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I find this interesting


Alpo

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There used to be a town in Ukraine called Kiev. It was fairly well known. They even had a food dish named after it - chicken Kiev.


Then the Russians invaded Ukraine. And suddenly the town of Kiev is all over the internet.


But it's no longer Kiev. It's Kyiv.

 

Why do you suppose this is? It can't be that that is the correct way to spell it, because they don't use this alphabet in Ukraine.

 

It's like Peking, which changed to Peping, and then change again to Beijing. The Chinese did not change the way they pronounced it. We can't be spelling it the correct way now because again it is not written in this alphabet.

 

Back in the early eighties I worked in route sales. I delivered magazines to some 60 or so stores every week. One of my stores had a German girl working there. Not a girl of German descent. A foreign national with a green card. And she said something one day which surprised me. She mentioned the town of Munchen. This is the actual name, and the actual spelling, of the town that everyone calls Munich. And they still call it Munich, and they still spell it Munich.

 

You suppose if the Russians invaded Germany (again), if they rolled into Bavaria, people would suddenly start talking about Munchen?

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Kiev was a bad translation from the Russian. :D

 

It's not new.  People are just now noticing.  It changed when the Soviet Union fell.   Or shortly after.  All that's happened is that it has gone back to the Ukranian spelling and pronunciation rather than the Russian.

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48 minutes ago, Alpo said:

 

 

You suppose if the Russians invaded Germany (again), if they rolled into Bavaria, people would suddenly start talking about Munchen?

 

At that point, or shortly thereafter, town names or the enunciation of named town(s) won't mean much. 

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I am sure I wrote this recently.

 

the Russian name of the city is Киев and that was its official name under USSR. The transliteration is Kiev. Now its official name is Київ in Ukrainian and the transliteration is Kyiv and the pronunciation is keev.

 

Chicken Kiev was invented in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire.

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19 minutes ago, Finagler 6853 Life said:

We have cities like that in the US as well.  One that sticks out in my mind is Worchester, MA.  It is pronounced, Wooster.  How they got Wooster out of Worchester is beyond me.

 

Perhaps because it is "Worcester", not "Worchester".  In MA, vowels followed by the letter "r" are commonly pronounced like a silent "r", making it  "Wuh-sta" (NOT Wooster).  

 

LL

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Istanbul was Constantinople. Thing change

 

We've all lived through countries disappearing. My old maps, globes and atlases are good for nothing but a laugh and ohhh yea i remembr that

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19 hours ago, Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438 said:

 

Perhaps because it is "Worcester", not "Worchester".  In MA, vowels followed by the letter "r" are commonly pronounced like a silent "r", making it  "Wuh-sta" (NOT Wooster).  

 

LL

Which is why people from 'Bah-stin' should never make fun of Southern accents.;)

 

Locally, the worst we do is our 'interpretation' of how to pronounce Lafayette and the butchering we give Buena Vista.

 

On the other hand, half the place names in the area are Muskogean (predominantly Creek) in origin and we still do a good enough job in pronouncing them correctly that it freaks out folks on the Creek nation out in OK.:rolleyes:

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4 minutes ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:

On the other hand, half the place names in the area are Muskogean (predominantly Creek) in origin and we still do a good enough job in pronouncing the correctly that it freaks out folks on the Creek nation out in OK.

 

I look at some of the place names like that and think, "These people have a hard time with Slavic place names?"

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50 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

I look at some of the place names like that and think, "These people have a hard time with Slavic place names?"

Just pronounce them phonetically and guess at the syllable that's accented.  That'll get you close enough to be recognizable.

 

 

Could be worse. 

 

They could be Welsh- who just string consonants together in an attempt to confuse the Anglo-Saxons.

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Just now, Alpo said:

 Y'all up there say la-FAYE-it, don't you?

luh-FAY-et

 

Ran into a guy that was from Lafayette that tried to use the proper pronunciation.  I couldn't figure out where he was talking about for a minute or two and accused him of putting on airs when I finally figured it out.

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Places in Ohio:

 

Versailles (pronounced Ver-SALES)

Bellefontaine (BELL-Fountain)

Russia (ROO-she)

Rio Grande (RYE-o Grande)

 

Just a few off the top of my head 

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Prescott and Prescott Valley, Arizona:  Pronounced PRESSkit.  And you will be corrected by total strangers if you pronounce it PressCOTT.

 

And then there's Cairo, Ill., Buena, WA and a few dozen others.  

 

Folks in Washington have fun with outlanders trying to pronounce Puyallup and Utahns have to teach  foreigners how to Pronounce Tooele.

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In New York they have a city called Albany. ALL-buny. Accent on the first syllable.

 

In Georgia they have a city called Albany. ALL-BENny. Same amount of accent on first two syllables.

 

Georgia also has a town called Cairo. Kayro, just like the syrup.

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Here in Wisconsin we have Ashwaubenon, Muskego, Waukesha, Suamico, Minoqua, the Chequamegon National Forest.  These are Native American names/designations.

 

In NC you have Charlotte.  Most pronounce it CHARlotte.  In MI they have Charlotte which they pronounce charLOTTE and they will correct you.

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Illinois also has Vienna, pronounce vy-ANNA

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I drove highway 14 (the back way) home from Prattville a couple of weeks ago.

 

I went through Wetumpka, Tallasee, Notasulga and Loachapoka on my way to Opelika.  Between Opelika and the house, I drove by Wacoochee, too.

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1 hour ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

In Manhattan, Houston St is pronounced HOUSEton

Houston County Alabama is also HOUSEton.

 

Some years back I was TDY in Wichita for about a month. I thought they were trying to mess with me.

 

The Ar-KANSAS river, but when it crossed the boundary between the two states it became the AR-kin-saw river.

 

In the John Wayne movie there is a town in Texas called El Dorado - el dor-AH-do. There's also one in Kansas, but it is El Dor-RAY-do.

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