'Kyiv' and 'Kiev'

[ryan grotte]

The vast majority of Western readers is more familiar
with the spelling Kiev than with Kyiv, and is clueless
as to the political connotation the different
spellings imply. A journalist aware of both would
probably choose clarity over politics, especially
given journalism's pretensions to objectivity and an
election increasingly seen as a turn for the worse in
Russia's relations with the West. Writing Kyiv might
seem too explicitly anti-Russian. I've already argued
that the typical Western reader wouldn't be aware of
that, but if we write Kiev at least he or she knows
what is being discussed. At any rate, it's a fine
line.

This is basically a reiteration of Ms. Walker's
sentiment:

"A newspaper sometimes has to balance political
correctness with terms that will have some meaning for
the readers it is trying to reach.  If the one thing
that a vast swath of readers know about Ukraine is
that there's a fancy chicken dish named for its
capital, do we really want to insist on Kyiv and lose
them completely?"

What's really unfortunate is that she insists on
citing Chicken Kiev as part of her justification.

ryan.


--- "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>
wrote:

>
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.
>
> [end quote]
>
> BTW, if your message specifies an explicit
> "Reply-to:" address, our
> responses will go there instead of to SEELANGS. To
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>
> --
> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> --
> Paul B. Gallagher
> pbg translations, inc.
> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> http://pbg-translations.com
>
>
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