Comments by "seneca983" (@seneca983) on "Ukraine Pushes Putin Back: The Latest Battlefield Update" video.

"Ruzzia is insane enough to destroy dams and there is the mother of all reservoirs beyond the Nova Kakhovka dam." That reservoir is the one feeding the North Crimean Canal. If they destroy that dam draining its reservoir then Crimea will be without fresh water and next years harvest there will be ruined. Is Russia insane enough to hurt Crimea in this way?
1
@christopherg2347 The 2014 harvest failed. They were able to make up for the lost water after that but it was more expensive. Back then Ukraine didn't even cut of the water entirely but only reduced the flow greatly. Also, right before the current invasion drinking water reserves in Crimean cities were very low. If the water gets cut off completely it is a big problem for Crimea unless Russia supports it at great expense.
1
@christopherg2347 What do you mean "let the reservoir standing"? If they destroy the dam (as you suggested they might) and thus drain the reservoir, that doesn't seem like letting it stand. Or did you mean something else. In any case, agriculture is a much bigger user of water. I don't think Crimeans will die of thirst in any case but losing the water would be a big loss to the areas economy, or at least Russia's budget if it goes hard on replacing the lost water.
1
@christopherg2347 I meant that I don't think Russia is going to destroy the dam because they'd lose the fresh water with it.
1
@christopherg2347 What confused me was that you wrote "then" when it should have been "than".
1
I think Ukraine should give up on getting Crimea back. It's too difficult to take back a majority there didn't want to be a part of Ukraine.
1
@GlennRA3 "The Ukrainian letter "X" is pronounced like the English "H"" No, it's pronounced [x], not [h].
1
@GlennRA3 "No, it is not pronounced as the English letter "X."" I didn't say it's pronounced as the English letter 'X'. I said it's pronounced as [x] which is the IPA symbol for the voiceless velar fricative. It's the same sound as in the "José" example you gave. "the closest sound in English being "H"" Which sound is the closest is subjective. Some people might think that it's [kʰ], some that it's [h]. There isn't one objective answer. One point to note is that apparently in English [x] can act as an allophone for [kʰ] when speaking quickly which might be the reason why some feel that [kʰ] is the closest sound.
1
@GlennRA3 "Really? You think it is subjective? Ask 100 people what English letter the Spanish "J" (José) sounds like. Do you think you will get any answer other than "H"?" Well, I don't have the time to do something like that and I don't live in an English speaking country so getting the perceptions of English speakers would be even more difficult. But what would I predict to get if I did that? I don't know for sure but I wouldn't be surprised by either answer. Also note that [x] and [k] are both velar sounds whereas [h] is not velar, so [x] and [k] are closer to each other in that regard (but [x] and [h] are closer in the sense that both are fricatives). "As to the Ukrainian "X", in my six years of studying Ukrainian since I moved here in 2016, I have only heard it pronounced as "H."" I'm assuming you mean that you perceive [h] being the closest sound to it that English has (not that it's the same sound). However, that's subjective. There's no guarantee that other people perceive it the same way.
1
@GlennRA3 I don't think I disagreed with you on semantics.
1
@GlennRA3 "Then I am not sure what your point is. We are not talking about what the letter "X" sounds like when spoken by native Ukrainians." The remaining point is that it's subjective whether [h] or [kʰ] is the closer sound. Unless there is some kind of official English pronunciation for these city names, both [h] and [kʰ] are fine to use as approximations for [x] when not aiming for native pronunciation. Initially you also said: "The Ukrainian letter "X" is pronounced like the English "H"" but it seems that might have been just slightly sloppy wording.
1
@GlennRA3 We both agree that it's pronounced [x] (since you said it's the same as 'J' in José). We didn't disagree on that. The only disagreement was on whether [h] is the closest sound to [x] in English or whether it can be either [kʰ] or [h] depending on the person (and therefore subjective). That has nothing to do with knowing Ukrainian.
1
@alwaysdisputin9930 "Therefore Spanish people use C e.g. Barcelona." Barcelona is in Catalonia. In Catalan that "c" is pronounced as [s], not as [θ]. You could therefore say that the English pronunciation is more correct than the Spanish pronunciation (if we take native pronunciation as "correct").
1
"Kherson is pronounced Herson [...] Oh and the same for Kharkiv (prn. Harkiv) silent K." No, the 'KH' digraph is pronounced as [x], not [h]. This similar to how in English "philosophy" isn't pronounced "hilosohy" and "think" isn't pronounced "hink". The letters 'P' and 'T' in those instances aren't silent but rather a part of the 'PH' and 'TH' digraphs. Same goes for the 'K' in the 'KH' digraph (when Cyrillic is transliterated into Latin alphabet).
1
@GrayFoxHound9 "No, K is silent one here. First sound is h, not k." No, that's not correct. The 'KH' digraph is pronounced as [x], not [h]. These are different sounds. It's like in English you don't say that the 'T' in "think" is silent and therefore it's pronounced as "hink". That 'TH' is a digraph and so is 'KH'.
1
@alwaysdisputin9930 "But Ukranians just say Harkiv?" No, the Ukrainian pronunciation is [ˈxarkʲiu̯], at least based on Wiktionary. "The letter X represents K + S. e.g. "sex" sounds the same as "seks" So I don't get why you're saying KH represents X You don't say KSarkiv?" I wrote [x]. It's the IPA symbol for the voiceless velar fricative, a completely different sound. I didn't write [ks].
1