Kyiv? Where did that come from?

[Mark de Croix]

Okay, so I should have done some reading before declaring it as just an innocent difference in spelling. Most of my previous comments stand, but I should have known there was more to it. Just like the movement from Wade Giles Chinese spellings to pinyin, it was political in nature. Beijing didn't like that the British had created the anglicized version of their language and forcefully implemented their own version and rejected the old version--and the spelling Mao Tse Tung moved into obscurity.

Historically, Russians asserted a lot of influence in the surrounding regions, including Ukraine, which took on a whole new meaning under the USSR. [....]

Reminds me of being in China and relying on pinyin to find out it's a bloody waste. I deduced that it must be based on Russian or a slavic language because some of the Romanizations depart so much from West Euro languages. I am also reminded once outside a train station over there I walked past a throng of taxi drivers standing outside and from a distance one of them in sight of me began shooting an imaginary machine gun. I took it that he saw one too many Hollywood action films. (Or maybe I elicited it because once a couple of Black girls at school told me I walked like John Wayne. It once saved me though in Bangkok when I turned to go out a "jewelry" store after I withstood a browbeating by a woman clerk for not buying anything, two thugs suddenly stood at the door with their arms folded. Outside I could see my taxi driver animatedly talking with another thug. Maybe my driver plead for my life. )

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

I found a very interesting article (in French, that is for ou Styles !...) about the origin of the modern language policy in Ukraine and the origins of the present war...

https://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/europe/ ... e_de_2014_

I will try to summarize it here...

To make it very short, since the end of the XVIIIth century, the tsars, then the Soviet Union (since Stalin), carried out very important actions of russification then of sovietisation in Ukraine. This included simply the prohibition of teaching, but also of the language and grammar of the Ukrainian language, derived from the old Ruthenian.

In reality the actual phenomenon seems to be a very recent movement of "de-Sovietization" of place names in Ukraine (2016) and as an extension of cultural and linguistic disputes since 2014, as power shifts in favor of pro-Ukrainians.

The 'fire at the powder keg' was, following the impeachment of Viktor Yanukovych (2014), the project of repealing of a 2012 law that allowed the recognition at the local level of regional languages (official bilingualism – Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law )... Its purpose was the preservation of Russian against Ukrainian. At that time the law was adopted by a pro-Russian parliamentary majority against the opinion of the majority of the Ukrainian speaking deputies. The granting of "regional language" status to Russian was effectively equivalent to making any other language as official as Ukrainian.

This attempted repeal of the law by the Ukrainian Parliament, immediately after the flight of former (Putin puppet...) president Viktor Yanukovych on February 23, 2014, was immediately instrumentalized and recuperated by Russia, which saw it as an extremely provocative gesture against the "Russian-speaking population" of Ukraine and as one of the justifications for the annexing of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in the Donbass.

Under the leadership of the next president (Oleksandr Turchynov) a parliamentary working group was hastily set up to write a new law on the status of regional languages... But the damage was done and since dictator Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has not ceased to justify his actions, including the annexing of Crimea in reference to what he denounces, without shame, today as a "genocide".

The nationalists in the Ukrainian parliament also pushed for the abandonment of the Cyrillic alphabet in favor of the Latin alphabet... This made things even worse, as one can imagine.

In 2014, the Russian-speaking populations of the Donbass felt uncomfortable but, paradoxically, were especially afraid of the reaction of the Russian 'Big Brother'...

Since 2012, in support of the Ukrainian oligarchs of Russian origin in place, then even more in 2014 with the annexing of Crimea and the provision of military support and mercenaries to the pro-Russian separatists of the Oblasts of Luhansk and Donesk, Putin has seamlessly worked to put the issue of cultural and linguistic supremacy at the center of his game of influence ... However, in 2012, among Russian minorities "Many Russian speakers in Ukraine now consider Ukraine as "their country" and are ready to become bilingual. Many Russian speakers have thus become Ukrainians while speaking Russian as their native language."

In 2015 the President of Ukrainian origin Petro Poroshenko made adopt four decommissioning laws, known as "de-communization" (Декомуніза́ція > dekommunizatsia), banning all propaganda about the communist and National Socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine. One of the consequences was a profound change in the official toponymy: "provided as a result the change of names of localities, streets or enterprises referring to the communist era. The "Lenin rooms" and "Lenin squares" were then liquidated in enterprises and military units, and the busts of Lenin and other personalities of the Communist Party were removed. In total, therefore, 1320 monuments representing the Communist leader Lenin were dismantled under the order of President Petro Poroshenko in May 2015. The government's clearly stated objective: to get rid of the symbols of the Soviet era and decommunize the country. Despite this policy, communist relics remained erected in the east of the country, still controlled by Kremlin-backed forces."

This could help to explain this quite recent change from 'Kiev' (soviet era toponym) to « Kyiv »

The disputes within the parliament and the Ukrainian political class has probably not helped... However, linguistic disputes have always been an argument for Putin, since 2004, to openly claim a protective status but covertly 'pull the strings' of power in Ukraine. Russia kept repeating since that it reserves the right to intervene in Ukraine "to protect Russian minorities"...

Excellent write-up, Gorilla! Spot on! If I didn't know any better I would have thought you were Ukrainian yourself. The only thing is that the statues of Lenin had been taken down long before Poroshenko or Yanukovych or Yushchenko. They were taken down as soon as the Soviet Union fell apart in the early 90s, under President Leonid Kravchuk. I'd be surprised if there were any left standing by the time Leonid Kuchma came to power. Except in the East, as you stated. Same thing with street names. They were quickly changed as well to reflect Ukrainian heritage, not Soviet/Russian. Maybe those took a bit longer to change but still that was all done in the 90s. The big thing that happened during Poroshenko's tenure is the erection of statues of Ukrainian freedom fighter Stepan Bandera (though many were already in place even earlier) as well as street names bearing Bandera's name. This really pisses Putin off because in his warped mind Bandera is the equivalent of Hitler because he killed many Soviets during WWII. Good!! So any good Ukrainian who supports Bandera is automatically a Nazi in his eyes. Amazing since Putin emulates the psycho murderer Stalin himself. But of course that's okay. Not surprising that Putin is actually now Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one. Heaven help us!

As for Kiev yes for the longest time that's how everyone saw this city spelled on the map. It's a Russian pronunciation of course. KEY-YEV. The Ukrainian pronunciation is KIH-YEEV. Spelled "Kyiv" in English. It's not KEEV either which is what you hear on the news today. It's KIH-YEEV. But I guess that's not easy for Americans to pronounce. All the Ukrainian cities used to have a Russian spelling on the world map. Kharkiv used to be Kharkov. My home city of Lviv used to be Lvov. Rivne used to be Rovno. And so on. Stalin in particular led the "russification" of Ukraine, attempting to wipe out our heritage and our language. As well as our people, as witness by the Holodomor of 1932-1933, a genocide orchestrated by Stalin which claimed up to 10 million Ukrainian lives. Much of which was in the East, after which Stalin repopulated those areas with native Russians from Russia. Hence the problems we have today.

Please continue to Pray for Ukraine!

[Gorilla Mask]

Excellent write-up, Gorilla! Spot on! If I didn't know any better I would have thought you were Ukrainian yourself. The only thing is that the statues of Lenin had been taken down long before Poroshenko or Yanukovych or Yushchenko. They were taken down as soon as the Soviet Union fell apart in the early 90s, under President Leonid Kravchuk. I'd be surprised if there were any left standing by the time Leonid Kuchma came to power. Except in the East, as you stated. Same thing with street names. They were quickly changed as well to reflect Ukrainian heritage, not Soviet/Russian. Maybe those took a bit longer to change but still that was all done in the 90s. The big thing that happened during Poroshenko's tenure is the erection of statues of Ukrainian freedom fighter Stepan Bandera (though many were already in place even earlier) as well as street names bearing Bandera's name. This really pisses Putin off because in his warped mind Bandera is the equivalent of Hitler because he killed many Soviets during WWII. Good!! So any good Ukrainian who supports Bandera is automatically a Nazi in his eyes. Amazing since Putin emulates the psycho murderer Stalin himself. But of course that's okay. Not surprising that Putin is actually now Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one. Heaven help us!

As for Kiev yes for the longest time that's how everyone saw this city spelled on the map. It's a Russian pronunciation of course. KEY-YEV. The Ukrainian pronunciation is KIH-YEEV. Spelled "Kyiv" in English. It's not KEEV either which is what you hear on the news today. It's KIH-YEEV. But I guess that's not easy for Americans to pronounce. All the Ukrainian cities used to have a Russian spelling on the world map. Kharkiv used to be Kharkov. My home city of Lviv used to be Lvov. Rivne used to be Rovno. And so on. Stalin in particular led the "russification" of Ukraine, attempting to wipe out our heritage and our language. As well as our people, as witness by the Holodomor of 1932-1933, a genocide orchestrated by Stalin which claimed up to 10 million Ukrainian lives. Much of which was in the East, after which Stalin repopulated those areas with native Russians from Russia. Hence the problems we have today.

Please continue to Pray for Ukraine!

Cher ami,

Thank you for these precisions. Here in France, we don't always have all the information in the books! Now that you mention it, I remember having seen on TV the fall of statues of Stalin (less of Lenin) at the very beginning of the 90s.

I think that the Ukrainian state of mind is quite close to the state of mind tha was of the French people and the reformist leaders during the French revolution.

In my city, (Perigueux) we have quite a large Ukrainian community. I had the opportunity to talk with some of them in the past. I have always admired their simple courage and unfailed pragmatism.

Here in France, the people and the elites, the civil society are deeply outraged by this ignoble invasion which plunged Europe back into its darkest hours... Here, many would like to do more. Do you know that 3,000 French people have already volunteered to fight in Zelinsky's International Legion? Surely, many less will arrive on the spot, but it is a symbol.

I would like to end this tribute to the Ukrainian people with this quote from your President:

"And then life will conquer death and light will conquer Darkness."

I don't think I will shock anyone here by saying that, in my opinion, you are a great people who are showing the way to European unity.

Slava Oukraïni !

PS: sorry for being somewhat out of topic here but it was ... compelling.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

Excellent write-up, Gorilla! Spot on! If I didn't know any better I would have thought you were Ukrainian yourself. The only thing is that the statues of Lenin had been taken down long before Poroshenko or Yanukovych or Yushchenko. They were taken down as soon as the Soviet Union fell apart in the early 90s, under President Leonid Kravchuk. I'd be surprised if there were any left standing by the time Leonid Kuchma came to power. Except in the East, as you stated. Same thing with street names. They were quickly changed as well to reflect Ukrainian heritage, not Soviet/Russian. Maybe those took a bit longer to change but still that was all done in the 90s. The big thing that happened during Poroshenko's tenure is the erection of statues of Ukrainian freedom fighter Stepan Bandera (though many were already in place even earlier) as well as street names bearing Bandera's name. This really pisses Putin off because in his warped mind Bandera is the equivalent of Hitler because he killed many Soviets during WWII. Good!! So any good Ukrainian who supports Bandera is automatically a Nazi in his eyes. Amazing since Putin emulates the psycho murderer Stalin himself. But of course that's okay. Not surprising that Putin is actually now Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one. Heaven help us!

As for Kiev yes for the longest time that's how everyone saw this city spelled on the map. It's a Russian pronunciation of course. KEY-YEV. The Ukrainian pronunciation is KIH-YEEV. Spelled "Kyiv" in English. It's not KEEV either which is what you hear on the news today. It's KIH-YEEV. But I guess that's not easy for Americans to pronounce. All the Ukrainian cities used to have a Russian spelling on the world map. Kharkiv used to be Kharkov. My home city of Lviv used to be Lvov. Rivne used to be Rovno. And so on. Stalin in particular led the "russification" of Ukraine, attempting to wipe out our heritage and our language. As well as our people, as witness by the Holodomor of 1932-1933, a genocide orchestrated by Stalin which claimed up to 10 million Ukrainian lives. Much of which was in the East, after which Stalin repopulated those areas with native Russians from Russia. Hence the problems we have today.

Please continue to Pray for Ukraine!

Cher ami,

Thank you for these precisions. Here in France, we don't always have all the information in the books! Now that you mention it, I remember having seen on TV the fall of statues of Stalin (less of Lenin) at the very beginning of the 90s.

I think that the Ukrainian state of mind is quite close to the state of mind tha was of the French people and the reformist leaders during the French revolution.

In my city, (Perigueux) we have quite a large Ukrainian community. I had the opportunity to talk with some of them in the past. I have always admired their simple courage and unfailed pragmatism.

Here in France, the people and the elites, the civil society are deeply outraged by this ignoble invasion which plunged Europe back into its darkest hours... Here, many would like to do more. Do you know that 3,000 French people have already volunteered to fight in Zelinsky's International Legion? Surely, many less will arrive on the spot, but it is a symbol.

I would like to end this tribute to the Ukrainian people with this quote from your President:

"And then life will conquer death and light will conquer Darkness."

I don't think I will shock anyone here by saying that, in my opinion, you are a great people who are showing the way to European unity.

Slava Oukraïni !

PS: sorry for being somewhat out of topic here but it was ... compelling.

Gorilla,

Thank you for the contributions that your country has made to our country, including those taking part in the fighting in the "International Legion". It is indeed a dark hour for all of us, in the east and the west. This is a world problem, not just a European one.

I actually remember the Lenin statues coming down as a young boy of 10 years old. Just before we emigrated to the states in March of 1991. This is even before Ukraine proclaimed its independence in August of 1991. I don't recall Stalin statues coming down but I don't think we had any in western Ukraine. I know there were a lot in the east.

I forgot to mention that my cousin actually works at the State Department in Washington, D.C. and one of her many duties is to correct Ukrainian words and phrases that have been "russified". That's why you now see Kyiv instead of Kiev. That's why it's "Ukraine" and not "The Ukraine" (a huge pet peeve of ours!). Also countering Russian lies and propaganda. Correcting phrases like "Ukrainian civil war" (which is clear Putin propaganda) to "Russian aggression against Ukraine". Other phrases like "Ukraine conflict" or "Ukraine crisis" which somehow suggests that its our problem and something we brought about ourselves, when Russia was the clear instigator and culprit in all this. And this is even before the Russian invasion, going back to 2014, when these phrases were regularly tossed around.

Slava Ukrayini and Slava Bohu!!!

[ConchRepublican]

By the way, I blame Ivan for everything.

[Reef monkey]

Now if I can get them to pronounce the state "Nevada" the correct American way. Or at least they can be consistent and pronounce all Spanish named places the Spanish way. "Las Vegas" in Nevada would be pronounced differently. Wait until they find out how "Los Angeles, California" is pronounced in Spanish.

Las Vegas is not actually that far off. Loess ong-hell-es, is very different! Of course, such pronunciation differs from Barcelona to Madrid to the various states of Mexico, just as numerous English accents vary. A funny example in LA is its port neighborhood of San Pedro, pronounced by the largely Latino locals as San Peedro. Go figure.

Texas is like that with Spanish place names. Here in the Houston area we have the site where the Texas Republic won its independence from Mexico, the San Jacinto battleground, pronounced "San Juh-sin-toe". There is a major road that runs from near downtown out west, San Felipe, pronounced "San Philip-ee".

There is a town in South Texas called Refugio, pronounced "Ruh-furry-oh" or "Ruh-fury-oh" or even “Ruh-feary-oh”depending on who you ask. San Antonio is pretty close, but the county it is in, Bexar, is pronounced "Bear".