Kozak/Cossack

[Edward M Dumanis]

Just to add my two cents.
We can change our spelling but on a par with the Russian and 
Ukrainian speakers change their habits:
I insist then that they refer to us as AMERIKANZ, and to the English as 
INGLISHMEN. :)

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008, William Ryan wrote:

> 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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