2023-07-11 10:59:26
The history of the city is long and has gone through various stages, in connection not only with Russia, but also with Poland and Lithuania. Of particular note is the medieval state known as the Principality of kyiv. Logically, the name itself is linked to historical events, in addition to the evolution of the language and its spelling.
This article is only intended as a brief note on the name of the capital of Ukraine.
The name in Spanish sources
The usual form at present in Spanish Kiev It has, at least, almost two centuries. For example, him Universal Gazetteer (José Torner Printing House) gave, back in 1832, the forms Kiev, Kiow y Kiev. Among them, the one that has become predominant is the first, and by far, in what may have influenced the French form, the diplomatic language par excellence of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
A minority variant is Kiefmore faithful to the Russian pronunciation of the final letter, but its use is marginal compared to Kiev. For example, it appears with efe, as the capital of the then independent Ukraine, in the school book titled geography and atlassecond grade, published by FTD in 1924.
Historical names in Ukrainian
Without going into details, and according to An etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language (Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences, v. II, p. 660-666), Ukrainian archaic forms can be found as Kyiv (1493) o Kyiv (1446), while in Greek we have Chiava in the Byzantine era. Other recorded historical variants are Kyiv y Кыѥвъ.
Kyiv
Kyiv is the romanization currently standardized by the country itself for the international use of the vernacular name Kyiv. This is the basic form, called nominative, but since it is an inflectional language it can adopt others according to its function; for example, when it is a place complement (a locative) it becomes Kyiv.
The shape Kyiv is pronounced in standard Ukrainian approximately /kíyiu/, since the letter в in final position changes its sound to a non-syllabic u (in phonetic transcription it would be [ˈkɪjiu̯] o [ˈkɪjiw]). In practice, you can hear sounds close to a b soft or a f.
With the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia, the first country claims the use of this form for reasons of national identity, a request that is gaining special importance with the Russian invasion. While the Anglo-Saxon press has opted for Kyivin France, Italy and Germany the corresponding traditional forms (Kiev in the first two Kyiv in German).
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