[mova] Ki-yev or Ky-yiv ?

[Rory Finnin]

Shanovnyi druzi,

 

Not to nitpick, but why deny people from Ukraine who speak Russian (or
Ukrainian with an occasional Russian accent) an identity as "Ukrainian"?
There are millions of Ukrainians in eastern and southern Ukraine who, having
grown up speaking Russian, are now making an attempt to master Ukrainian.
Their efforts should be welcomed and encouraged, in my view -- not
discouraged on behalf of some expectation of (illusive) linguistic purity.


 

As far as well-informed people saying "Ki-yev" instead of "Ky-yiv," it seems
old habits die hard.  Let's change those habits, but with patience and
understanding.

 

Us'oho naikrashchoho,

 

Rory

 

_________________________

Rory Finnin

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Center for Comparative Literature and Society

Columbia University

 

-----Original Message-----
From: mova-bounces at brama.com [mailto:mova-bounces at brama.com] On Behalf Of
Mykola Ponomarenko
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 5:25 PM
To: mova at brama.com
Subject: Re: [mova] Ki-yev or Ky-yiv ?

 

Hi Irena, 

Fluent Ukrainian speaker, as I am, will say Ky-jiv in all situations. I
think you had experience NOT with people who speak Ukrainian naturally, but
with those who speak Russian naturally and know Ukrainian. They present
themselves to you as Ukrainians but in reality they are Russian speakers
from Ukraine. For them it is subconscious to say Ki-ev, especially when they
say it "in English" :)) 

 

Fershtain? ;)

-- Mykola  

 

 

On 10/16/06, Peter Voitsekhovsky <pvoitsekhovsky at gvpt.umd.edu> wrote: 

I would like to take this questiion further.

Why is it that speakers of Ukrainian who know perfectly well that the 
US capital's name is  [wOshington] in English, still say [va-shing-TON]
in Ukrainian (same as in Russian)?

Petro

>>> K&I Bell <kib at magma.ca> 10/16/06 3:07 PM >>> 
Dear Mova -
       I wonder why even those who are well-informed and use Kyiv
instead
of Kiev in writing,
       still, in speaking, pronounce it in Ukrainian and English, as
Ki-yev
instead of Ky-yiv ? 
       Why ? I don't get it .....
                                               Irena

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.brama.com/pipermail/mova/attachments/20061016/a4521410/attachment.html