'Kyiv' or 'Kiev' — Here's why the difference is political | CBC News (2024)

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 04, 2022 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: March 4, 2022

As Russian forces continue to attackUkraine's cities,forcing more than a million people to flee the countryso far, onlookers around the world may be noticingdifferentspellings and pronunciations of the name of the country's capital.

CBChas been using a transliterationbased on the Ukrainian spelling of the name:"Kyiv" (pronounced "KEE-ef").TheRussian version is"Kiev" (pronounced "kee-EV").

Kyiv or Kiev?

Kiev was the internationally accepted English-language spellingthrough the Soviet period and into the first years of this century.

• Watch a video onhow to pronounce Kyiv

But, according to Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, director of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta,the name "Kiev"is now associated with the Russificationof Ukraine.In recent years, more and more publications, governments, airports and geographical dictionaries have switched the spelling to the Ukrainian variant, she said.

"The fact that we have been using the word 'Kiev' for so long has something to do with the history of the region ... the history of the relationship between the Russian Federation and Ukraine," saidKhanenko-Friesen.

WATCH | On the ground in Ukraine on Day 8:

Khanenko-Friesennoted that the regionformally became part of the Russian Empire in the 17th century andonlydeclared itself an independent countryin August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Many people still speak both Russian and Ukrainian, and in 2001, the last time a censuswas taken,about 17 per cent of the population was Russian although some have pointed out that that 20-year-olddata doesn't capture the changes of recent years.

The transliteration "Kyiv" was legally mandated by the Ukrainian government in 1995, but the new name only started gaining traction a few years ago when theUkrainian government mounted a campaignto secure international approval for the name of its capital city.

"Ukrainian diaspora ... havebeen very vocal in this transition, and we've seen important changes," said Khanenko-Friesen.

"We've seen media changing the spelling, transliteration and now pronunciation. We now see the use of the Ukrainian word 'Kyiv' in the ITdomain. People can now book tickets to Kyivonline by operating with the new spelling rather than the old one."

Why is CBCusing 'Kyiv'?

On Tuesday, CBC'schief pronunciation counsellor, Laura Carlin, saidin a note that CBC would be using theKyiv transliteration based on the Ukrainian spelling.

"While language does evolve, we generally change place-name pronunciations only to reflect a true shift in how people in English-speaking Canada refer to a country or to match widespread shifts in transliterations ...or to eliminate pronunciations that are truly problematic," she said.

She said "Kyiv" falls into all three categories.

CBCreporters may often use an anglicized pronunciation of "Kyiv," but this is already common practice when, for example, using English pronunciation for "Paris" or "Mexico."

"For a foreign-language speaker, Ukrainian is not an easy language to master, and the pronunciation 'KEE-ef'is really a great approximation of how the word Kyiv sounds in the native Ukrainian language," said Khanenko-Friesen.

Pronunciation is political

Khanenko-Friesen says the spelling and pronunciation of "Kyiv" is significant duringthis "time of aggravated assault on the sovereignty and integrity of the Ukrainian state."

"Using, right now, the Ukrainian pronunciation of ... thecapital is a very small choice one can do in recognition that Ukraine does have the right to exist as anindependent nation, contrary to what Vladimir Putin has been stating in his recent statements and addresses to his nation."

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