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Russian language is as much a part of Ukraine as Ukranian is. You won't see many in the media calling it Kyiv before Ukraine turned nationalist under Poroshenko (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by FuckyWucky@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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https://www.reuters.com/article/world/ukraine-passes-language-law-irritating-president-elect-and-russia-idUSKCN1S110Y/

Literally the whole media switched spelling around this time.

iRaq and iRan are silly but the "Kyiv" stuff is different.

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[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

There was the same debacle in Poland between something happening "on Ukraine" vs "in Ukraine". It have no real difference, the former is archaic grammar irregularity for some currently or previously bordering countries, for example: Ukraine, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Slovakia.

But there was suddenly entire shitstorm in media about it, that it refuse the status of country, it is playing into Putin propaganda etc. etc. it was a mirror thing of the Kiev vs Kyiv debacle in English which we didn't have because pronouncing "Kyiv" is pretty hard for Poles so everyone is still using traditional name in Polish "Kijów". Also of course nobody changed it for the rest of abovementioned countries.

[-] anarcho_blinkenist@hexbear.net 25 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

it's ironic too because nobody who's complaining about that grammatical quirk with Kiev/Kyiv or "on Ukraine" vs "in Ukraine" seems to have an issue that the west-aligned countries calls Pridnestrovie the entirely different name "Transnistria" which actually does that thing of 'refusing the status of the country' because it just means "[the Moldovan territory] past the Dneister (river)"

and also its doubly so because Pridnestrovians don't want to be called that because it's literally the name the Romanian and German Nazis used for their occupation government when they did the Holocaust there (Transnistria Governorate)