Pronunciation of Donetsk

[victor steinbok]

I'm going to second the schwa pronunciation of Donetsk, although it can
occasionally be "colored" (rounded). But I agree that only the north of
Russia would pronounce it with a full [o], as if every syllable is
stressed. The same goes for Slavianks/Sloviansk. Although I doubt there is
anyone at all who would pronounce it with an [o] (up North, they'd be using
the Russian spelling).

There are other city names that have commonly be used with their
traditional Russian antecedents, such as Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk,
Nikolaev, Lugansk, while Ukranian demand Kiyv, Dniepropetrovsk, Kharkiv,
Mikolaiv, Luhansk (IIRC--going from memory and might be a touch off).
Luhansk is one exception--I've seen a lot more reports with the "h" rather
than "g". Dnepropetrovsk is another oddity--many news stories, particularly
before the conflict, use "Dniepropetrovsk". Another name that has multiple
interpretations is "Transnistria", which I've seen as "Transdnistria",
"Transniestria", and several others.

As for transliteration, there may be some confusion between the standard
(LOC) set and AP guidelines that used to deviate (but I don't think they do
now). The standard LOC uses "i" everywhere and "y" only for the vowel
that's between the two "signs" in the alphabet. So "ia", "iu" are standard,
"ya" and "yu" are not. There are some exceptions for traditional names that
have been used for decades, like Yuzovka, Yuzhnyi, etc. But in LOC catalog
(and other library materials) they will show up as "IUzovka" and
""IUzhnyi". Similarly, the German/French transliterations are still
commonly used for older names of "famous" people (Tchaikovsky), while LOC
would demand a different spelling (Chaikovskii). As I recall, the
"ia"'/"iu" vowels demand a ligature in LOC and "e" (at end of alphabet) and
terminal "i" (in names and adjectives) get a diacritic mark (dot and caret,
respectively) to distinguish them from normal "e" (sixth letter) and "i"
(the penultimate one in Chaikovskii, but not the other two). Much of this
was demanded by use of typewriters and remained unchanged for electronic
records.

VS-)

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