fwiw, most russian speakers who grew up in Ukraine say “Kiev”. even the ukraine MP (who was born in Odessa) code switches to “Kiev” because being bilingual is involuntary.
I sense a thread extraction coming.
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The Midwest stands out because it’s weird even to other English speakers.
It’s also not even that Russians and Ukranians pronounce it that differently. It sounds more distinct to English speakers because of the way they overemphasize -ev/-ov endings when saying Russian names.
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How about Dess- Planes, Illinois?
I feel like I may have been the first to bring this issue up. Anyways, Kyiv is the politically correct way to say it and PC is a good thing.
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I thought of an analogy that summarizes my feelings on Kyiv vs Kiev.
Say your name was Sean. And tell your name to some guy and he says “S-H-A-W-N?”. And you say “No it’s S-E-A-N.”
If the guy kept writing “Shawn” despite you telling him this, I’d think he was kind of a dick for doing so. I don’t think Kyiv and Kiev are any different.
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You guys better start pronouncing Berlin right; we’re gearing up!
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Milan, TN
MY-linn
Same in Milan Michigan
Moscow, PA
It’s the same. Pennsylvanians aren’t that stupid
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Local pronunciation is what matters more.
Love me some war-ses-ta-sheer sauce
What’s crazy is that places like Versailles, Ohio were actually founded by French-Americans but we still managed to fuck up the pronunciation somehow.
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I’m calling it de-twa from now on (detroit)
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and München, Köln and Oer-Erkenschwick
i call it det-Roix. like st croix, but no c.
Soltau-Fallingsbostel
Each place has a proper pronunciation in its local language and then a proper pronunciation in the translation to another language.
In Spanish, the United States of America is Los Estados Unidos. In English, Deutschland is Germany.
The ones that are tricky/debatable are the ones that are spelled the same in each. Should Paris be pahr-ee? I’m not sure what the right answer to that one is. Should Los Angeles actually be lohs ahn-heh-les? I’m not sure what the right answer is there, either. But I don’t think we should call Germany Deutschland, unless the Germans ask us to.
The difference in Kiev vs. Kyiv is that both are English, but it’s a question of whether we translate it from Russian (Kiev) or Ukrainian (Kyiv) and the pronunciation differs based on where we translate it from, too.
Correct. At least with France, our mispronunciation isn’t rooted in the language of a former oppressor, at least not as far as I know. Certainly not a current one.
You may already know this now, but for those who don’t: