Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 February 24

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February 24

Kyiv or Kiev

I am not asking which Romanized spelling of the name is normally used in the English Wikipedia. I know that is Kyiv, which is the spelling used by the Ukrainian government. My question is whether the name of the city is spelled differently in Ukrainian and in Russian when both are written in the Cyrillic alphabet, or whether the difference represents a different transliteration rule preferred for transliteration from Ukrainian and for transliteration from Russian. I am guessing that it is the latter, and that the Cyrillic name of the city is Київ in both Russian and Ukraine. Does someone know? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

It's Київ in Ukrainian, and Киев in Russian. Both languages use a Cyrillic script, but there are some differences. For example, there is no ї in Russian. See Ukrainian alphabet and Russian alphabet. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:37, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, User:JackofOz. That is all the more reason why we should spell the name of the city in a way that best matches how it is spelled in the city itself. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:50, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Next stops: Roma, Napoli, Kobenhavn, Moskva, Sankt Peterburg, Lisboa, Bucuresti, Wien, Afini, Beograd, Yerushalayim ... Best of luck. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:37, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Frankly I cannot see why not. Out of your eleven examples, seven are used in Norwegian literally every day, and two are used with minor transliteration differences. And by the way, where on earth did "Afina" come from? No "φ" is used in the Greek name. It is "θ", what would make it "th", (as in Athens). --T*U (talk) 23:21, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Quite right. I was remembering the Russian version rather than the Greek. First mistake I've ever made. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a general issue which has been around for a very long time: see Endonym and exonym. Before the scandal connected with Donald Trump's first impeachment, I would have said that "Kiev" was more known in English than "Kyiv", but since then the balance has been shifting. Wikipedia goes by "Common Name" in English, rather than the most theoretically correct form. AnonMoos (talk) 03:55, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The BBC officially switched to Kyiv in 2019, [1] but thee were still some mentions of Kiev on their news programmes until a couple of weeks ago. Alansplodge (talk) 09:32, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

P.S. We have a whole article on Name of Kyiv... -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:08, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

We also have an article KyivNotKiev, "an online campaign started by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs". Alansplodge (talk) 09:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Once Russia completes their invasion, it might go back to Kiev. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:55, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• It should be noted that the name of cities in English changes frequently, even if their native name does not. A decade or so ago, the city formerly known as Bombay (in English) was changed to Mumbai, which better reflected the local pronunciation. Similarly, several decades ago, Peking was changed in English to Beijing. No one in these cities using the local languages changed what they were calling them, it is just that English pronunciations and spellings were changed to better reflect what these cities had always been called in the local language. Kyiv is no different. --Jayron32 12:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the English language is extremely slow in adjusting to forms that reflect the actual pronunciation. I have especially noticed this in Greek placenames, where it still is the (supposed) pronunciation in ancient Greek that rules the floor: Lesbos, Thebes, Heraklion, Euboea, (pronounced Lesvos, Thiva, Iraklio, Evvia, and written like that or similar in many other languages). But "slowly does it", like in Veria (not Beroia). Jumping to another country, they do, admittedly, not use Leghorn anymore... --T*U (talk) 12:47, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

That is true, but none of that means we don't call the city Kyiv today. --Jayron32 12:57, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

No, I agree completely, Kyiv it is. This is actually a case where English usage has changed rather quickly, which in my book is a good sign. --T*U (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

How does Putin pronounce it? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:59, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Peking/Beijing, this is something of a bugbear of mine. Previous representations of Chinese (usually Mandarin ) names and words using Latin script were devised by Western scholars primarily for the use of Westeners, and naturally used Western values of those letters: the most common were Wade-Giles and Yale (both for Mandarin and for Cantonese, which contrary to the mistaken application of the word "dialect" are mutually unintelligible languages).

In contrast to these, the Chinese government in the later 20th century promoted a new romanisation system developed by Chinese scholars mostly intended for use by Chinese (primarily Mandarin) speakers, called Hanyu pinyin. Since Mandarin (like others of the dozens of Chinese languages) uses some sounds unknown in English and other Western languages (and does not use others found in those languages), this system redeploys a number of roman letters to represent different sounds than they do in Western languages: see Pinyin#Comparison with other orthographies.

English and several other Western languages do not, unlike many Sinitic and other languages, distinguish between aspirated and un-aspirated "p" (or "b"); the name of the Chinese capital uses an unaspirated "p", which Pinyin represents by 'b'. Similarly, the middle consonant of the name utilises a sound described in the article as "No equivalent in English, but similar to an unaspirated [English] "-chy-" sound when said quickly. Like [English] q, but unaspirated", and represents this by the letter 'j'.

In this newish (to the Western world) orthography, the name of the Chinese capital is therefore spelled, in Pinyin, 'Beijing', but for a Western non-Chinese speaker actually sounds a lot closer to the traditional (for Westerners) spelling "Peking". This distinction is apparently too difficult for Western media, who commenced – and induced others – to pronounce the Pinyin letters as if they represent English values. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.1 (talk) 16:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

87.81.230.195 -- Wade-Giles encoded crucial distinctions between Chinese-language sounds in apostrophes and diacritics which were almost always ignored in general-readership English-language newspapers. PRC Pinyin almost exclusively uses basic alphabet characters only, making only a minor use of non-tone diacritics, so in that sense it's more practical.. AnonMoos (talk) 18:10, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, sure. I don't have any quarrel with Hanyu Pinyin (even though it's harder for me as an English speaker to use) because it well serves the purpose for which it was designed (providing Beijing-dialect Mandarin speakers with a system convenient for digital input). I'm just annoyed with how the Western media (in particular) misunderstand and misinterpret it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.1 (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

My favorite example of toponym distortion is the Polish and Romanian hyperforeign pronunciation of Phenian as [ˈfɛɲan] when the Korean is Korean pronunciation: [pʲʰʌ̹ŋ.ja̠ŋ]. ⟨Ph⟩ tries to give the aspiration, ⟨e⟩ is a mistransliteration of Russian ё. The n passes to the next syllable. The distinction of n and ŋ is not made in those languages. --Error (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Frankly, I've never understood this drive to "match the local name". I would have no more problem with another language using a different word for the particular chunk of ground I live on than I would with it having a different word for the ground in general. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:25, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, just a little reminder that you are not the entire world and just because things don't matter to you doesn't mean they don't matter to other people. People are different than you, and have different needs and desires and motivations, and merely because you don't find something important to you doesn't mean that a different person wouldn't find it important to them. --Jayron32 13:32, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

When it matters, it's for political reasons. Names of Myanmar is an interesting example. There are groups within the country who prefer "Burma", and the similar name Bama corresponds to one of two registers in which Burmese is spoken, which in turn correspond to political alignment. (My apologies if my understanding of all this is incomplete.)  Card Zero  (talk) 18:13, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

This is the most common/visible difference between Ukrainian and Russian versions of toponyms (even more common with -ov/-iv, there's also some possible madness with the use of y/i). There are other common differencies in vocalism which aren't expressed in written form and tranlitterations, mostly due to vowel reduction and conservative spelling in Russian. Some times ago, in a different language, I had some headaches while translating the names of archeological cultures, were the places have (now?) an official Ukrainian name, but most of the literature was based on the Russian spelling and possibly used inconsistent translitterations (e.g. Chernyakhov culture). One common case were translitteration norms play a role is 'Г', which is written the same in cyrillic Russian and Ucrainian, but pronounced and translitterated differently, e.g. Hlevakha (the Ukrainian official translitteration is actually similar to the use in the Czech latin script in this case). 37.176.77.250 (talk) 18:17, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Inquit Formula

Is there a Wikipedia version of the German article at de:Inquit-Formel or an article section more likely. scope_creep^Talk 09:11, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

I assume that you by "Wikipedia version" means in enwiki. The answer seems to be: No article. Not a section. Not even a sentence. Just a parenthesis. The only mention seems to be in the article Direct speech, where it is implicitly defined. --T*U (talk) 09:40, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes. I guess an article is in order, although it is not really my bag. Thanks @T*U: scope_creep^Talk 12:17, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, applying Google Translate to the two existing versions of the article (German and Dutch), it seems clear that it means someone has invented this name for expressions like "Pat said" that are used with quotations. This does not look notable enough to me for an article, but that's just my opinion. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

In English texts, the term inquit formula is often shortened to just inquit. Bonheim's The Narrative Mode has a whole chapter with the title Inquits, containing such statements as that "the decrease in the use of inquits in the last half century has been traced to the influence of Joyce’s Ulysses". For some other uses of the term, see: Henry S. West (1899/1907), The Versification of King Horn: "Two of these lines are made hypermetric by the insertion of an inquit formula"^[2]; Dorrit Cohn (1978), Transparent Minds: "Jane Austen ... at times simply omits this inquit formula"^[3]; Robert Asch (2015), Romantic Poets: "The direct speech is not introduced by a special introductory phrase, an inquit formula".^[4]  --Lambiam 01:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Obligatory link: Tom Swifties... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:32, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

It seems to be well known as far back as Latin and Greek. I found a paragraph commenting on use in some of Plato's works and seems to be well used and undertood as far back as you want to go. There must be a hard limit when it came into general use. scope_creep^Talk 15:11, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @TU-nor:, @Lambiam: @AnonMoos: @184.144.97.125: scope_creep^Talk 15:23, 26 February 2022 (UTC)