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--></style><title>Re: [mova] the pronunciation of
Kyiv</title></head><body>
<div>Вибачте, я буду писати по
ан„лiйському, тому що моя
тема дотичить власне
ан„лiйської вимови.</div>
<div>I am afraid that the difficulty for Anglophones is not merely
understandable--it is unavoidable, even incurable.</div>
<div>I say this because of some facts about English vowels and
syllables:</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div>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).</div>
<div>З пошаною</div>
<div>Wayles Browne</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Greetings!<br>
<br>
It is understandable that many anglophones will have difficulty
pronouncing<br>
Kyiv. But now that the State Department has adopted this
spelling, we<br>
can patiently tell our anglophone friends that:<br>
<br>
1) The noun has two syllables: *ky -- *iv*<br>
2) The *y* in the first syllable is like the vowel *y* in
Lynch.<br>
3) The second syllable is pronounced like the second syllable in<br>
the adjective (and noun) *na -- ive.*<br>
<br>
With consistent use (and a respectful attitude) on the part of<br>
Ukrainians, anglophones will switch from *Kiev* to *Kyiv,* the way<br>
they switched from *Peking* to *Beijing.*<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
NP<br>
<br>
|||||||||||||||||<br>
Dr. Natalia Pylypiuk</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>University of Alberta</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div><br>
Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics<br>
Department of Linguistics<br>
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University<br>
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.<br>
<br>
tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)<br>
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)<br>
e-mail ewb2@cornell.edu</div>
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