'Kyiv' and 'Kiev'

[Russell Valentino]

In short, transliteration (which is what she focuses on in her piece) also
contains political assumptions. This is certainly true.

Thus Tadzhikistan (not Tajikistan), or the use of khadis (rather than
hadith), a saying of the Prophet Muhammed, both of which suggest a
Russian-language perspective on Central Asia. There are lots of these that
don't raise hackles but continue to shape thought nevertheless.

With toponyms the problem seems to become especially trenchant when the
people of a country or region are trying to assert their independence, or
when a central government is trying to make a claim. The problem becomes
especially especially sensitive when the English standard toponym happens
to correspond to a since overturned historical affiliation, e.g., Istria
(used in English but also the Italian word laden with irredentist
associations from Italian fascism). There are fewer of these, but they seem
to make their way into the public eye more quickly and get changed as a result.

Russell

At 04:29 PM 12/17/2004, you wrote:
>J. Woodsworth wrote:
>
>>Ottawa (Canada), Friday 17/12/04 15h30 EST
>>
>>Dear SEELANGERS,
>>
>>Some of you may be interested in an article in today's Christian Science
>>Monitor about the spelling of the name of the Ukrainian capital in the
>>Western press -- the pros and cons of choosing one variant over the
>>other.  Written partially in response to Ukrainian-Canadians, it is a
>>serious article, once you get past the kitschy headline.
>>
>>http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1217/p18s04-hfes.html?s=hns
>
>I can't agree that it's a "serious" article. Here's the letter I sent to
>the editor:
>
>[begin quote]
>
>Ruth Walker's article on the correct spelling of Kyiv/Kiev is an
>interesting if somewhat uninformed piece whose chief purpose seems to be
>to justify the status quo. She fails to mention, for example, that the
>sound of the vowel in the first syllable (written with the same letter
>in both Russian and Ukrainian) is quite different in the two languages
>(compare French "u" in "truc" vs. English "u" in "truck" or "truce").
>Different languages assign different sounds to similar-looking letters,
>and the transliteration reflects this fact.
>
>But more importantly, she completely ignores the most obvious parallel:
>the example of Peking/Beijing. When the Chinese demanded that we adopt
>the Pinyin spelling "Beijing," a much better rendition of the
>contemporary pronunciation than the antiquated Wade-Giles "Peking," the
>world didn't come to an end, and we didn't lose touch with the fact that
>it is the capital of China. We got used to it, and now "Peking" looks
>peculiar.
>
>Choosing "Kiev" is not simply a matter of tradition. It's also a
>political statement that Ukraine is still a province of Russia and has
>no right to its own language or culture. If Ms. Walker is so concerned
>with telling the Ukrainians' story, she should learn it first.

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