[tz] Kyiv

[Random832]

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017, at 14:27, Paul.Koning at dell.com wrote:
> "Peking" is the Wade-Giles encoding of the Chinese phonetics;

The online Wade-Giles translator I found gives "Peiching", in fact.
AIUI, Peking actually came indirectly via Portuguese and/oror French
(which to my understanding have different values for "p" more closely
resembling the Chinese sound in question), rather than being the result
of a systematic transliteration. (Incidentally, the systematic
transliteration of the Russian name for Kyiv is "Kiyev")

> Since most people don't know the aberrations of Wade-Giles, they may be
> mislead into thinking that the name of that city has changed.  This is
> not so, but I suppose the misunderstanding is excusable.

The name *in English*, which was neither before nor now pronounced in a
way closely resembling the Chinese, has changed.


As to the question of Kyiv itself...

In googling for information on this, I did find the following claim at
https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/4927:

"The request by the Ukrainian government for Kyiv to become the standard
English spelling has been successful to an extent, with the US Board on
Geographic Names approving the spelling and the White House and UK
Foreign Office, among others, using it."

I think (if this is indeed the case), this is a strong argument for
making the change.

Incidentally, this is not without precedent.  The following links all
appear to be the result of similar "transliteration" changes.
Link    Asia/Ashgabat           Asia/Ashkhabad
Link    Asia/Kolkata            Asia/Calcutta
Link    Asia/Dhaka              Asia/Dacca
Link    Asia/Kathmandu          Asia/Katmandu
Link    Asia/Macau              Asia/Macao
Link    Asia/Yangon             Asia/Rangoon
Link    Asia/Thimphu            Asia/Thimbu
Link    Asia/Ulaanbaatar        Asia/Ulan_Bator
Link    Pacific/Pohnpei         Pacific/Ponape
Link    Pacific/Chuuk           Pacific/Truk