To be or not to be? That is the question! To spell it Kxxx or Kxxx?
How should one spell the capital ciry of Ukraine? Is it Kiev or Kyiv? Why?
The Answer Is……………………………….
Kyiv
The link the the Time Magazine (Time.com) article below can explain much more, but at a high level, the spelling “Kiev” is the way the Russian’s translate it from their Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet to the Latin alphabet. Ukrainians changed their official city spelling in the Latin alphabet to Kyiv.
This is because they feel that using the Ruaaian spelling reinforces what Ukrainians believe is the Russian government’s condescending view of Ukraine. They do not want others to fall into the “Russian frame of mind” as quoted by Taylor in the Time.com atricle.
Ukraine (with out the “the”): https://wp.me/paEFjB-Aq
Difference Betweeen Ukraine & Russia’s Alphabets
According the Babbel.com (link below) both of the alphabets consist of 33 letters and are Cyrillic.Ukraine does not use the Russian letters Ёё, ъ, ы and Ээ. Ukraine has Ґґ, Єє, Іі and Її. How certain words and letters are pronounced also varies, for example И in Russian is pronounced like [ee] in the words “seed” or “meet”. In Ukrainian “И” has a short [i] sound (“kill” or “live).
Also interesting is the fact that words written the same between the 2 languages could mean totally different things. The Babbel article uses the example of ” приклад which means “rifle butt” in Russian, while Ukrainian it means “example.”
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/differences-russian-ukrainian
