[tz] Comments for Europe/Kiev

Leon V leonv42 at gmail.com
Thu May 2 05:13:29 UTC 2019


Hi

First of all, my apologies if I'm not doing the right thing by sending this
suggestion to this email - I couldn't find a more relevant process in
CONTRIBUTING for the amendment I suggest.

I'd like to suggest to remove the following paragraph in europe file:

# 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

Reasons for that:

1. I don't see how it's relevant

2. There are multiple major mistakes in it:

a. there are no other common spellings of Kyiv other than Kyiv and
Kiev. Searching the Internet for all other suggested spellings can
easily confirm it;
b. [ˈkɪjiu̯] is absolutely not a valid transcription;
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);
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.

About me: born in Russia, lived for 30 years in Kyiv, 4+ years in
Sydney, Australia. Have been working with English speakers from pretty
much all around the world for 15+ years.


Kind regards


Leon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/attachments/20190502/20826d79/attachment.html>


More information about the tz mailing list