Ukraine

[Stephen Bobick]

  [contents trimmed]

  >3) Certain Ukrainians appear to be going above and beyond what the
  >   Chinese, Burmese/Myanmarese, Ceylonese/Sri Lankans, et al., have
  >   heretofore requested of Anglophones, and appear to be trying to
  >   dictate grammatical usage to native speakers of English.  I do not
  >   know why I have always referred to London Bridge without a definite
  >   article and to the Brooklyn Bridge with a definite article, but I
  >   would quickly turn a deaf ear to anyone (especially a non-native
  >   speaker of English) who would insist that I somehow "treat" all
  >   bridges "equally" by either consistently using or consistently
  >   omitting the definite article.

The request by Ukrainians to refer to their country as "Ukraine" is not
motivated by a desire of Ukrainians to modify the English grammar.  It
is to replace a term with negative (political) connotations with a term
that Ukrainians find more acceptable.  I would also like to point out that
Ukrainians in the diaspora who live in English speaking countries are also
requesting that Ukraine be referred to as "Ukraine", so I could argue that
in addition to a foreign country requesting changes in English usage, a subset
of the population of *native speakers* of English is also requesting this
change.

I would argue that the Ukrainian request is analogous to "American Indians"
wanting to be referred to as "Native Americans", or, as "Colored folks"
to be referred to as "Blacks" or "African Americans".  Of course, these
terms have come about as a result of speakers of English in America opting
to replace terms with negative (racial) connotations with more acceptable,
enlightened, and sensitive terms for peoples.  I realize that these examples
do not change English grammar, or alter grammatical usage.  However, I would
argue that the usage of Ukraine instead of "the Ukraine" is an issue of
sensitivity to another culture and people, and that the change is just as
reasonable as the above examples I provided above.

BTW, with respect to the "Beijing" vs. "Peking" and other examples that were
cited.  I would like to point out that "Kyiv", "L'viv" and other Ukrainian
names are still often spelled and pronounced as "Kiev", "Lvov", etc.
despite  their changed spellings.  And I detect the same reluctance to use
the newer terms as to change over to "Ukraine" rather than "the Ukraine".


-- Stepan


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