Talk:Kiev/Naming issue Archive08

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
← Archive 6 | Archive 8 | Archive 001 →

Contents

Kyiv appear on the internet

Recently surfing inernet i was surprised of numerous sites to use Kyiv. Here are some examples

Ilya K 10:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

When I saw this post, I started surfing, and got thousands of hits for Kiyev. And that doesn't have the Ukrainian government and other Ukrainian nationalist institutions badgering English-speaking news organizations to adopt it! - Calgacus (????????) 13:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Are you proving that Kiyev is not an official spelling? I believe that the ongoing situation is that there was an official name change several years ago that Wikipedia refuses to recognize, contrary to other official name changes (Bombay, Ivory Coast, Siam, etc...). Not recognizing the name that a sovereign person/place/people call themselves is not only incredibly disrespectful, but will also result in a neverending string of inquiries and edits from those who know better. For instance, Serhiy's post a little higher up.--tufkaa 15:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
The right of non-English speaking governments to prescribe the forms and vocabulary of the English language is doubtful, even more doubtful when the city of Kyiv itself has two native names, a Russian and Ukrainian form. It would be POV to choose one over the other, especially as the actual English name is so dominant. I notice Ukrainian nationalists don't seem to care so much about Kyiv's name on the wikipedias of other languages. Why is that? - Calgacus (????????) 16:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The only factor or at least the major factor is prevailing Modern English usage. The latter is simplest to derive from surveying the MAJOR media, thus exlcuding small news outlets that don't have a consistent editiorial policy or editorial staff to proofread and enforce it and check other major encyclopedia. As per prevailing English usage I pushed moving Kharkov to Kharkiv, Lugansk to Luhansk, etc. For the very same reason, Kyiv should not be moved, at least for now. Encyclopedia don't set the trends in English, they simply reflect them. If anyone is interested in the Major media survey, I can provide you with the data. I have access to restricted news search engines, like Lexis Nexis, that unlike Google news, that checks on everything, allows to search exclusively through the international major papers. Also, check Britannica.

To remind, this superfactor (prevailing media usage) is only relevant for choosing the article title! In context usage inside article is a different matter. If the context for non-prevailing modern usage in the literature is established differently from the modern name, by all means use it. For instance, Kijow Voivodship, Battle of Kharkov or Lwow University. However, there is no historical context in the Western English language media where Kyiv is traditionally used, while even Kijow is used on rare occasion. This may be sad to some, but Wikipedia is the wrong place to address it, if you see it a problem. Encyclopedias reflect the usage rather than establish or promotes it.

I summarized the difference between the choice of the article title and the context usage here. Now, Serhiy, please help us write articles rather than fight over terms. You work in adding content to Wikipedia would be very much appreciated. Please check the Ukraine portal for things you can do. --Irpen 16:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Despite the fact that the internet is full of nationalistic Ukrainian websites, as well as those few news organizations who slavishly and ignorantly caved into the demands and arguments of the Ukrainian government, Kyiv crushes Kyiv by a larger margin (4 times in fact) than Kyiv beats Kiyev. - Calgacus (????????) 18:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
There is no question that the internet spells Kyiv in a variety of ways. However, this does not change the name of the city. The city was renamed Kyiv by the sovereign government, much the name changes of Bombay, Ivory Coast, Siam, Leningrad, etc... While it may be referred to personally in a variety of ways, the largest web-based encyclopedic resource at the moment treats Kyiv in a manner inconsistent with other name changes, barring the day that an internet search comes up with more hits for Kyiv. Needless to say, such a policy will continuously bring about users such as Serhiy (you noticed I spelled his name as he spells it, not as most people on the internet would spell it).--tufkaa 18:41, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Tufkaa, unlike Leningrad and Ivory Coast, the city was NOT renamed. It has always been ???? in Ukrainian, ???? in Russian, Kijow in Polish, Kiew in German. It has been called differently at various times in English and the oldest recorded English spelling of this name (Kiovia) was probably Polish based. Ukrainian gov in 1991 did not rename the city but simply required the Ukrainian governmental organization to use Kyiv in the English documents they issue. In fact, this is the only issue over which it has any authority, except actually they could, perhaps, rename the city to, say, Kravchukiv (kidding). They can order the governmental organizations to use Kyiv but they have no authority over the English language in general, in fact no one has. There is no unique answer to the question of which of Kiev/Kyiv/Kijow is "correct". In fact they all are. The question is which name of the three (or more) correct names should we use for the article's title. Our naming convention WP:UE is clear on that:

If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works.

We go check the usage using the media and we go check other encyclopedia.[1] That gives the answer: Kyiv. Not because it is Russian based but because it is the most commonly used English name as of today. --Irpen 05:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, interestingly Mumbai was not mentioned in your response. :)
Also, the parallel with Côte d'Ivoire is striking. In that particular case, since it passed a law in 1985, the sovereign government requests that the name not be translated from French, and Wikipedia complies. I therefore see a discriminatory naming policy, and I am relatively sure that I'm not the only one who sees this.
Frankly, the only reason that we refer to Saint Petersburg or Thailand by their current names is because of international recognition of their respective naming conventions. Why can't we do the same with the capital of Ukraine?--tufkaa 18:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Because this is not the most commonly used English name. International recognition is an important step towards the name gaining usage. If and when it gains usage and beats Kiev, we will rename an article. Côte d'Ivoire prevails the Ivory Coast in the modern media usage. Kyiv doesn't. The reason, perhaps, is that the major European city is simply more a widely used term than the name of the small African country (that is discriminatory but it is so). As such, the name of the city got so widely known that the Anglophones are reluctant to switch and the media reflects that.

This whole issue puts us, the Ukrainians, in an unfavorable light and making us a laughing stock. Munichers don't scream to rename a WP article to München. Neither do Muscovites, about the renaming the article to Moskva. Note also, the many in Russia perceive the term Muscovy and Muscovite as Russophobic, still no mess. The Polish capital's article is Warsaw and not Warszawa, Prague and not Praha, etc. The article titles are based by prevailing English usage. How and why this usage became prevailing is a secondary issue and may be worth an article on its own. I, for a long time, proposed an article Name of the capital of Ukraine, whose talk page will, hopefully, be a single place for all these debates rather than a multitude of pages now.

Kiev is a single most widely used name of the city in English as of now and is used in other encyclopedias. No matter why, this settles the issue. As for why, by all means write an article on that. --Irpen 19:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The reason is there are more documents published in the last 100 years than in the last 10 years. -Iopq 23:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the reason is, it is the most widely used name in currently published texts in English as well. Check the media. In any case, wait for it to change before arguing and, in the meanwhile, help improve the article if there are other aspects in Kiev of interest to you rather than the obsession with de-Russification. --Irpen 17:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Popular ignorance is not a valid factor to determine usage. The fact remains that the Ukrainian government has changed the name of the city. Wikipedia can either accurate reflect this change - as it has for other place names like Bombay or it can give in to popular ignorance and remain a laughing-stock. --SpinyNorman 04:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Laughing stock are the countries who try to influence the English language as opposed to dealing with their internal problems (which in case of Ukraine, there are a few). Take Fifa world cup, and the football side on networks such as BBC is Ivory Coast, in yesterday's match against Saudi Arabia, all of the commentators reffered to the Ukrainian capital as Ki-jev. Which version is used? Judge it for yourself. --Kuban Cossack 11:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Are you calling Ukraine a laughing stock? That doesn't make sense, since the Ukrainian government is not the one arguing what Kiev/Kyiv should be called, but the people of the English Wikipedia are. By the way, the infobox says "Kyiv" while the article's name is "Kiev". — Alex (T|C|E) 04:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it will be possible to rename article the next day Kyiv.ua DNS zone will be established in place of current kiev.ua --TAG 10:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian Journal. Kiev, Kyiv or simple thoughts on Ukrainian affairs by nonpartisan

I've' just learned new Ukrainian word '????', thought for a second and then realized, because it referred to a movie, must be borrowed from english action. Apparently russians got ahead on this one by loan word '????'. Ukrainian version didn't want to be sound anywhere close like it was reborroewd from russian. Good for them. I think it should be more ukrainian words in english language. Words which doesn't sound anything like russian, something like cherevichky would be a perfect example or may be Nimechina instead of Germany. Sounds much better then Kyiv. Imprevu 19:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's '????' in Russia, which is pronounced in precisely the same way as Ukrainian '????'. Both are the closest you can get to the phonetic transcription of 'action' using Cyrillic alphabet. int19h 22:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


All things considered

The U.S. government (State Department) now spells it Kyiv and pronounces it accordingly. (according to the 17th Oct. 2006 "All Things Copnsidered" program.211.225.32.57 08:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

To quote the statement:

One last diplomatic note now, one which has nothing to do with things nuclear, the U.S. government, specifically the Board on Geographic Names, is changing the spelling of the capital of Ukraine. It has been Kiev, "K"-"I"-"E"-"V". It will now be spelled "K"-"Y"-"I"-"V", on maps and documents, and all other things governmental. And the pronunciation, we're told by the State Department, is kyiiv. The decision was made on October 3rd, and has already been adopted across Washington. Word from the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington is that the U.S.has finally gotten it right.

This clip can be heard here, beggining at the 5:25 mark.--tufkaa 15:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
2006.10.19
U.S. Board of Geographic Names Decision to Change Official Spelling of Kyiv

This decision was made to change the spelling of the capital of Ukraine to what is now currently spelled K-y-i-v. The reasons for this as I understand the board's decision making was that this is more in keeping with how the Ukrainians themselves pronounce the name of their capital. It is also now in keeping with how a number of international organizations, including NATO and the UN, are now spelling it. So basically it was a change designed to be more consistent both with local pronunciation standards as well as to ensure some consistency with what other international organizations as well as the Ukrainians themselves are doing.

Mr. Tom Casey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.160.234.1 (talk • contribs) 12:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


Came here to post the same message, thanks guys for already having done this!! And so, why don't we finally get rid of that "Kiev" here on WP as well. Respectfully await your comments for a day or two by way of discussion, before going ahead and changing all mentionings of "Kiev" to "Kyiv". Serhiy 06:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Serhiy, please note that Kiev remains the prevailing English usage by the media no matter how the US gov spells it in official documents. Unlike Ukrainian or Russian, for which the official regulating bodies exist (respective Academies of Sciences), there are no such bodies for the English language, neither among the academies nor in the US or British gov. The encyclopedic choice is governemd by the prevailing anglophone usage and this is the basic rule. How to determine it is more difficult and many proposal to write firm rules that would help us determine prevailing usage were discussed. As a rule of thumb, the modern usage is best determined by the major anglophone media. I assure you that when the media will switch the usage , encyclopedias, including this one, would follow. Of course if you feel that WP is already ripe for this change, the right way to proceed is not 'changing all mentionings of "Kiev" to "Kyiv"' but move the article first and then change inside it. Nothing can prevent you from proposing the move at WP:RM but since it would be against the current prevailing usage in English (see WP:NC(UE)) the move will not win many votes. So, if you feel like wasting yours and others' time, go ahead and propose it. But better, please help adding more content to the article.
Finally, note that the very AP report that reported about the change of the US gov spelling ends with "The Associated Press continues to spell the name of the capital Kiev." Much more people read AP and CNN than US gov web-sites. --Irpen 06:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering that it was decided by the Ukrainian commission for legal nomenclature in 1995 that the English spelling should by Kyiv as it is a much more phonetically accurate translation of the Ukrainian word for the city, and that in October the US State Department changed the spelling from Kiev to Kyiv (see http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/19/america/NA_GEN_US_Ukraine_Capital.php), I suggest that 'Kiev' is changed to 'Kyiv' here. --Bred 17:08, 10 December 2006 (GMT)

Please, read Irpen's comment above (which also describes the proper procedure to do the change through WP:RM). - Regards, Evv 17:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

 ???? still Russian name

On the point about those who "take exception", could it be stated that English speakers' continued use of the spelling "Kiev" is not considered politically motivated?

Might also be relevant to mention that unlike English speakers, Russian speakers around the world are not being urged to Ukrainianize the way they write the city's name in their native language (→ "?????" or "????" "????"). On the contrary the Ukrainian government continues to use the spelling "????" in its own Russian-language publications, without Ukrainianization.

-- Abut 18:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC). Correction by Abut 15:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Sorry but what do you mean by that, you want Russians to use the spelling ?????? A fat chance that is going to happen...Not only is Ukraine trying to mutilate the English langauge, but now you want have it do the same to Russian?--Kuban Cossack 21:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
An encyclopedia is not about wanting or not wanting, it's about presenting the facts - in this case that English speakers are actively being urged to Ukrainianize their spelling and pronunciation while Russian speakers, AFAIK, are not. -- Abut 15:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see reasons to debate this. All you need is to travel over Odessa -> Kyiv autobahn and see how many different spelling of Kyiv in English language are used on road signs (installed officially). --TAG 15:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Russia is NEVER going to change the spelling of Kiev. Neither is Poland (Kijow). And, Kuban Cossack, what's up with the attacks on Ukraine about mutilating other languages? What's the basis for that statement? — Alex (T|C|E) 05:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If only more of those who endlessly debate the issue were interested in contributing anything else to the article but the endless naming wars. --Irpen 17:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The spelling of Kyiv needs to be changed today, I don't know how to do whatever you said earlier about the correct way to get it changed, but it needs to be done now rather than later. It is the correct transliteration and if only more people knew that this is not just about a name being spelled correctly, but rather Ukrainians being respected for being Ukrainians, we are no longer under moskali rule, and the only reason it is spelled the moskali way is because we were slaves for them for 400 years. They had total control over our language and everything else about us. This is 1 step in changing us being considered "russians" by people all over the world. We are Ukrainians, and we have our own language! Stop the persecution of our language! Spell our capital city in our tounge, not in the tounge of the invaders!--Nroscha 09:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

++++++++++++++++++++++

???? lets get this right once and for always.

For any Ukrainian who speaks and reads Ukrainian the only way to write the equivalent word of the Ukrainian capital in English is ?yiv. There is no doubt that in the russian language kyiv is "????" However it would be correct to put the correct phonetic English pronunciation of the Ukrainian word as the heading to the article of the Ukrainian capital - not the phonetic english pronunciation of the Russian word. I would not have agreed with this even 50 years ago as the name for Ukrainians was always Kyiv. It was only changed to Kiev by the Muscovian communist regime, which may I add departed Ukraine in 1991. (well this may also be debated, but not in this forum.) What I am trying to say is KYIV is the CORRECT Ukrainian phonetic transliteration and KIEV is the Russian pronunciation.

I would like to request that this article be moved to its redirect site KYIV and the article name be changed to KYIV to reflect the true identity.

Also the childish behaviour of certain administrators who keep reverting the name to KIEV and block it to any with the correct intention of creating an improvement - both literally and historically should be seriously looked at as a serious threat to the democratic privilege of all who read and enjoy the content in Wikipedia. All I can say to you Alex is GROW UP Myk Mowczan 14:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)Myk Mowczan

This also appears to be a sock; only edits are to this talk page and attempts to get the page protected. Also created a couple hours ago. The sock puppeteer is one to tell someone to grow up. Parsecboy 15:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Kiev-Kyiv: What Google has to say

Since I've seen some people use Google as a source for the Kiev-Kyiv debate, I'm going to use it again. Here's what happens when you go all the way to the end of the search: Kiev returns one less result than Kyiv. This is for those that want to use Google as a reason for this article to stay with the "Kiev" name. — Alex (T|C|E) 03:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This might also mean that there are over 1,000 results for Kyiv, and 999 results for Kiev, making previous claims false. — Alex (T|C|E) 03:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Does the search count pages written by native English speakers only? -- Abut 13:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
This is Google you're talking about. And if you're going to go by what native English speakers have to say, then Kyiv is the official spelling in the United States. — Alex (T|C|E) 02:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "official spelling of the United States". There is "Spelling used the US government bodies". Such spelling is used only by the government and does not necessarily indicate the spelling used by most of the language speakers. The most reliable indication of the latter, is the spelling used by the major media of the United States and UK. BBC, CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, Fox News, New York Times, The Times and others use Kiev. --Irpen 02:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Does the same go for Bombay? — Alex (T|C|E) 06:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about Bombay. I know about WP:NC(UE) which says: "If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article". Looking at the media usage is the best and most accurate way to find which name is most common. --Irpen 06:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess I should stop the debate. It is fairly pointless anyway, and the usage might change in the future. — Alex (T|C|E) 06:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I also want to point out that Alex made a mistake with his interpretation of "all the way to the end of the search". The links he provided above show "Results 991 - 999 of about 39,900,000 for Kiev" and "Results 991 - 1000 of about 5,650,000 for Kyiv". The difference is over 34 million hits, not just one. This is not to mention that Irpen raised a valid point about the results including only native English-language sources, and that google search should not be used as the main resource to resolve this kind of problems.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
And I also want to point out the regrettable lack of interest of so many contributors to this talk towards any improvement of the article itself. 75% of the archives is the discussion about the name. If only some of the concerned about the renaming showed a slightest interest in improving this article's content! Of all the Ukrainian articles this is one of the better ones and could have been brought to FA if there was sufficient interest in improving it. The article on Ukrainian capital carrying a prestigious "Featured" label would raise the profile of the good coverage of Ukraine in WP incomparably greater much more than this endless whining about English speakers' reluctance to accept neologisms some are trying to impose on them. --Irpen 19:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.