Also, I have learned that I have been spelling Kyiv wrong all these years. Why have we been spelling it Kiev?
The Russian name of the city is Киев Kiev, so that's naturally what we called it when it was part of the Soviet Union.
The Ukrainian name of the city is Київ Kyiv.
As for what the English name of the city is or "should" be -- that's a political subject.
I believe Ukraine would like us to call the country "Ukraine" (not "the Ukraine") and the capital city "Kyiv". On the other hand, we don't call the capital of Russia "Moskva", the capital of Austria "Wien", or the capital of Italy "Roma" -- those cities have English names (Moscow, Vienna, Rome). So one could argue that "Kiev" is simply the English name of the capital, and only historically related to the Russian name.
I grew up with "Peking, Bombay, Calcutta" rather than "Beijing, Mumbai, Kolkata".
I figured it was something with the Romanization/Anglification, but I never quite understood how something like Peking/Beijing happened. They don't sound anything alike.
...this whole time I didn't know Bombay and Mumbai were the same city. I've not spent a lot of time on Indian geography, so I never noticed they were never on the same map simultaneously.
This is kinda like when I realized that Mt. McKinley and Denail are two names for the same mountain. It's not that I'm terrible at geography, I'm just old! I learned the old name. Then references with the new name just made my brain go "okay, different mountain."
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The Russian name of the city is Киев Kiev, so that's naturally what we called it when it was part of the Soviet Union.
The Ukrainian name of the city is Київ Kyiv.
As for what the English name of the city is or "should" be -- that's a political subject.
I believe Ukraine would like us to call the country "Ukraine" (not "the Ukraine") and the capital city "Kyiv". On the other hand, we don't call the capital of Russia "Moskva", the capital of Austria "Wien", or the capital of Italy "Roma" -- those cities have English names (Moscow, Vienna, Rome). So one could argue that "Kiev" is simply the English name of the capital, and only historically related to the Russian name.
I grew up with "Peking, Bombay, Calcutta" rather than "Beijing, Mumbai, Kolkata".
German still uses "Peking" and "Kiew".
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...this whole time I didn't know Bombay and Mumbai were the same city. I've not spent a lot of time on Indian geography, so I never noticed they were never on the same map simultaneously.
This is kinda like when I realized that Mt. McKinley and Denail are two names for the same mountain. It's not that I'm terrible at geography, I'm just old! I learned the old name. Then references with the new name just made my brain go "okay, different mountain."
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