Ukraine/The Ukraine

[Paul B. Gallagher]

anne marie devlin wrote:

> The (non) use of the definite article is most certainly used to imply
> sovereignty or lack of. For example, referring to it as the north of
> Ireland suggests that it is a geographical region of the sovereign
> country of Ireland and therefore not part of Britain; whereas the
> term Northern Ireland is generally used by those who believe it to be
> a separate state from the rest of Ireland.  So I do understand why
> Ukrainians want the change.

The example you cite seems a clear one as far as it goes, but I'm not 
sure it's an example of the same phenomenon. In both forms for the six 
counties, the construction denotes a subset of a larger whole ("the 
northern /part/ of Ireland"). Moreover, the use of the article is 
automatically conditioned by the rest of the construction -- once he's 
made the decision between "north of" and "northern," the speaker/writer 
has no further options.

The same cannot be said of "(the) Ukraine," since there is no indication 
of which is the part and which is the whole, and there is no grammatical 
rule that would require the article; to the contrary, it's a bit odd to 
see it with a proper name. We've built up a tolerance by hearing it so 
many times over the years, but try it with some other proper names such 
as "the France" or "the Algeria" and you'll see just how exceptional it is.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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