“Kiv” or Kiev?

[Anonymous]

Some that bug me on this side of the pond :

– Pronouncing "Israel" as "Isreal" (CBC never fails)

– Pronouncing "genealogy" as "geneology"

– Pronouncing "medi-eval" as "med-ieval" (do they know what it means?)

Not to mention "Richard the Lionhearted" (mostly American).

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

I think Ukrainians now spell their city Kyiv, not Kiev?

Therefore the sound of the word has changed from Ki – ev to K – yiv. The latter sounds like Kiv, if spoken quickly or indistinctly.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Posted by bernard towers on 31/03/2022 21:54:41:

wymondham only has one h in it

I blame my6 disexik keybored.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Actually, the Ukrainians now spell it Ки́їв . They use their own Cyrillic alphabet. There are various systems for transliterating Ukrainian Cyrillic into English. Kyiv is one of them.

The Russians spell it using Russian Cyrillic script as Киев which is tranliterated into English by one of various systems as Kiev.

It's all kind of an arbitrary approximation like Munich vs Munchen, Paris vs Paris pronounced Paree, and somewhat of a grey area.

But Ukraine government decided to go with Kyiv to make the point they are not a colony of Russia. Media has chosen to side with Ukraine and use their preferred pronunciation.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

And the problem of Nuclear as opposed to Newcular. spose if you press the button, correct pronunciation is irrelevant.

Regards Ian.

[Peter Ellis 5Participant @peterellis5]

Amazing, the number of cunning linguists on here !

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

This mispronunciation is common, my aunt persistantly called Guildford Guild-Ford.

[steveteeParticipant @stevetee]

Whilst we are on the subject of mis pronunciation, where exactly is Park Heston? Whilst it sounds like a services on the M4, it is actually the country that split off from India when the country was partitioned. Come on BBC , it's a hard A like 'bath' in the North of England….

Edited By stevetee on 03/04/2022 20:12:27

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

What's wrong with Richard the Lion hearted?

[Anonymous]

See link

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Posted by Phil Stevenson on 31/03/2022 13:28:16:

I've tried and failed to find out when and why the BBC (and others probably) decide to stop calling the beleaguered city Kee-eff and moved to Kiv. No apparent change to Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna and a thousand others. Any enlightened ideas?

Probably your question has been answered in one way or another Phil, but to put in a nutshell it's because different linguistic signifiers (ie differing spellings and pronunciations of words with the same meaning) are important in establishing tribal, and by extension, national identity. For example, from the King James Bible (Judges 12:5-6)

"And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand."

It's been going on for some time! The reason that the BBC has adopted the Ukrainian pronunciation is simply an expression of support for Ukraine's desire to resist Russian aggression and develop a distinct national identity, reflecting Western views I think. No doubt similar support would be given to (some) other countries if their national identities were threatened.

On Cunning Linguists, a little known (but interesting!) nugget is that the late and great Robert Smithies who set crosswords for the Guardian until his demise in 2006 proposed 'Cunning Linguist' as his nom de plume when he was engaged, but the editor rejected it (too near the knuckle) so he chose 'Bunthorne'. One of his best:

Amundsen's forwarding address (4)

That's madly off topic I know, but trying to lighten the tone.!

Robin

 

Edited By Robin Graham on 04/04/2022 02:47:15

Edited By Robin Graham on 04/04/2022 02:57:03

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 31/03/2022 17:50:26:

Rik. you forgot Happisburg (Haisborough) and Whymondham (Windham).

Since you are all being pedantic – could I possibly point out you're only thinking of the Wymondham in Norfolk.

I think the one in Leicestershire is pronounced properly (wyemundum)

Yes, the Angela Rippemoff version of guerillas was indeed stupidity.

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

We all know we should pronounce H properly in a word e.g. "a horse" not "an oss" when we speak.

How many are pronouncing the letter H, a letter, properly As "aitch" and not pronouncing it incorrectly as "haitch"

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by stevetee on 03/04/2022 20:08:19:

Whilst we are on the subject of mis pronunciation, where exactly is Park Heston? …

Mishearing is the mirror image of mispronunciation and it gets worse as my ageing ears lose the high-notes.

I do it a lot with song lyrics. Despite knowing the hit is called Chiquitita, I hear ABBA sing 'take your teeth out'.

Now I'm worrying about ears, either the word should be spelt 'hears', or 'hearing' should be spelt 'earing'. Gaffes galore in aitches.

Dave

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Scotch Whisky

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I've never quite understood why people get uptight about pronouncing placenames the way the people who live there do.

Possibly because I'm Welsh and I hear placenames butchered all the time.

There's currently a campaign to promote the use of Eryri for Snowdonia, something I wholeheartedly support

Neil

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Eryri , Eyrie sounds the same to me. So Snowdonia is full of eagle's nests.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 04/04/2022 10:34:42:

I've never quite understood why people get uptight about pronouncing placenames the way the people who live there do.

Neil

Probably because, as in the case of Snowdonia, there's a well-established and more easily pronounceable exonym native English speakers have developed an attachment to.

How many of us, I wonder (Welsh people included), would be behind a campaign to persuade us to refer to Germany, in an English language context, as Deutschland?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 04/04/2022 10:34:42:

…

There's currently a campaign to promote the use of Eryri for Snowdonia, something I wholeheartedly support

Neil

Ironically, the campaign is led by Mr John Pughe Roberts. Another case of the over-zealotry of converts – Roberts isn't a Welsh name!

Mount Snowden and surrounds have always had Welsh names. Don't see why Welshmen in Wales shouldn't use them if they want to! Probably unwise to insist on confusing tourists and the rest of the world unnecessarily though.

Practicalities matter: don't know if it's still true, but there used to be more English speakers in Naples than Welsh speakers in Cardiff.

Can't fight nostalgia. Round here we want to reinstate the Kingdom of Dumnonia, bring back Conan the Merry, and build a wall to keep out the Durotriges. Game of Thrones? You ain't seen nothing yet!

Dave

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The Co-Op is one that has quietly re-named the poultry dish in its shops.

'''.

Isn't Mt. Snowden itself, locally Yr Wyddfa? Why would using that confuse tourists though? Most place names in Wales are in their original Welsh or slightly Anglicised form – though I recall a friend with a broad Scots accent really struggled to pronounce the village, Ystradfellte. I think its' Ustrad -v-elth-te; but the 'v' sound immediately after a 'd' is not easy for English natives either. Still, I struggle with that famous canal aqueduct. (Struggled to walk along it too. It demands a Dibnah-esque love of heights!)

Further back is a reference to Mt. Everest: that's not its local name! I think its something like "Chomolungma"

'.

The etymology of geography is interesting, in that very many old names that look so exotic, even of English villages, translate as something quite mundane and are often simply geographical. Some are, or include, founders' names; but many are functional, for navigation and identifying location.

Near my home, for example, is Chesil Beach. Chesil: O.E. Cisel… = 'shingle'. Which it is, a huge shingle bay-bar.

Norway abounds in Kvitt, Blå and Snå – fjells. (I think the accented-a letter is correct – from memory.) Respectively, White, Blue and Snow. As for fjell, and foss and bekk – plenty of them North of Thirwall Viaduct. Indeed, there is a 'Fell Beck', draining the SE slopes of Ingleborough and its associated Simon Fell and falling spectacularly into Gaping Gill cave. (Foss – waterfall – appears more often as Force.)

The Americas show a huge difference between the original and colonial names. The former were usually geographical or perhaps related to a tribal name. Those applied by British and European settlers reflect their personal names or Old Word home-towns.

++

One day I was chatting to a group of acquaintances in the North of England. Two of them were arguing over how to pronounce the town name C-O-L-N-E.

"Cone!" insisted one.

"Coll-n!" her friend tried to correct her, in her own, equally rich, NW English accent.

This went on for a bit, then I interjected:

"If you two Lancashire Lasses can't agree what to call your own towns, what hope has a Southerner like me of getting it right?

One of them subsequently qualified as a teacher and went to work on the Continent. As a mutual friend of White rather then Red Rose affiliation put it, "She's teaching the Italians to speak Lancashire!"

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