[tz] Request for change to the tz database

[Guy Harris]

On Feb 8, 2021, at 5:40 PM, Philip Paeps <philip at trouble.is> wrote:

> On 2021-02-09 08:36:31 (+0800), Brian Inglis wrote:
> 
>> I doubt any of these posters actually use software that displays Kiev: they have made no mention of products or projects, and have been told to spam this address! They could also be Russian provocateurs.
>> How can we know they are Ukrainian, as it is useful if Russian controlled systems can maintain or masquerade as Ukrainian identities, used in media campaigns to their own ends?
> 
> This is clutching at straws.  One of the most recent posts actually included a screenshot.

It did not appear to be a screenshot of an application displaying a TZDB ID, however, and TZDB IDs are what we're discussing.

As far as I know, nobody's doubting that it's Київ in Ukrainian or that Київ is Latinized as "Kyiv".  As far as I know, the reason why "Europe/Kiev" was chosen is that, at the time it was chosen, the most common English-language Latinization of the name was "Kiev".  Either that's no longer the case or it's becoming increasingly less and less the case, so that it won't be the case soon, in which case this is just like Bombay -> Mumbai or Calcutta -> Kolkata, and should be treated the same.

(And, while I suspect most people, even in Ukraine, never see Europe/Kiev presented, 1) at least some of the people requesting the name change are, I suspect, people who deal with TZDB IDs, and thus *do* see Europe/Kiev presented, and 2) I doubt this is an Evil Russian Plot(TM) that's already ensnared the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, as well as the New York Times (see the note at the top of the article):

	https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/us/politics/kiev-pronunciation.html

and possibly other news sources and other organizations.)

> 
>> [I still see widely recognized names such as Burma and Rangoon used in the popular press to explain what's going on in what's now called Myanmar, as few recognize the latter; people have no interest or care about what happens in countries whose names they no longer recognize. Languages and names are about communication and comprehension: change names if you want to hinder communication and comprehension, and interest and caring as consequences.]
> 
> While there may be some confusion about Burma/Myanmar and Rangoon/Yangon,

...and our official name, in the asia file, is Asia/Yangon.  (In the comments before the entry for Asia/Yangon, it speaks of "Burma / Myanmar".)  Asia/Rangoon is a link from the backward file.