Markov or Markoff Processes? - Shannon says Markoff
people.math.harvard.edu
people.math.harvard.edu
I'm reading "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" by C. E. Shannon (https://people.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shanno...) and I encountered the concept of "Markoff processes", which seemed to be the same as the Markov processes. This was further validated by most modern publications, as they all use "Markov".
Nonetheless, in Part I. Discrete Noiseless Systems, section 4. Graphical representation of Markoff processes, Shannon used "Markoff".
Moreover, on the Wikipedia page (see link in title), there are 8 mentions of "Markoff" and 41 mentions of "Markov".
I see that Andrey Markov was Russian. Does his name variation have to do with some mix-up between <v> and <ff> in Russian?
Definitely is. Chebyshev vs Chebysheff is another example. In Russian these surnames have -v ending but there is some tradition in English culture that some -v endings may be converted in -ff.
Source: I am a fluent Russian speaker.
Correctness in surnames is not an easy topic. An exapmle with not Russian surname: half of world pronounce Noam Chomsky as "Khomsky" and another half as "Chomsky". Maybe he wants himself to be written as Markoff, I do not know exactly, but from my understanding his wanting must be kind of an ultimate source of truthness in this question. For example, some Vladimirs (a common Russian name) really want their names to be written as Wladimir, despite a "correct" transcript for this name is V-.
I have found an article which desrcibes -ff topic in general, hope you can use a translator: https://regnum.ru/news/1943117.html