Kozak/Cossack

[William Ryan]

It would be churlish not to oblige you! This is really not a Ukrainian 
(or Russian in the case of Russian Cossacks) issue at all, but a matter 
of English usage. There are many words, and in particular ethnonyms and 
place names in English (and probably all other European languages), 
which are poor phonetic representations of the original word but which 
have been around for so long that they are fully established lexical 
items. There is no reason normally to change them unless they are 
offensive or inaccurate in some other way. 'Cossack' is attested in 
English since the 16th century, 'cosaque' in French probably from the 
same period, and in both languages the word has acquired secondary 
meanings - to try change it now would do violence to English and French 
literature. And if we did change it, would it be to Ukrainian 'kozak' or 
to Russian 'kazak'? In the latter case we would risk partial or complete 
confusion with kazakhs (as I suspect the Oxford English Dictionary does 
when, even in the current online edition, it describes Cossacks as 
'warlike Turkish people now subject to Russia, occupying the parts north 
of the Black Sea'.)  In my various editorial roles I would certainly not 
allow 'kozak' in any but a narrowly specialist article or footnote - 
most ordinary readers would not know what it meant, and those with only 
a smattering of Slavonic languages might think it means a male goat. Why 
do your Ukrainian groups worry about this at all? The inhabitants of the 
Netherlands don't get excited because we normally but inaccurately call 
their country Holland, and refer to them as Dutch, and the Germans, as 
we call them, don't riot when Ukrainians call them nimtsy.
Will Ryan


nataliek at UALBERTA.CA wrote:
> I was hoping that my message would elicit commentary on the issue of 
> kozak versus Cossack.  This has been widely discussed on Ukrainian 
> groups.  What does this group feel about the usage of kozak instead of 
> Cossack?
>
> Natalie Kononenko
> Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography
> University of Alberta
> Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
> 200 Arts Building
> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
> Phone: 780-492-6810
> Web: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/uvp/
>
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