Talk:Kiev

Fully-protected edit request 13 October 2020

Hello,

I request the removal of the following code from the redirect:

{{R from alternative language|ru|uk}}

Indeed, Kiev was recently moved to Kyiv following a long RM, with closing arguments clearly stating that both spellings are used in the English language, with various merits, and that the "better title" should now be Kyiv, explicitly reverting a previous consensus that Kiev was the better English-language name. It is therefore inappropriate to mention here that Kiev is Russian and Kyiv Ukrainian, as both are English.

It is also non-neutral as it adopts a nationalist POV strongly connected to one side of the debate. It is lastly plain wrong, as the latin transliteration from Russian word Киев is Kiyev, as stated in the first words of target article Kyiv.

Note that {{R from alternative spelling}} is also present on the page, which is correct. Place Clichy (talk) 09:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: would you please review / process this if you have the time? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, this was added in an edit request by Paine Ellsworth and implemented by MSGJ, in case either has opinions on this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion, but if this is deemed incorrect I can easily revert — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:23, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

IMHO these are not English words, they are used in English, borrowed from their languages. So the {{R from alternative language}} rcat, which is used to track non-English words on enwiki, is appropriate for this redirect and should continue to categorize it. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

So, you are saying that English does not have a name of its own for the capital of Ukraine? IMHO opinion that is hogwash. Continuous usage makes a loanword into an English word. Not to mention that Kiev and Kyiv are neither written in Cyrillic letters nor following the standards for transliteration from Russian or Ukrainian. --Khajidha (talk) 17:28, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

English does not have a name of its own for many cities all over the world. English-speaking people use the names from the languages of other countries. Both "Kyiv" and "Kiev" are examples of this, and so is Beijing, Kolkata, Moscow, Rio (Rio de Janeiro) – the list goes on and on. In this case we have the English-used forms of the Ukrainian and Russian renditions of the capital of Ukraine. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:44, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

And that longstanding, consistent use makes them English words. --Khajidha (talk) 18:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I won't disagree with that, however my point is that they are (also?) alternative-language or other-language words as well, and they should continue to be tracked (categorized) as such. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 18:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

And my point is that once they have been fully adopted, their foreign origin is no longer relevant.--Khajidha (talk) 18:29, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Not to you are they relevant; however, their origins must be relevant to somebody or their etymologies wouldn't be prominently displayed in dictionaries and in Wikipedia articles, would they? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 18:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

My point was obviously that they are not relevant to Wikipedia's categorization system. --Khajidha (talk) 18:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

On that we will have to agree to disagree. I've been categorizing redirects on Wikipedia for more than ten years, and it's probably obvious to everyone who reads this that I consider "Kiev" to be a properly and correctly categorized alternative-language redirect firmly relevant to improvement of this reference work. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 18:54, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

By this standard, spaghetti, hamster, beige and canyon are also not English words. Rather, they are the English-used forms of Italian, German, French and Spanish words respectively. Kahastok talk 18:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Many words in English are derived from other languages, and many words used in English are also other-language words and it is often a gray area which way some words should be sorted. That could be debated for longer than the Kiev vs. Kyiv name change request. Arguing whether or not "Kiev" is an English word will never change the fact that it is also derived from the Russian language as an English-language rendition of the capital of Ukraine (no longer quite as commonly used as "Kyiv", of course). P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 18:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Also pinging @Kahastok: as you had given an answer to the original request, can you please provide input here? You may be more knowledgeable. Place Clichy (talk) 15:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I thought at the time that the edit request was an inadvertent misuse of {{Edit fully-protected}} because the template was used before any attempt to get consensus. Plausibly because the user using the template didn't realise that the edit was controversial.

The word Kiev has been used to refer to the city for centuries. Until the last quarter century or so it was the only word used in English. It is an English word, and the move of our article to Kyiv does not change this fact.

It is also a somewhat non-standard English transcription of a Russian word. I do not strongly object to our acknowledging this. Though I would suggest that Kiev does not clearly fit in with the rest of the contents of Category:Redirects from Russian-language terms.

(FTR, a more standard transcription would be Kiyev.) Kahastok talk 18:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

That category has 137 examples of redirects from romanized Russian-language terms (don’t be fooled, a few of these mix Latin and Cyrillic).

 —Michael Z. 18:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose  Both of these redirect templates belong here. Kiev is an English word, from Russian. Is the named used in English unambiguously “not Russian” at all? I don’t think so. Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 5th ed. (2018), defines Kiev as “Russ. name for Kyiv,” and refers to the headword Kyiv. I believe the dictionary means it is the spelling used in a Russian subject context, but numerous sources about the name clearly state that it is associated with Russian, derived from Russian, and considered Russian (e.g., a Columbia University lecturer quoted by the NY Times calls it “a Russian spelling”).  ¶ But never mind that argument. It is academic, since separately from the normal English usage, Kiev is also by far the most common romanization of Russian Киев, and supported explicitly by numerous other sources (NY Times: “The New York Times still spells it Kiev, which is the transliteration from Russian” – the paper changed its practice five days later). It is as standard as it can get: the Russian name is represented as Kiev in the Latin alphabet according to at least eleven of thirteen romanization standards documented in Romanization of Russian  ¶ It is also non-neutral as it adopts a nationalist POV strongly connected to one side of the debate – say what, now? —Michael Z. 18:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
•  Not done From this brief discussion, I don't feel like there's consensus to remove the category. Redirects, since they're largely hidden from readers, don't really have the same NPOV considerations as articles (See WP:RNEUTRAL), and there's a clear maintenance benefit from documenting the reason for the spelling difference and placing it into a category of similar items. Without a wider discussion, I don't see consensus forming here to remove the R cat. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)