Kyiv and Petersburg

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Stephanie Sures wrote:

> How did an "s" sneak its way into the Anglicized transliteration of
> Sankt-Peterburg, anyways? Further along that note, I might ask the same
> about the changes made to "Moskva", Rossiya", etc. The list could go on for
> quite some time. 

For St. Petersburg, I'm guessing it's just standard Germanic morphology 
(they call it "Sankt-Petersburg" in German).

Moscow, too, is obviously our spelling of the German Moskau, and I would 
speculate wildly that German -au is broken from earlier *-ū; cf. Slavic 
*-ŭw- with the -w- assigned to the following syllable and the -ŭ- later 
reduced to -ъ-.

-- 
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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