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According to an October 19th US State Department press briefing, the US Board on Geographic Names has decided to change the official US English spelling of the Ukrainian capital from Kiev (pronounced Ke-yev) to Kyiv (pronounced Keev). The new version reflects the Ukrainian transliteration of the name, while the old spelling came from the Russian transliteration.
The population of Ukraine is split in two, with half of its citizens being Russian-speakers and half being Ukrainian-speakers. Of course, it would seem that the State Department has now taken sides…
Many people see this as a US tactic to woo Ukraine further to the West, the direction that President Viktor Yuschenko has been taking the country since he came to power after the 2004 Orange Revolution. Call it what you like, but supporters say that the US is just coming in line with the spelling standards of international organizations like the UN and NATO.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey says, “…I don’t think this decision has anything reflective in it.” But if we’re putting all politics aside, what about the scores of other cities with English spellings far off from their native pronunciations? Why is Myanmar still referred to as Burma in the US? Will Moscow ever become Moskva? Will Munich become Munchen?
Though Kyiv will now be used on all maps produced in the United States, it would seem that not everyone is ready to board the ship just yet. According to this article in the International Herald, the Associated Press will continue to spell the Ukrainian capital as Kiev.
I suppose only time will tell if this change will stick.
Responses to “US Board on Geographic Names: Kiev is Now Kyiv”
November 5th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Only half Ukrainians speak Ukrainian, but three quarters are Ukrainian by origin and getting Kyiv spelled the Ukrainian way speaks to their pride no matter what language they use
I am from Eastern Ukraine myself so I know what I am talking about
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
“Kyiv” is how the city’s name is written in the Ukrainian language using the latin alphabet.
The UA government’s official decree at www.uazone.net/Kiev_Kyiv.html states that the spelling “Kiev does not recreate the phonetic and scriptural features of the Ukrainian language”. Therefore they are mandating “Kyiv as standardized Roman-letter correspondence to the Ukrainian language geographical name of ????”.
There are several flaws in their thinking:
(1) The decree doesn’t state to whom it applies (all UA officials? all UA residents? the whole world?).
(2) The point of the decree is to make everyone say it in a Ukrainian-sounding way, however most people don’t speak Ukrainian and won’t pronounce it “right” anyway.
(3) The policy and its intentions have not been applied consistently, e.g. the UA embassy in Berlin has changed from “Kiew” to “Kyiw”, not “Kyiv”, the UA embassy in Moscow still uses the (supposedly offensive) Russian spelling, not a Ukrainianized spelling.
(4) The UA government is not urging its OWN citizens to pronounce foreign city names in the native way, e.g. Ukrainians still write Chicago as “??????”, in which both the -ch- and the -i- are wrongly transliterated, making their pronunciation of Chicago rhyme with CHEEK- not SHIp.
October 26th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Interesting points, it indeed is very true that the States have their own “Americanized” way of making everything these days. But if we are to respect a nation as a legitimate whole shouldn’t we as well respect its nations (and cities) namings?