Ukraine

[David J Birnbaum]

> 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.

Interestingly, this doesn't imply the converse, so Siberia gets no
definite article (and takes "v" in Russian). Other definite articles in
English go with singular regional references; not just Lebanon and
Argentine, but also Ivory Coast, Congo, Sudan, and others. These have
essentially gone the way of Ukraine.

The sociolinguistic implications of "the Ukraine" are less clear. I am
unaware of any difference in attitude on the part of speakers of English
toward what they might have called "the Ukraine" and what they called
"Belorussia" (and now call "Belarus") or "Kazakhstan" or any other former
Soviet Socialist Republic. Perhaps I haven't met the right speakers of
English, and some list reader will step forward and say "oh, yes, I always
thought of 'the Ukraine' as a region (of what?) and 'Belorussia' as
something different." But I suspect the definite article is a historical
relic, and whatever it might once have implied, for late-20th-century
speakers of English, it was simply part of the English name for
"Ukraina."

Cheers,

David
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