The United States Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) has changed in its official database the spelling of the Ukrainian capital's name from "Kiev" to "Kyiv" at the request of the Ukrainian ambassador
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th June, 2019) The United States board on Geographic Names (USBGN) has changed in its official database the spelling of the Ukrainian capital's name from "Kiev" to "Kyiv" at the request of the Ukrainian ambassador.
The Federal body, operating under the US Interior Secretary, marked "Kyiv" as an approved variant, while "Kiev" is marked as "conventional."
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States, which welcomed late on Wednesday the move in a Facebook statement, said that the decision would come into force on June 17. International organizations that are guided by the USBGN's spelling, could now switch to the "Kyiv" option as well. These organizations may include airports located around the globe.
Ukraine has long been calling on global organizations and countries to be guided by the rules of the Ukrainian phonetics instead of the rules of the Russian phonetics when spelling Ukrainian names. Apart from that, the Ukrainian government ruled in late May that Russian surnames should be spelled in Ukraine according to the Ukrainian linguistic norms. Experts have been protesting the decision, claiming that it could affect the feeling of national identity of Russians living in Ukraine.
