"When did we change?" Topic

When did Kiev become Kyiv and is it "key-ehv" or "keeve?

What about Chicken Kiev?

I'm still reeling from the Peking Duck and Beijing thing.

Is Elmo still 'mister'? I thought he was genderfluid now.

Apparently "Kiev" is the Russian name; "Kyiv" is the Ukrainian name. I don't think either pronunciation as sounded out by either Yanks or Brits or Canucks or Aussies or Scots is likely to be correct— just like neither Peking and Beijing are likely correct phonemes, same as Bombay and Mumbai. We're making a mess of a word we can't fully process because our brains aren't "tuned in" to that sort of sound combination. Instead, our brain hears these words and then makes an approximation based on sounds it's used to. We try to say it back, and the native grimaces at the hash we made of it. And vice versa, when they try to name our cities.

Transliteration (vice translation) of words from one language to another is always horrible. Proper nouns are the worst.

The collection of native speakers listed in Parzival's post, not only struggle with phenomes, diction, and meter with foreign languages, but they have the same issue amoung themselves. I've seen a Bostonian and a rural Texan struggle to communicate in English. I've seen a Spaniard, two Mexicans, and a Venezuelan decide English was their common language for communication. Proper nouns don't even have consistent regional pronunciation in their own region.

In the specific case in point, there's probably a higher inconsistency index within the groups than across the groups.

When I was learning Mandarin (1960) the native speakers
told us that the reason the written language was used
so long was due to the different regional accents and
pronunciations used in China for such a long time.

Western folks trying to convert to a Romanization
standard long used the Wade-Giles system (hard P T and
other consonants, soft consonants distinguished with an
aspirant) hence 'Ta' (pronounced Da like 'yes' in
Russian) means 'large' while 'T'a' as in 'ta-ta' (C U
L8r) is third person 'she/he/it' pronoun. Similar
circumstances with more complex sounds involving
'y' 'i' and other letter-sounds. There were several
such systems in use at one point which only confused
the situation

Usually the safe course was in reading the ideograph
if you could.

Of course the current government developed its own
system of Romanization and actually did a decent job
since none of the other systems developed mostly by
missionaries or foreign people not widely traveled
in China could capture all the nuances.

Parzival's illustration using Hindi is very much to
the point.

A few years ago a international company was on same job I was, turned out all parts the guys were putting together were labeled in Cryyic so asked them if they were Russian, turned out Bulgarian. He explained they could read the writing but wouldn't know what a Russian was saying.

Born and bred NE UK, though not 'full' Newcatle Geordie… 'southern' accents take some work… and southern means Yorkshire! Birmingham, Cornwall and some London are omly understandable though TV exposure. Scots is easier to comprehend, though often very different.
Sayin' that, fowk just 'up the roorad'… tek some understandin'… from farming or mining areas.
'Queen's English'… as in old BBC broadcasters… was a blessing to humanity! lol.