On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 07:45:27 -0000, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<
S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:
>If you mean _Ukrainian_ spelling, it's {Kiïv}. Cyrillic {i}
>renders /y/ (closer to the Polish one rather than Russian, i. e. more
>front-shifted) in Ukrainian, {IU} is not used.
But Ukrainian uses {i2} (izhica), the letter derived from Greek iota,
that looks just like Latin <i>, as well as {i1}, the letter derived
from Greek eta, that looks like an inverted Latin N. The only
effective way to transliterate this (at the cost of incompatibility
with Russian trasliteration) is to use <i> for {i2} and <y> for {i1}.
The sound /ji/ is written {ï}, that is a "Latin" <i> with two dots.
Historically, Ukr. <y> represents the merger of Common Slavic <i> and
<y>, while Ukr. <i> represents the merger of Common Slavic <e^>
("yat'"), and "long" <o> and <e> (i.e. in closed syllables after the
loss of the yers) [e.g. lis, lisu "wood"; nic^, noc^i "night"; and
ric^, rec^i "thing" < *le^sU, *noc^I, *rec^I].