Ukraine

[Max Pyziur]

>Greetings.
>
>I have a question for those knowledgeable in things relating to Ukraine.
>Not long after the dissolution of the USSR, I seem to remember reading
>somewhere that the Ukrainian government (on the recommendation of the
>Academy of Sciences?) had decreed that thenceforth, the name of the country
>would be known as "Ukraine", that is, without an article for those
>languages that used it; and that (at least in Russian), the preposition to
>indicate location in or direction to the country would be *v* (i.e., no
>longer *na Ukraine/Ukrainu* but *v Ukraine/Ukrainu*).  This presumably was
>enacted to reinforce the idea that it was now an independent country, not a
>territory (?).

>I have certainly seen the first rule in action -- it is rare to hear
>reference to "the" Ukraine, at least in English.  But can people comment on
>the situation in other languages that might have used the article in that
>context; and of mroe direct interest to me, about which preposition was and
>is used in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and so on?  I would also be
>interested in hearing what the situation is in, for example, German.

I'm not sure if there was any sort of decree on the part of the Ukrainian
government regarding use of the definite article (like there seems to have
been regarding the spelling of the capital which has become the
thread-from-hell on some boards on the Internet).  Rather, the issue
regarding the use of definite article before Ukraine (I think) is buried
somewhere in English language grammar texts.

Something like (and this might have appeared in William Safire's NYTimes
Sunday Magazine "On Language" column):  names of countries, other than those
signifying collective entities (such as *the* Netherlands, *the* United
States, *the* Russian Federation, *the* United Kingdom), do not take the
definite article.  Hence, it's simply "Ukraine", especially since 1991.  The
reason why there might be the tendency to use the definite article for a
country such as Ukraine is the same reason why you might sometimes hear "the
Lebanon" or "the Argentine".  These countries (Lebanon, Ukraine, and
Argentinia) were territories of other political entities, hence the use of
the definite article.

As far as the use of "v" (Ukrainian for "in") vs. "na" (Ukrainian for "on")
this maybe tied to the concepts of "territory" and "nation-state", but I'll
let someone else throw darts at that one.

As far as French, every country/territory takes a definite article.  Now the
challenge is to delineate the rules for which country is masculine (Le
Japon) and which one is feminine (La France, as in "Vive La ...")

>This clearly has the potential to become a thread-from-hell in terms of
>longevity, and in light of Alex Rudd's recent posting about the dangers of
>running out of storage space for archived messages, I would request that
>you respond OFF-LIST to me at <keg at violet.berkeley.edu>.  I will post a
>summary of whatever information I get once responses slow to a trickle.
>Remember, don't just hit "REPLY" to respond...

Oh, c'mon.


>Thanks,
>Keith
>
>Keith Goeringer
>UC Berkeley
>Slavic Languages & Literatures
>keg at violet.berkeley.edu

Max
pyz at panix.com