On NPR today I heard the US ambassador to Ukraine pronounce "Kiev" as "Keev." I thought that odd. Turns out he was semi-correct, as this article shows: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/kiev-or-kyiv-2014-1 I assume that, like Russian, Ukranian has no silent letters nor any alternately pronounced letters unless preceded by a hard or soft sign, so "Keev" isn't quite right to my ear. What do you globe-trotting types think?

Well, I am not a globe-trotting type, but I learned a lot from the link you posted. This particularly caught my eye:

quote:

“Here we say ‘Kyiv’ not ‘Kiev,’” Taras Ilkiv, a Ukrainian journalist who recently wrote an article for Business Insider on the protests, explained in an email, “because ‘Kiev’ is the Russian word.” It’s simple: in Ukrainian, the word for the city is Київ, while in Russian, it reads as Киев.

I think we should spell it Kyiv. Not sure how to pronounce it, though.

Here's how Wikipedia pronounces it.

Well, it's complicated. The two different pronunciations approximate the Russian (Kiev) and the Ukrainian (Kyiv). As for the idea that all Russian and/or Ukrainian letters are always pronounced "the same". Erm, not quite. The "g" in the suffix -ego is usually pronounced /evo/. "e" is usually pronounced differently when stressed or unstressed. Etc.

Now I AM confused! The pronunciation in Tinamn's link makes it sound as if the "B" were a soft sign, but then my ears are failing with age.

Another observation: The protest movement is taking its name from the square where they barricaded themselves, Maidan. I wonder if "Maidan uprising" will enter into common use the was Prague Spring did?

And now I am confused. The soft sign (link) does not represent a phoneme by itself, but shows the pronunciation of the previous consonant is changed (e.g., palatalized). The final consonant in the Ukrainian pronuciation linked to by Tinman sounds like a /w/ to me. The B in Ukrainian does not represent a /v/ as it does in Russian.

OK, then, I was confused about the function of the soft sign.

Side point: When looking into this, I found that the original Cyril and Methodius-developed alphabet had three additional letters which were subsequently dropped, and it's the later one that we know as Cyrillic.

Which leads to another question: Since the original Rus were Nordic folks, is there much correlation between Nordic languages and modern Russian or Ukrainian?

Since the original Rus were Nordic folks, is there much correlation between Nordic languages and modern Russian or Ukrainian?

Not much. From browsing my copy of Vasmer's etymological dictionary, there's way more german and french (at least lexicon-wise) in Russian. Probably the Rus adapted Slavic quickly. Ukrainian might be affected by Byzantine Greek since Kiev was a major trading city early on for the folks in charge of Constantinople.

Russian orthography changed dramatically as a result of the Russian Revolution. There were a bunch of letters that got dropped IIRC. (This was one of my pet peeves with the rather bad recent film version of Anna Karenina: all the stage signage behind the scenes was in the post-revolutionary orthography.

Might Ёлка be Scandinavian? I see "yule" in it - or think I do.

Might Ёлка be Scandinavian? I see "yule" in it - or think I do.

Russian ёлка /jolka/ 'fir (tree)' < ель /el/ 'fir, Pinus picea'; cf. Latin ebulus 'elder, Sambucus'.

English Yule < Old English geol; cf. Old Icelandic Jól 'Yule'. The etymology is contested. It's a time of the year or month, not a tree. The "g" in OE makes me think they are not related.

I saw an article questioning the correct name for the country. Is the "The Ukraine" or is it "Ukraine"? Personally, I always thought it was Ukrainia but considering the speed with which names change, I may be out of date.

Ukraine meant "borderland," as I understand it, and present day Ukrainians do not think of themselves as borderline.

The Ukrainians are quite sensitive about being called "the" Ukraine, at least since the late '80s. Funny thing is, in their own language (and other Slavic languages as well), there is no definite or indefinite article.

This reminds me of when the Winter Olympics was in Turin. This city wanted to be known as Torino(its pronunciation in standard Italian). Funny thing is that Turin is closer to the local (i.e., regional) pronunciation of the city's name.

Thus it follows that only men from Michigan are Michiganders; the women are Michigeese.

As for Turin, isn't that a soup bowl? It's also the "T" in FIAT.

Here is a good article about cities and other geographic places that use "The" in the name, like The Hague. The English town apparently used to be The Bath. In Oregon there is a town called The Dalles. It also mentioned The Ukraine, versus Ukraine.

Those obsolete Cyrillic letters look pretty cool:
Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ

Looks somewhat Runic to me. Cool indeed.

quote:

Those obsolete Cyrillic letters look pretty cool:Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ

That's actually a NASA diagram for how to land a rover.