Random832 wrote:
And anyway, the transliteration of Киев is Kiyev.
Oh! That's something else where there can be disagreement! Other Romanizations of the Russian Киев include Kijev, Kiyef, Kieff, Kijeff, Kiyeff. The Encyclopædia Britannica had "Kieff, Kiyeff, or Kiev" in its scholarly-but-dated 1902 edition, whereas the popular and freshly-updated 1911 edition had "Kiev, Kieff, or Kiyeff". There is similar disagreement for the Ukrainian Київ. "Kyiv" is the Ukrainian government's transliteration, codified in 1996. However, in non-governmental sources the и can be transliterated to y or ȳ or i, and the ї (U+0457 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YI) can be transliterated to ji, yi, or ï (U+00EF LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS), and I've probably missed some options. To top it off, none of these Romanizations in English are at all close to the common pronunciation in Ukrainian, namely [ˈkɪjiu̯] (IPA), as there is nothing like an English "v" (or "f") in Ukrainian pronunciation. Instead, the pronunciation trails off with a demure "oo" sound in English, and "Kuiyu" is a much more-accurate Anglicization than any of the above. Here's the Wikipedia sound file, for those who would like to do as the Kuiyuvians do: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Uk-Київ.ogg