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 ...
So why do we still call it Warsaw rather than Warzsawa? And Poland rather than Polska? Don’t Polish feelings count?
People in Pittsburgh will always refer to our main downtown building as the "U.S. Steel Tower" even if UPMC bought it several years ago and U.S. Steel headquarters leases only one floor of it now.
But we often say "The Donald."
That's a usage from his first wife's native Czechoslovakian background. She called him that when speaking to the press, and the NY media picked it up. One also hears that usage in Italian as a polite or respectful form.
No they don’t. They’re white.
A little before the 2000 election. Reagan’s second term is when the red/blue thing was permanently set by the mediots. They cemented it with GHWB and Klintoon back-to-back.
Scratch that - since we’re now talking about Ukraine. Although the whole pronunciation phenomena seems to have a touch of liberals’ I’m your Great White Father attitude in it.
There’s also Ukranian v. Polish, in the western Ukraine - Rivni vs. Rovno. And in western Poland there’s Polish v. German: Danzig v. Gdansk. These are territories that got stolen back and forth, and ceded or returned by conquest or treaty. Some more than once, probably.
Part of the end of WWII ‘settling up’ about 20% - 30% of Poland was ceded to Stalin. Poland was compensated somewhat by dismembering Prussia and getting a chunk of it. The were other ‘territory transactions ‘ too. Victorious Allies wanted revenge & to keep the Reds happy.
Read this, and you can take Slavic know-it-all snobbery to a whole new level.
The Difference Between Pierogi, Piroshky, Pelmeni, and Paczki
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy5583/an-illustrated-guide-to-eastern-european-dumplings
Apologies for the alliteration, but it just came out that way. Pierogi, piroshky, pelmeni, and paczki (this is exhausting) are foods which are regularly confused with each other, what with the seemingly minor variations of dough and fillings seen among them. Between those variations, however, are distinct foods from different countries, though I’m pretty sure you can travel between them on a train rather quickly. Let’s establish some parameters before we proceed. Each type of dumpling and pastry mentioned above is actually the plural form in the original language. In Polish, pierogi is the plural of the singular pierog, a word that’s rarely used because you’d look like an idiot eating a single pierog on a plate, as you would ordering just one piroshok, pelmen, or a lonely little paczek.
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Why did Peking get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Chinks
Doesn't rhyme as well as that Constantinople song.
Anyway, this thread has me hungry for some Chicken Kiev. Or should I now call it Chicken Kyiv?
pot-a-to________pot-ah-to
Makes me sad and angry, what Putin’s done, but Biden was a big catalyst to all this.
“The Ukraine”
Our students at the Slavic Baptist Institute were looking for a way socially to assert their identity. People who came in from Belarus and Russia spoke Russian with the Ukrainian students even when they knew Ukrainian. That was deference to the founder/president who wanted student unity. He also wanted Baptist identity to supersede. All of them had been persecuted as part of the “unregistered church” so this was well understood. Founder also was giving them free books, commentaries and other notes and helps, all of which was in Russian. There was little or nothing in Ukrainian.
It was the old men who were so insistent about this, they being neither students nor teachers but respected pastors and supporters of the school. They scowled but went along. However everyone referred to Kiev as Keeeve, pronounced with one long syllable. The city nearby was always Lviv never Lvov. They had worked out a polite etiquette which may have been unique to that school. I stayed in their homes and always spoke Ukrainian, simple please/thank you and food names and such, much to our hosts’ delight.
One last thing, I was never ever ever to use a Nazi name for any city like Danzig for Gdansk. Ouch big stink, big no-no! I never did that, but I did have a bad habit of whistling which they think is calling the Devil. It is a thing I did as a trumpeter so they forgave me, but I sure got a lecture from the founder about it.
Pardon me as I share my memories, happy times. I was pleased to learn from you about “The Don” as Czech. I thought it was a Godfather thing:-)
That’s a great album!
It’s “Kiev”.
Just as Peking became Beijing and Bombay became Mumbai..
There is something to be said for keeping names the same, as in Squaw Valley, or pronunciations of them the same as we have for generations. Change is not good when it comes to History. It is a parlor trick used by tyrants to confuse and destabilize peoples minds, which leads to the same in a people and a Nation.
Actually it usually does. American tourists have a terrible reputation in the world. And one of the contributors to that is that we can’t even be bothered to learn how to pronounce where we’re visiting.
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