[mova] the pronunciation of Kyiv

[K&I Bell]

What an interesting explanation re Anglo's 
pronunciation (or not) of Kyiv !  Thank you so much, Wayles Browne .    Irena B


At 01:24 PM 19/10/2006, you wrote:

>Âèáà÷òå, ÿ áóäó ïèñàòè ïî àí„ëiéñüêîìó, òîìó ùî 
>ìîÿ òåìà äîòè÷èòü âëàñíå àí„ëiéñüêî¿ âèìîâè.
>I am afraid that the difficulty for Anglophones 
>is not merely understandable--it is unavoidable, even incurable.
>I say this because of some facts about English vowels and syllables:
>There are two kinds of syllables: one has a 
>vowel at the end, like English "go, see, too" 
>etc., and the other kind has a vowel followed by 
>a consonant, like English "it, goat, book" etc.
>For some languages, this doesn't make much 
>difference. Indeed, it is not important for 
>present-day Ukrainian (though for older 
>Ukrainian it did make a difference). But for 
>English it is important, because different 
>English vowels behave differently. The English 
>long vowels can be at the end of a syllable, or 
>they can have a consonant after them, so we can 
>say "go" and "goat", "see" and "seem", "too" and 
>"tool". However, the English short vowels can't 
>be at the end of a syllable. They must have a 
>consonant after them. So we can say "get" but we 
>can't say "ge..." in English, we can say "fat" 
>but we can't say "fa...", we can say "fun" but 
>we can't say "fu...", and, now I'm coming to my 
>main point, we can say Lynch but we can't say 
>"Ly...". That also means that we can't say 
>"Ky..." as a separate syllable, whereas we can 
>say "Ki..." as a separate syllable (as in the 
>word "key", for instance--that is a long vowel in English).
>Ç ïîøàíîþ
>Wayles Browne
>
>>Greetings!
>>
>>It is understandable that many anglophones will have difficulty pronouncing
>>Kyiv.  But now that the State Department has adopted this spelling, we
>>can patiently tell our anglophone friends that:
>>
>>1) The noun has two syllables:  *ky -- *iv*
>>2) The *y* in the first syllable  is like the vowel *y* in Lynch.
>>3) The second syllable is pronounced like the second syllable in
>>the adjective (and noun) *na -- ive.*
>>
>>With consistent use (and a respectful attitude) on the part of
>>Ukrainians, anglophones will switch from *Kiev* to *Kyiv,* the way
>>they switched from *Peking* to *Beijing.*
>>
>>Best,
>>NP
>>
>>|||||||||||||||||
>>Dr. Natalia Pylypiuk
>>University of Alberta
>
>
>--
>
>Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics
>Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
>Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
>
>tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
>fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
>e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu
>_______________________________________________
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>mova at brama.com
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>
>
>
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