When Ukrainians transliterate their own names into English, you’d
think that Hanna would, by this logic, be Hanna, that Ihor would be
Ihor, and so on, right? Wrong. For some reason Hanna becomes Ganna and
Ihor becomes Igor.
Read the story here.
Motyl: Tips on speaking Ukrainian
If you’ve ever heard Ukrainians speak Russian, you will have noticed that they almost always pronounce the Russian G as an H. Hence, gavaril (I spoke) will come across as havaril, gaspadin (mister) as haspadin, golod (hunger) as holod. Gorbachev will be Horbachev, Grozny will be Hrozny, Germaniya will be Hermaniya, and so on.
