An interesting question

[james_davis_nicoll]

Claire asked Ann Leckie:
Hello. I wondered if you were aware of the fact that in the french translation of Ancillary, Breq is male ?

Comments

[boxofdelights]

Well, the other possibility is Bootchair. Less silly-sounding to English speakers, but not closer in sound to his actual name.

[butsuri.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, [u] is much closer to [ʊ] than [a] is. [ʊ] is even an allophone of /u/ in Russian (if Wikipedia is to be believed, at any rate: I don't speak Russian).

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

The only available options are бут, бот, бат—boot, bot, butt, sort of, but really the vowel sounds aren't quite the same. Buttchair is probably as close to a Russian pronunciation as Botcher, which I realize isn't an improvement on the funny-homonym front.

[eub.livejournal.com]

In my mind's ear, I'm pretty confident a speaker with a Russian accent, who hears the English word and repeats it, is accenting it towards бу. So I'd use that.

(boot, baut, bot, I'd approximate them.)