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%8B

No it is not. More that that writing is 100% in Ukrainian, was little bit confused why on Russian manner. But now I found why. And this letter is used exactly as it should be on pre-revolution Russian.
Hard sign can also be written in a such way. And if you look more carefully, there is no opening on the bottom, circle is closed.

Edit:
There is also similar letter to that one in Serbian but it was used in different place in the word. In modern Russian alphabet it is absent

[Wytnucls]

Sorry, but that's not what I see, especially at the end of the first name.