German angle

[John Dingley]

Hi,

The thorny question of English "Ukraine" vs. "The Ukraine" and
the equally thorny question of Russian "na Ukraine" vs. "v Ukraine"
has been debated on Seelangs before. This time around however, the
cogent points advanced by Martin Votruba and John Dunn have, to my
mind, brought much clarity to the debate. At the last airing, I made
the comparison with the situation obtaining in modern German with
respect to certain names of country, and I think this is worth
repeating as it may shed some light on the topic under discussion
here.
In German, most countries are of neuter gender and have no article,
e.g. England, Deutschland, Polen, etc. A few are of feminine
gender and are always preceded by the definite article, e.g.
die T|rkei, die Schweiz, die Ukraine. Then there are a few pluralia
tanta which, like the feminine, are always preceded by the definite
article, e.g. die Vereinigten Staaten, die Niederlande, etc. Lastly,
there are just a handful of masculine gender, which are also preceded
by the definite article, e.g. der Sudan, der Irak, der Iran, der Jemen,
der Oman, der Libanon, der Kongo, der Niger, der Tschad. (This list may
be exhaustive.) Increasingly in modern German these masculine country
names are being treated as neuters, e.g. Irak (for der Irak), in Irak
(for im Irak), nach Irak (for in den Irak), das gro_e Irak (for der gro_e
Irak). I do not know why Irak etc were originally of masculine gender,
but the German list overlaps to a goodly degree with the English forms
which had a preceding definite article, e.g. der Libanon, the Lebanon,
and it may be that Martin Votruba's pertinent remarks for the English
forms apply equally as well to the German ones.
As far as I know, there is no movement afoot in Iraq, Sudan, etc. to try
and get the Germans to use exclusively Irak (and not der Irak), etc. and
perhaps that is just as well, since a) the wind seems to be blowing in
the direction of Irak for der Irak anyway, but, on the other hand, b) for
many Germans (many of German friends included here) Irak for der Irak is
considered an abomination to be avoided at all costs. Mal schauen!

John Dingley

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http://dlll.yorku.ca/jding.html

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