Rename trade node Kiev into Kyiv

[parhammer]

Hello! I have very specific request to game developers. Can you please rename trade node Kiev into Kyiv?

[Modern day situation statements moderated out]

 

[Василий]

In the times that take place in Europa Universalis IV, there was no Russian or Ukrainian nation. There were no nations then, there were landlords, feudalities, feudal lords and so on. So it is correct to name cities not in Ukrainian (this game is not about the modern political agenda), but in Church Slavonic. And in Church Slavonic it would be "Kꙑ́ѥv", which is transcribed as "Кі́евъ", i.e. Kiev.

[Modern day situation statements moderated out]

 

[almoravid]

I'm not even sure if there should even be a Kiev trade node. Kiev wasn't much of a Center of Trade in EU4 era.

Anyway, Kiev until very recently was the default English name of the city, just as they have Constantinople rather than Konstantiniyye/Nea Roma/Isranbul, or Canton instead of Guangdong/Guangzhou. If anything, the node probably should be called "Lithuania". That's what the area was called for most of the era.

 

[strqfzd911]

Just open the province interface in game and rename the provinces to whatever theyre called in ukrainian, you dont need the devs to do that

 

[almoravid]

Just open the province interface in game and rename the provinces to whatever theyre called in ukrainian, you dont need the devs to do that

You can't rename trade nodes. But yeah, that's also done quite easily.

 

[strqfzd911]

You can't rename trade nodes. But yeah, that's also done quite easily.

changing localisation files dosent modify the checksum iirc, so technically he can just rename the kiev node without disabling ironman

\Steam\steamapps\common\Europa Universalis IV\localisation\EU4_l_english.yml
kiev:0 "Kiev" --> Kiev:0 "Kyiv"

 

[Adrianople]

The antiquated argument of "Kiev was the default English name until recently" ignores the fact that Istanbul, which was brought up, was actually being called Constantinople (Turkish: Konstantiniyye) by its rulers. Kyiv in Old Rusian (Old East Slavic, and certainly not Russian) was Kyjevъ, and we see it become Kyjev in Rusian (Old Ukrainian and Belarusian). The closest equivalent in pronunciation today is the Ukrainian pronunciation and spelling, not the Russian influenced "Kiev". While nations certainly didn't exist as we know them today, there was a certain feeling of nationality, of being part of a people, that the Rusyns of Rus felt, as they were united around the dialects of Rusian that would become Ukrainian. The arguments against the restoration of Kyiv's more historical version, that being Kyiv itself as a direct descendant of what the people of the city called it in their tongue, is far less derogatory than the use of Kiev, which only became the dominant name of the city with the beginning of Russian domination.

And for the fellow who brought up Old Church Slavonic, then I would have you propose to the Romanians that they have their cities in this game moved to that language, as they also used it. But the reason we don't is because we understand that such a depiction of the Romanians would be offensive, that they are not Slavs, but speakers of a Romance language. What is perhaps frustrating for Ukrainians and Belarusians is that Serbo-Croatian speakers, Slovenians, Macedonians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Bulgarians and Russians get representation on the map in terms of localization (Kijów when the PLC rules over Rus, for example), but Belarusian and Ukrainian, which have a very storied history during this period that indeed is part of the shaping of our modern nations today (so stop arrogantly saying that there were no nations, they certainly weren't the same as what we have today, but they were definitely developing directly into our cultures), have no such representation. Instead of that, Ukraine and Belarus get one endgame tag with a mission tree that is just underwhelming and even a bit insulting. The Cossacks, which were very independent, are represented as just an estate to be jostled around, as if Catherine II had already destroyed the Zaporizhian Sich.

I'm sorry if I digressed and directly approached a minor point (that being the OCS), but it is asinine to read "It was Kiev not too long ago in English". It's Kyiv now in English and has been officially since 1991. And even in Old Rusian and Rusian (Old Ukrainian, Old Belarusian), the form was always closer to Kyiv. If the Ottomans can have on the map "Konstantiniyye" and the official English translation of such is "Constantinople", then we can have "Kyiv", with the official English form "Kyiv".

FYI, this isn't just politics. This is the actual history of Kyiv that we're talking about. A city whose identity is often obscured by the use of the Russian "Kiev". As EUIV, I would hope, attempts to portray a proper amount of accuracy as expected from a game set in a period that for many peoples was pivotal in the national formation into the modern nations, they need to make the shift to Kyiv when the province is ruled by a Ruthenian (though not Belarusian) tag. And I really do hope that they don't fail to do so with the trade node.

 

[almoravid]

The antiquated argument of "Kiev was the default English name until recently" ignores the fact that Istanbul, which was brought up, was actually being called Constantinople (Turkish: Konstantiniyye) by its rulers. Kyiv in Old Rusian (Old East Slavic, and certainly not Russian) was Kyjevъ, and we see it become Kyjev in Rusian (Old Ukrainian and Belarusian).

Old East Slavic speakers called their language "Rusian", which is, as everyone can see, most certainly not "Russian". They didn't rule Kiev, though. Lithuanians (who spoke proto-belarussian, ergo "Кіеў") and later Poles did.

The closest equivalent in pronunciation today is the Ukrainian pronunciation and spelling, not the Russian influenced "Kiev". While nations certainly didn't exist as we know them today, there was a certain feeling of nationality, of being part of a people, that the Rusyns of Rus felt, as they were united around the dialects of Rusian that would become Ukrainian. The arguments against the restoration of Kyiv's more historical version, that being Kyiv itself as a direct descendant of what the people of the city called it in their tongue, is far less derogatory than the use of Kiev, which only became the dominant name of the city with the beginning of Russian domination.

For those who don't know it: there is little difference between how i and e are pronounced in Kyiv or Kyev. The e would be prounounced close to an i, anyway. The second letter in cyrillic, the и, is the same in both the Russian and Ukrainian name of the city, it's just that Russians pronounce and transliterate it as an i, while Ukrainians pronounce and transliterate it as an y.

It's a potayto - potahto or harbor - habour kind of issue, really, which is currently sadly supercharged by war and nationalism. Before 19th century, east slavic languages didn't even have proper orthography, which makes arguments over those things even sillier. There is no way to know how people would have pronounced the name of the city in 1444. Kiyew, Kyyew, Kiyow, Kyyow, Kyiw, Kiiw, Kiou - probably different people pronounced it differently, as nobody made a big deal about it. Sometimes, same people pronounced it differently on different days, on different occasions, when speaking to different people. They didn't have rigid rules on how to pronounce sounds.

I'm sorry if I digressed and directly approached a minor point (that being the OCS), but it is asinine to read "It was Kiev not too long ago in English". It's Kyiv now in English and has been officially since 1991. And even in Old Rusian and Rusian (Old Ukrainian, Old Belarusian), the form was always closer to Kyiv. If the Ottomans can have on the map "Konstantiniyye" and the official English translation of such is "Constantinople", then we can have "Kyiv", with the official English form "Kyiv".

Yeah, you have Kyiv for diplomatic reasons, and still have "Kievan Rus" rather than "Kyivan Rus". Language is a messy business, and yes, attempts to insist on one name instead of another is just politics. Ottomans can have Konstantiniyye on the map while their trade node is called Constantinople. Poland is called Poland rather than Polska, and Lithuania is called Lithuania rather than Lietuva.

 

[moscal]

The best solution:
Because in this period this city was owned by the greater part of time by Poland, this trade note should be wroten in polish style.

 

[TK3600]

Why not just make name change depending on the owner like provinces? Assuming what you argued was correct.

 

[almoravid]

Why not just make name change depending on the owner like provinces? Assuming what you argued was correct.

It's not about the provinces, it's about the trade node.

 

[TK3600]

It's not about the provinces, it's about the trade node.

I meant having the node change name LIKE provinces.

 

[moscal]

I meant having the node change name LIKE provinces.

Probably in current EU4 engine this isn't possible. Maybe in EU5.

 

[gigau]

As a reminder, stay on topic and stay away from modern day situation.

 

[almoravid]

I meant having the node change name LIKE provinces.

difficult. Nodes are seldomly controlled by one power. If it's to be decided by highest trade power, you'll have some names change every couple of days, confusing the hell out of the player.

 

[Slaytanic]

I believe it could be settled by renaming the Trade Node into "Ruthenia".
While it strays from naming the node after its most important trade city, it's not like we don't have things like "Rhineland", "Saxony", "Caribbean" and "The Moluccas". So, naming it after the general region would not be unprecedented.

 

[Adrianople]

Old East Slavic speakers called their language "Rusian", which is, as everyone can see, most certainly not "Russian". They didn't rule Kiev, though. Lithuanians (who spoke proto-belarussian, ergo "Кіеў") and later Poles did.



For those who don't know it: there is little difference between how i and e are pronounced in Kyiv or Kyev. The e would be prounounced close to an i, anyway. The second letter in cyrillic, the и, is the same in both the Russian and Ukrainian name of the city, it's just that Russians pronounce and transliterate it as an i, while Ukrainians pronounce and transliterate it as an y.

It's a potayto - potahto or harbor - habour kind of issue, really, which is currently sadly supercharged by war and nationalism. Before 19th century, east slavic languages didn't even have proper orthography, which makes arguments over those things even sillier. There is no way to know how people would have pronounced the name of the city in 1444. Kiyew, Kyyew, Kiyow, Kyyow, Kyiw, Kiiw, Kiou - probably different people pronounced it differently, as nobody made a big deal about it. Sometimes, same people pronounced it differently on different days, on different occasions, when speaking to different people. They didn't have rigid rules on how to pronounce sounds.

Yeah, you have Kyiv for diplomatic reasons, and still have "Kievan Rus" rather than "Kyivan Rus". Language is a messy business, and yes, attempts to insist on one name instead of another is just politics. Ottomans can have Konstantiniyye on the map while their trade node is called Constantinople. Poland is called Poland rather than Polska, and Lithuania is called Lithuania rather than Lietuva.

I ask you to familarise yourself with historical linguistics, which are able to make accurate approximations to how a language would sound. You can even look up the phonetics of the Rusian language (in both the dialects of Ukraine and Belarus) and approximate how someone from Kyiv would have called their city.

To address each of your points: Ukrainian ї and Russian е make different sounds entirely, and they are honestly not similar. To better understand, there is an Ukrainian letter that makes the Russian е sound: є. Russian и is always transliterated as the Latin i, and is equivalent to the Polish i, while Ukrainian и is equivalent to the Polish y. These are two very different phonetic values over all, especially to those who speak the languages.

It's also not "potayto - potahto". And it's really rich hearing that East Slavic languages didn't have "a proper orthography". Muscovite/Russian and Rusian had Cyrillic orthographies for their respective languages already during this period, with Rusian having already been the court language of Lithuania for a little less than a century by 1444. The same goes most certainly for Muscovite. Knowing how sound shifts and pronunciations are able to be tracked as long as we have records of the language, we certainly know almost entirely for sure how Rusian Kyiv would have been pronounced. As much as you may wish to paint this as an issue of nationalism, this is about simple historical fact. Also, your hot take on linguistics is rather concerning. Indeed, pronunciation can vary based on dialect, but even that follows rules. As I found in uni, language is like mathematics, except that there can definitely be variables. But ultimately we follow rules in spite of changing variables that allow us to say that we are speaking English, French, German, Ukrainian, etc.

We have Kyiv not for just diplomatic reasons, but for reasons of being recognised as a nation. As Kyiv is the officially recognised form of the name in English, "Kievan Rus" is rather a Russified alternative to Kyivan Rus, which we indeed have. What I find absurd in your arguments is that you are equating this to us trying to force the Ukrainian language upon the game. We are not pushing for Ruthenia to be called Rus', even though it being called Rus would be better, we are not pushing for "Ukrayina" or "Rossiya" or even "Byelarus'". Even your point about Constantinople versus Turkish Konstantiniyye is in bad faith, because indeed Constantinople is the English name, but then Kyiv most definitely could be the name of the node, as Kyiv is the accepted English name, regardless of diplomatic contexts or any other vapid argument you have next.

 

[almoravid]

I believe it could be settled by renaming the Trade Node into "Ruthenia".
While it strays from naming the node after its most important trade city, it's not like we don't have things like "Rhineland", "Saxony", "Caribbean" and "The Moluccas". So, naming it after the general region would not be unprecedented.

Or, better yet, Lithuania. That's what they called it back then. Even aside from that dispute: Kiev simply wasn't an important commercial center at the time. Black Sea trade via Dniepr was blocked off, anyway, and when it was forced open by Russia, it went through Odessa, which outgrew Kiev by 1813. Kiev was sacked in 1481 and 1651, and was described as a mostly ruined city around 1600. The capital of the Russian vassal Hetmate was at Baturyn, not at Kiev. Before its destruction in 1708, it was bigger than Kiev, too. IKiev's significance was mostly religious-cultural.

 

[almoravid]

I ask you to familarise yourself with historical linguistics, which are able to make accurate approximations to how a language would sound. You can even look up the phonetics of the Rusian language (in both the dialects of Ukraine and Belarus) and approximate how someone from Kyiv would have called their city.

To address each of your points: Ukrainian ї and Russian е make different sounds entirely, and they are honestly not similar. To better understand, there is an Ukrainian letter that makes the Russian е sound: є. Russian и is always transliterated as the Latin i, and is equivalent to the Polish i, while Ukrainian и is equivalent to the Polish y. These are two very different phonetic values over all, especially to those who speak the languages.

Yes, Ukrainian ї is different from Russian e. What I'm saying is that if they wrote Kiev with a second i in Russian, like Kiiv, hardly anyone would notice a change in pronunciation. Ukrainians themselves transliterate ї as an i into English, which doesn't quite capture the sound, but Ukrainians obviously deemed it close enough.

And it's really rich hearing that East Slavic languages didn't have "a proper orthography". Muscovite/Russian and Rusian had Cyrillic orthographies for their respective languages already during this period, with Rusian having already been the court language of Lithuania for a little less than a century by 1444.

Yeah, they wrote texts in these languages alright. A compulsory standardised orthography wasn't introduced until 1917 for Russian, and 1918 for Ukrainian. Before that, orthography shifted over time.

Indeed, pronunciation can vary based on dialect, but even that follows rules. As I found in uni, language is like mathematics, except that there can definitely be variables. But ultimately we follow rules in spite of changing variables that allow us to say that we are speaking English, French, German, Ukrainian, etc.

Yes, you can trace the development of dialects, but there is a degree of variance. Otherwise, travellers wouldn't transliterate names all wrong into their respective languages all the time. It's not as if Muscovites, Belarussians and Poles werent able to pronounce the Ukrainian и and therefore changed it into an i, either. Russian language has this sound, represented by the letter ы, which it inherited from the church slavonic. It must have seemed right to the neighbours to represent it by a different sound. In Latin and Greek, too.

We have Kyiv not for just diplomatic reasons, but for reasons of being recognised as a nation.

Which is a diplomatic reason, mostly. Again, look: you have a Canton trade node. Canton is an utterly un-Chinese name.

 

[Adrianople]

Yes, Ukrainian ї is different from Russian e. What I'm saying is that if they wrote Kiev with a second i in Russian, like Kiiv, hardly anyone would notice a change in pronunciation. Ukrainians themselves transliterate ї as an i into English, which doesn't quite capture the sound, but Ukrainians obviously deemed it close enough.




Yeah, they wrote texts in these languages alright. A compulsory standardised orthography wasn't introduced until 1917 for Russian, and 1918 for Ukrainian. Before that, orthography shifted over time.



Yes, you can trace the development of dialects, but there is a degree of variance. Otherwise, travellers wouldn't transliterate names all wrong into their respective languages all the time. It's not as if Muscovites, Belarussians and Poles werent able to pronounce the Ukrainian и and therefore changed it into an i, either. Russian language has this sound, represented by the letter ы, which it inherited from the church slavonic. It must have seemed right to the neighbours to represent it by a different sound. In Latin and Greek, too.

Which is a diplomatic reason, mostly. Again, look: you have a Canton trade node. Canton is an utterly un-Chinese name.

The reason ї is an i in the English form is because y in Kyiv is doing the double job of representing the и and the beginning of ї.

Now you’re backtracking. Even with standardisation, which Russia incidentally has had in terms of its Cyrillic alphabet, there are shifts that show phonetic changes. And ultimately, it is a weak argument.

I have already gone into detail about the differences between the Ukrainian and Russian Cyrillic alphabets… also your argument here is non-sensical. Peoples who neighbour one another often have variations on names, but it is always clear when someone is from further away when their version conforms to one version in particular. For Kyiv, this version is the Muscovite Kiev. It’s not because “in English it’s more natural”, it’s because it’s what was the most often propagated.

Canton’s name is entirely irrelevant in this discussion. We are talking about Kyiv. Regardless, Kyiv is honestly the only correct variant in English, with “Kiev” being quite frankly an alternative that I dearly hope finally dies out in English.

Edit: It’s Kyiv, not Kiev. You use the Russian variant in such a way that I fear your profile picture wasn’t chosen just because you liked Moscow’s CoA.