Talk:Kyiv/naming

Move This Page To "Kyiv"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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"Kyiv" is the correct spelling, as it is the latinized form of the Ukrainian name. "Kiev" comes from the Russian spelling, and it isn't even a proper latinized version of that, which is correctly latinized as "Kiyev". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vigilante Girl (talk • contribs) 17:46, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

We are writing in English, not Ukrainian or Russian, Romanized or not. In English it is spelled Kiev. --Khajidha (talk) 18:47, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

What Khajidha said. --Taivo (talk) 02:11, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

What they said. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

And the spelling has been changed to "Kyiv" in English, as well, at least in the US: https://www.kyivpost.com/world/kyiv-not-kiev-us-changes-spelling-of-ukrainian-capital.html I will make a seperate move request with this information. --Vigilante Girl (talk) 22:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@Vigilante Girl: Have you even read all the prior evidence in the past 11 requested moves (plus countless non-formal requests like this)? The last formal move request was only 2 months ago and was overwhelmingly in favor of Kiev! Your user page says "I'm a girl who joined to help out Wikipedia by stopping fights" yet your initial heading and post was as if you've never checked out all the prior fights and snowball closes in favor of Kiev. Read them over and you'll understand the complexities involved. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

By stop "fights", I mean stop vandals and rude people. Reasonable debates and requests aren't "fights". And why should I check edits from the past when my evidence is recent and correct? And what do you mean by "non-formal requests"? Is my language somehow not formal enough for you? PS: Your condescending attitude is extremely rud. I do not appreciate being talked down to, and I will not stand for it. Do not think that everyone you meet, online or offline, will bow down to you. --Vigilante Girl (talk) 23:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

"And the spelling has been changed to "Kyiv" in English, as well, at least in the US". That only applies to the government itself, it has no bearing on general English usage. Why is this so hard for people to understand? NO government, not that of the US, nor that of the UK, and most especially not that of Ukraine can dictate common English usage. Kiev is still used at approximately twice the frequency of Kyiv judging by most web searches. And many of the uses of Kyiv come from sources within Ukraine itself or otherwise outside of the Anglosphere. Do you really mean to suggest that the usage of secondary speakers is of primary importance? The "correct" English spelling is whatever the bulk of native English speaking sources say it is. Whether that is derived from Ukrainian, from Russian, from Japanese, from Arabic, from Navaho, from Klingon, or just from random letters pulled from a bag of Scrabble tiles. And the usage found most often (to an overwhelming degree) is "Kiev". This "debate" is the furthest thing from "reasonable" I can possibly imagine. The evidence is clear. The English name is "Kiev".--Khajidha (talk) 23:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Formal requests would be a formal RfC or listed RM. This was more an informal request... that's what I meant. As far as checking past discussions, that would be a normal thing to do to make sure your aren't spinning your wheels with pretty much the same arguments. It did not appear to me you did any checking before your request, and now you have confirmed it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:16, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

And just a hint: KyivPost is not a reliable source for English language usage. It's a Ukrainian paper for English speakers, it's not even from the Anglosphere. --Taivo (talk) 06:15, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

And why should we not listen to the Ukrainians and change our common usage? It's their city, and they clearly have a problem with the incorrect English spelling. Calling Kyiv "Kiev" is almost as disrespectful to them as calling their country "the Ukraine". --Vigilante Girl (talk) 09:52, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Because the English-speaking world hasn't changed its common usage. It's Wikipedia's job to report facts, not to change them. This is an encyclopaedia, not a soapbox or a vehicle for change. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:11, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

@Khajidha: It's only unreasonable now since people started being rude and condescending. --Vigilante Girl (talk) 09:54, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't see how anyone is being rude and condescending. They're merely pointing out that this has all been discussed before many times and nothing has changed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:11, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thousands of US newspapers use AP style guide, so...

• Since the original discussion on AP style guide's decision to switch to Kyiv has been archived before I had a chance to add additional information about its impact on US media landscape, I'm adding it here. As a reminder AP Stylebook is one of the most prominent English-language style and usage guides created by American journalists and is used by thousands of US national and local newspapers (this was also mentioned numerous times in the past on this thread as a supporting claim FOR using the "Kiev [sic]" spelling in enwiki, for example on October 14, 2007 by User:Horlo etc.). For example in recent years such prominent English-language media had this warning in their Ukraine-related articles:
  • NPR: Note that NPR follows AP style. That's why we're using "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv" in this post. (picture version)
  • Bloomberg News (the editor-in-chief John Micklethwait recently clarified that spelling of cities is not part of their Style Guidebook "The Bloomberg Way" and that in these instances they just follow AP Style book; e.g., now Bloomberg News uses Kyiv spelling per AP Styleguide; this was previously also confirmed by the Writing standards Editor for Americas Jennifer Sondag in 2017, quote Sondag said there’s more flexibility and that Bloomberg will often default to AP Style if there isn’t a specific rule outlined in “The Bloomberg Way.”)--Piznajko (talk) 19:57, 20 September 2019 (UTC)