Is the use of "Kiev" (or other Russian-based spelling) considered offensive in Ukraine?
Someone edited my question, which originally used "Kiev" to mean the capital of Ukraine, but edited into "Kyiv". I just briefly googled it and found that "Kiev" is a Russian word while "Kyiv" is a Ukrainian one.
I wonder if it is considered offensive, or otherwise not welcomed among Ukrainians.
I feel that people don't care about my pronunciation, so the issue would be only in the written context (e.g. chat with AirBnB hosts, ask help for a stranger on a smartphone, etc...).
So, is it offensive for locals? Or approximately how many people (in percentage) care about it?
Best Answer
Googling for "kiev" site:.ua vs. "kyiv" site:.ua shows that both options coexist peacefully. Most Ukrainians are not proficient English speakers and don't really care about minor intricacies of foreign spelling. .
So no, nobody cares which way you spell it. Source: traveling to Ukraine several times as a Russian speaker.
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Answer 2
Living since several years in Kyiv and hadnt any problem/issue with speaking russian.By the way - also not in Lviv or western ukraine...there will be more such a problem that people understand russian, but may not answer in russian and explain after more;)! But - Kyiv is the official ukrainian writing in the latinic ABC.By myself f.e.,I use in my official letterhead the wording "Kyiv" for the english part. If you search f.e.at railway-page uz.gov.ua/english version "Kiev", you will even not find the railway station;-)! So you see - its mixed here - officially ukrainian is the state language and russian is the economical leading language...but even at home the most people are speaking a mixture of both,depending on their local origin.
Answer 3
"Kiev" is the only one I use living in Ukraine because the life around takes place in Russian except rare cases where the government roughly forces us to use Ukrainian. It is just my example though, other people are used to and prefer Ukrainian.
The same person who edited your question used to edit my earlier Ukraine answer, with a similar edit of city name: Kharkov vs. Kharkiv (I edited my answer back, but I retained his edit of the question itself). The fun fact is that I live in Ukraine, and the one who edits and enforces Ukrainian spelling moved to work abroad.
Another ex-Ukrainian downvoted this answer of Ukrainian local. Such excessive over-Ukrainianity is a result of 2014 events. So in general "Kiev" and other cases of Russian spelling are not offensive. Neither they are considered rude, or even incorrect. Be sure that even editor of your questions was perfectly aware of your spelling being proper, he just used his chance to do the modification at his own liking. However once in a while you can meet people who is aggressively an indecently insisting on Ukrainian spelling. Among real life people its well under 1%, as long as you asked for percentage estimate.
Answer 4
Kiev predominantly speaks Russian and maintains Russian culture. Ukrainian language (or Surzhyk) is mostly spoken in western and partially central Ukraine. Thus, it might cause some minor dissatisfaction in the respective regions (or among those who moved to Kiev from them), although in Kiev and the rest of Ukraine there is no evident reason for it to be offensive. At some point, it's even vice versa: Kievans find the imposement of Ukrainian language offensive.
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