Posted on 02/26/2022 6:33:29 AM PST by foreverfree
Some observers have questioned the adoption by the BBC of the spelling Kyiv for the capital of Ukraine instead of Kiev, as Britons and Americans have traditionally referred to it.
Many presenters are also using the accompanying pronunciation 'KEE-eve' rather than the previous 'KEE-yev', leaving some listeners confused.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
ff
Kyiv is the Ukraine term, Kiev is the Russian term. Same for Odessa and Odesa. I’d rather use the Ukraine versions....
Kyiv is the name in Ukranian, Kiev in Russian. It’s copying the limpwristed Bummer’s ISIL vs ISIS trying to understand geostrategy through cheap linguistic tricks.
Somewhere along the line, starting with Beijing I think, western elitist sources decided pronouncing foreign capital names in anything other than the phonetics and inflections of the native tongue was ethnocentric.
talking head bufoonery.
Along these same lines, how did Peking become Beijing???
To be fair, if some sod from London started calling me “med-eh-KAHN” I’d smack down their tea cup. It’s their country so they get to set the spelling and pronunciation.
Good question! That just happened one day.
Actually, since the city is in Ukraine and not part of Russia anymore, its correct to use the Ukrainian pronunciation. At this particular time, it shows support for Ukraine for the rest of the world to finally catch up with the correct Ukrainian pronunciation and adopt their pronunciation, and not the Russian one. Has nothing to do with “ cheap liguinstic trick”.
And it’s pronounced ‘KEE-ev’, not ‘keeve’ like all these dumbass TV-talking-heads are saying.
The Russian composer Mussorgsky wrote ‘Pictures At An Exhibition’ in 1874. The translation always says ‘Kiev’. That’s how I learned it.
It’s not difficult to understand why “Ni-jer” became “Ni-zheer” a few years back when a few of the talking heads erred in the pronunciation of this African country.
When I hear of Kiev/Kyiv, I think of the great gate and the movement within a composition that a couple American wrastlers used as their walk up song..
Great gate of Kiev/Kyiv.
A Russian composer, so probably spelled Kiev to him.
My translator over there asked me not to say “The Ukraine”. Soviets had pushed the use of the article to make it feel like a geographical distinction instead of a country, like “the mountains, or the coast”.
“But we say THE United States?”
“Yes but you never say THE Georgia. And you never say THE France.” True.
There was a bit of a problem among the supporting pastors insisting that all our teaching be done in Ukrainian instead of Russian. But the school founder said that we were drawing students from many countries of the former Soviet Union and this enable us to teach them all. They agreed to that. Very strong patriotic feeling there, and this was in 1994 I think.
Do menus have to be changed now to Chicken Kyiv?
Also Ukrainian doesn’t have articles in the language. So putting one in their country name is a bit of a slap.
That’s because it is. People and places, deserve to have their names pronounced right. Just because centuries ago British royalty said “that’s too hard for us, we’ll say it this way, and we’re the British Empire so you just gotta take it” doesn’t mean we should keep doing it.
I’m glad somebody has shed some light on this. I’ve always read “Kiev” and now I’m reading Kyiv. I thought it was a totally different city.....
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