[tz] Comments for Europe/Kiev

[Paul Eggert]

On 5/1/19 10:13 PM, Leon V wrote:
> 1. I don't see how it's relevant

True, and let's remove it. Proposed patch attached.

That being said I'm still curious about the topic, so if you don't mind
here are some more questions. (Perhaps we should take this off-list.)


> a. there are no other common spellings of Kyiv other than Kyiv and Kiev.

I wrote that after looking at a lot of old English-language sources,
which contained those other spellings. You're right that Kyiv and Kiev
are the common spellings now.

> b. [ˈkɪjiu̯] is absolutely not a valid transcription;

It's the only one I've found; do you have a better source than
Wikipedia's IPA? The same pronunciation occurs even on the
Ukrainian-language page for Kiev
<https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%97%D0%B2>.


> c. neither Ukrainian nor Russian standards would suggest to use f at
> the end of the written word, although when pronounced it may sound
> somewhat reminiscient of f (depending on pronunciation);

That text was about the spelling in English-language sources, which tend
to stray somewhat from Ukrainian and/or Russian standards.


> d. I don't believe there is an English speaker who would pronounce
> "Kuiyu" similar to what it's actually pronounced in either Russian or
> Ukrainian; e. the linked sound file is of low quality and seems to
> either have a second half of the last letter cut off or just
> pronounced by someone very drunk. It's not pronounced with "u" at the
> end neither in Ukrainian nor in Russian, not even close.

These last two points seem to be a bit iffy among native Ukrainian
speakers. I found another source
https://forvo.com/word/%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%97%D0%B2/#uk in which some
speakers sounded more like "Kuiyu" (or perhaps "Kuiyo"?) than the "Keef"
of other speakers; I am doing my best to give an English-style
transliteration of the pronunciation without following any official
standards. The Wikipedia page's pronunciation appears to be in the
"Kuiyu" camp, whereas the pronunciation you mention is more in the
"Keef" camp.

-------------- next part --------------
From cf67c5123d35962d0ea414568a3499867de03620 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 May 2019 17:26:17 -0700
Subject: [PROPOSED] Remove Kiev pronunciation commentary
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

* europe: Remove irrelevant and controversial commentary on how to
pronounce the name of Ukraine’s capital.  (Thanks to Leon V.)
---
 europe | 8 --------
 1 file changed, 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/europe b/europe
index b735a48..5ccb867 100644
--- a/europe
+++ b/europe
@@ -3869,14 +3869,6 @@ Link	Europe/Istanbul	Asia/Istanbul	# Istanbul is in both continents.
 # controversial, and some day "Kyiv" may become substantially more popular in
 # English; in the meantime, stick with the traditional English "Kiev" as that
 # means less disruption for our users.
-#
-# Anyway, none of the common English-language spellings (Kiev, Kyiv, Kieff,
-# Kijeff, Kijev, Kiyef, Kiyeff) do justice to the common pronunciation in
-# Ukrainian, namely [ˈkɪjiu̯] (IPA).  This pronunciation has nothing like an
-# English "v" or "f", and instead trails off with what an English-speaker
-# would call a demure "oo" sound, and it would would be better anglicized as
-# "Kuiyu".  Here's a sound file, if you would like to do as the Kuiyuvians do:
-# https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uk-Київ.ogg
 
 # Zone	NAME		GMTOFF	RULES	FORMAT	[UNTIL]
 # This represents most of Ukraine.  See above for the spelling of "Kiev".
-- 
2.21.0