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:
For the record I get the Kyiv versus Kiev argument. It just doesn’t sit right with me when people start picking and choosing when it is and isn’t cool to mock the way Americans mispronounce American towns and cities whose names originated from languages we don’t speak and which have very different pronunciation rules from English. The comments about midwest name butchering are what ruffled my feathers.
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I’m supportive of the “Kyiv” spelling and pronunciation, but its not as cut and dry as just “call people what they want to be called”. I’m not sure what exact percentage is now but a large portion of the Ukranian population at least used to use the Russian spelling and pronunciation (from soviet era), and its not really because they were being culturally oppressed, its just how things were standardized. Its a bit politically charged or even nationalistic to cast off the Russian usage completely and demand that western governments do the same. In this instance, with Ukraine being a relatively new nation and wanting to forge a new identity it all seems important enough to be worth it. But what if Russians take over the city and revert back to “Kiev”? Seems obvious we should say fuck off at that point.
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