Provinces rename

[Het]

Since I started my first game in EU, I was wondering either it was made by russians.
Why all ukrainian provinces and names in localisations are transcribed from russian? E.g: Kiev must be Kyiv, Chernigov - Chernihiv, Kharkov - Kharkiv, Zaporozhie - Zaporizhia, Dnieper - Dnipro (I don't even know how they came out with this one, even in russian is Dnepr), rulers/generals, ships names, etc...
But Moscow is actually Moskva, etc...??
Not sure what maps they were following, but all modern online maps have correct transcription.

I'm working on mod for myself and already corrected everything I've found so far, but the mod is not iron man compatible. So Paradox, please review your files, I'm ready to provide my mod for your needs absolutely free

http://imgur.com/a/E6Ar3

 

[IIWW]

I like the naming of Muscovy, with capital in Moskva

 

[olm]

I have gotten impression that province naming tries to use name that fits for local ruling power at 1444, so Polish ruled province is Poznan and not Posen, while Teutonic province is Kulm and not Chelmno.

 

[Het]

Muscovy wasn't even close to ruling Ukrainian region in 15th century.I believe all provinces have to have native names and then with the dynamic provinces file renamed by owner. Wasn't it the original idea as well?

 

[marcsimus]

Why all ukrainian provinces and names in localisations are transcribed from Russian?

Why should they be transcribed from ukrainian? There was not such language(and country) in EU4 timeline, as far as I know. The first part of the game Kijów was controlled by Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then Киев(Kiev) was controlled by Russian Empire.

P.S. Why does it even irritate you?

 

[generalolaf]

Because dynamic names? Also, Wikipedia, though I know it isn't the ideal source, disagrees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language

Anyway, shouldn't the game aim for accuracy, regardless of location?

 

[Zak Preston]

I've been requesting for province names change for months without any result. Just check one my threads in signature and feel free to comment them =)

Another issue about Eastern Slavic region is wrong naming: most provinces tend to have Russian names instead of official ones. There may be a lot of debates about proper naming and how those cities/towns/provinces are spelled in English, but official names differ from what EU4 currently has. But there is a sad tendency about naming post-USSR provinces in Russian instead of native languages.

EU4.........................Ukrainian (Cyrillic)..........Latin transliteration........Russian (Cyrillic)..........Russian transliteration
Kiev.........................Київ [ˈkɪjiw]......................Kyiv........................ ........Киев ['kijew]...................Kiev
Chernigov................ Чернігів [t͡ʃɛrˈnʲiɦiw] ............Chernihiv ........................Чернигов [tɕɪrˈnʲiɡəf]........Chernigov
Podolia.....................Поділля [po'dillia]..............Podillia............................ Подолье [po'dollije].........Podolye
Novgorod-Seversky....Новгород-Сіверський........Novhorod-Siverskyi............Новгород-Северский.......Novgorod-Seversky

EU4.........................Belarussian (Cyrillic)......Latin transliteration........Russian (Cyrillic)...........Russian transliteration
Mogilev.....................Магілёў[maɣʲiˈlʲou̯]............. Mahilioŭ........................... Могилёв[məɡʲɪˈlʲof] ...........Mogilev
Grodno.....................Гродна[ˈhrodna]................Hrodna...........................Г родно [ˈɡrodnə]..............Grodno
Turov.......................Ту́раў['turau]....................Turaŭ......................... .....Туров['turof]....................Turov
Polotsk.....................По́лацк['polatsk]...............Polatsk............................ Полоцк['polotsk]..............Polotsk

 

[Zak Preston]

Why should they be transcribed from ukrainian? There was not such language(and country) in EU4 timeline, as far as I know. The first part of the game Kijów was controlled by Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then Киев(Kiev) was controlled by Russian Empire.

P.S. Why does it even irritate you?

Even so, following your logics, "Kiev" should be named as "Kijow" when it belonged to Commonwealth, but in 1444 Kyiv was under Lithuanian rule with high degree of autonomy (as a principality), meaning that it should be called as Kyiv. It's obvious that when Muscovy\Russia grabs Kyiv, it should be named as "Kiev" =)))

 

[generalolaf]

^Are there any Belarussian tags/a Belarussian culture? I'd argue for dynamic names but there's no point having dynamic names without a TAG to apply them to.

 

[Zak Preston]

^Are there any Belarussian tags/a Belarussian culture? I'd argue for dynamic names but there's no point having dynamic names without a TAG to apply them to.

Sure! Eastern Slavic group includes Belarussian, Ruthenian and Russian cultures. Belarussian culture has Polotsk Principality.

 

[Het]

^Are there any Belarussian tags/a Belarussian culture? I'd argue for dynamic names but there's no point having dynamic names without a TAG to apply them to.

Byelorussian culture even spread in 1.8. And for Dynamic Provinces you don't need a tag, it's possible to use cultures as well.

 

[Het]

For those who imply they know Russian...

Spoiler

in 17th century Russians would write Kyiv as Кіевъ. But in 15th century Russian written language didn't exist yet. They used so called Church Slavonic language, which actually is Bulgarian. That's why modern Russian has a lot of similarities with modern Bulgarian.

 

[T02my]

Please, give any evidences that Kiev was named as "Киiв" (Kyiv) in 15 century and not as "Kiev" (Киев/Kijew/Kijev). Okay, well, we can try to count that letter "и" in Ancient Russian language could be read as modern Russian "ы" or ukrainian "ы". But why people who were living in Poland in 14-16 centuries did not use "Kyjiw" or "Kyjo'w' ?

 

[Squirrelloid]

AFAICT, the province names in eastern Europe are based on their most common English names. (Not necessarily the correct modern names, but the ones most familiar to your average reasonably educated English speaker). As eastern Europe started getting a lot more attention in the west from WWII onwards, especially because of the USSR, it's unsurprising that the most recognizable translation of these names is from Russian...

Not saying that it's right, but it is understandable why they'd choose that.

(Provinces which do have good language localization don't follow this rule - eg, Kulm / Chelmno - its the provinces without localization that do.

From what I can gleam from these discussions, the appropriate 1444 name for Kiev is Kijow, not any of the modern renditions.

 

[Het]

AFAICT, the province names in eastern Europe are based on their most common English names. (Not necessarily the correct modern names, but the ones most familiar to your average reasonably educated English speaker). As eastern Europe started getting a lot more attention in the west from WWII onwards, especially because of the USSR, it's unsurprising that the most recognizable translation of these names is from Russian...

Not saying that it's right, but it is understandable why they'd choose that.

(Provinces which do have good language localization don't follow this rule - eg, Kulm / Chelmno - its the provinces without localization that do.

From what I can gleam from these discussions, the appropriate 1444 name for Kiev is Kijow, not any of the modern renditions.

I agree with the first part, the western world still hasn't recovered from centuries of Moscow's propaganda, I would understand it will be happening in 1990's or early 2000's, but it's almost 2015 and little by little all major online and offline services and organizations corrected their documents and maps, as well as their knowledge about Eastern Europe.

A lot of people learn about new countries from this game and I see it's important to correct inconsistency because it creates feeling of ignorance from the developer's side. Moskva for instance, is not most common name of the Russian capital, and yet we see it's spelled like that, instead of Moscow. I see it as a huge inconsistency.


As for Kijow, it's Polish spelling (and I agree, this should be in Dynamic Provs, not in 1444 though, when it's under LIT), in Ukrainian closest spelling represented by letter Ї [yi] so that's proof that Polish Kijow is just adopted pronunciation of Ukrainian Kyyiv, later one of the "y" was removed in Latin transliteration for better readibility. Actually, on some maps from early 2000's you can still find Kyyiv, which is fonetically correct.


P.S.: And, by the way it's not only about Kyiv, for Christ sake, it's all Ukrainian provinces/names that have unique spelling.
ALL monarch names, generals, ships, etc. have Russian spelling. Maybe they also should rather be Polish? or Swedish?

 

[raspel]

I like dymamic province name changes, and I agree in this part with topic starter (except Dnieper, it is river and its name will not be changed, and Dnieper is an English name for it, may be through Polish).

 

[Het]

Yes, I saw Dnieper an Nieper on mideval maps. Seems like Polish, but we should ask people who knows Polish enough to answer that.
So I leave it for later
The major issue now is Ukrainian and Bielorussian provinces and rulers/leaders names.

 

[raspel]

Het, your point is valid, but, I think, for devs fixing not imoprtant for gameplay issues in language, history, geography etc is not in priority. Sometimes they correct some errors, but very seldom.

And, if it somehow can console you, Russian names are also far from perfection. They are transliterated into English using different system in different places, sometimes use Russian-Swedish transliteration, full of spelling mistakes and typos. My favourite example is Sjtjenjatvev from common/countries/Muscowy.txt. How many Russians can understand, that it is Щенятев (Swedish transliteration + typo)? How many English speakers can pronounce this?

Here is [thread=811990]my thread[/thread] about Russian names, you can use them for your mod, if you want. This can extend it from Ruthenian to East Slavic (if someone will fix Belorussian names too).

 

[Zak Preston]

Het, your point is valid, but, I think, for devs fixing not imoprtant for gameplay issues in language, history, geography etc is not in priority. Sometimes they correct some errors, but very seldom.

And, if it somehow can console you, Russian names are also far from perfection. They are transliterated into English using different system in different places, sometimes use Russian-Swedish transliteration, full of spelling mistakes and typos. My favourite example is Sjtjenjatvev from common/countries/Muscowy.txt. How many Russians can understand, that it is Щенятев (Swedish transliteration + typo)? How many English speakers can pronounce this?

Here is [thread=811990]my thread[/thread] about Russian names, you can use them for your mod, if you want. This can extend it from Ruthenian to East Slavic (if someone will fix Belorussian names too).

I guess devs can decide what is important and what is not on their own =)
I noticed that in 1.8 devs have added dynamic names for some of Ruthenian provinces, like Wolyn and Podole. I wonder, if it really takes that much time to fix a few dozens of text lines?

 

[raspel]

I wonder, if it really takes that much time to fix a few dozens of text lines?

I know, but it is the most probable explaination I can imagine.

Well, another thing may be that they don't want to prefer one region to another. There are hundreds of threads on this forum about wrong Romanization of Korean names, wrong Indonesian coastline, cities not on their historical places etc. May be they don't want to see threads like "Why do you fix Ukraine, when Siam is full of mistakes!!?"

It is just my idea. Anyway, some mistakes are in game for years, for example, file Muscowy.txt, which was mentioned before, is the same, like in EU III (I checked). I have no doubt, that tens of people for this time noticed its imperfection and told about it on this forum, but it is still not fixed.