Ukraine/The Ukraine

Sun Jun 22 14:47:59 UTC 2014

Max makes a good point re countries such as "the United Kingdom", "the
Philippines". I'm agreeing with him on those, because in those cases, that
is what those countries have chosen to call themselves.

(But isn't the Russian Federation correctly a "federated country", a
collection of federal objects with different levels of autonomies? Please
correct me if I'm wrong.)

Here's what he said in full, for reference, south of my signature.

Cheers!

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"I don't agree with Jules.

Insisting on the right to use the article "the" before the country topnym
of "Ukraine" in English is willful ignorance.

If you genuinely reflect on the use of topnyms in English and would like to
abstract a set of general principles or theory, I offer the following:

For country names, "the" is used for collective entities or territories
reflecting the use of a political system: "The Philippines," "the United
Kingdom," "the United States," "the Czech Republic," and "the Russian
Federation" (even though it isn’t a federation).

Use of "the" with a country toponym that doesn’t conform to the preceding
rule generally indicates de facto allegiance to some sort of imperial claim
or subordination. "the Ukraine" seems to be the most frequent occurrence,
but occasionally and to a lesser degree, there are occurrences of "the
Argentine" and "the Lebanon." (consider the usage of the last two during
periods of elevated international conflict, especially during the 1980s).

On 22 June 2014 13:51, Evgeny Steiner <es9 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Venerable  Colleagues,
>
> These unending debates - V vs. NA - reminded me the previous round of,
> should I call it, (The) Ukrainian linguistic independency, when some
> activists demanded that 'Kiev' in all international maps should be changed
> to 'Kyiv.' Can't resist to self-quote my modest (hope not too acrid)
> remark. It seems after almost eight years it still has some sense.
>
> Date: Sunday, October 22, 2006 11:39 pm
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Is Kiev/Kyiv the new acid test for Russo-centrism?
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Does it mean that “grown up” nations can afford hearing their city names
> “distorted” in every way (say, ‘Moscow’, ‘Moskau’, or ‘Mosukuwa’), but
> the world should be overly accommodating to the sentiments of “newly
> liberated” peoples? This interesting application of the Affirmative
> Action might soon provoke certain activists in the academy to demand
> that Jerusalem should be officially named Al-Quds.
>
> Back to Kiev: if the idea is to eradicate the Russian colonial
> linguistic domination, why not to return ad fontes? The first time this
> city was mentioned in a written source was in the Hebrew Kievan Letter
> (early 10 c.). It’s not our concern here if this “kahal shel Kiyyov”
> (“the community of Kiev”) consisted of Khazarian or Judean Jews. They
> settled there before the Slavs and called their city in their way.
> Omeljan Pritsak who, with Norman Gelb, published this document
> transliterated the Hebrew letters exactly in this way: ‘Kiyyov’. And,
> after all, two Y together should look even more exclusive!
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 4:18 PM, Josh Wilson <jwilson at sras.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear Seelangers -
>>
>> I feel like I'm treading into dangerous waters here - but I'm genuinely
>> curious...
>>
>> Does anyone know if there have been studies on v/na usage inside Ukraine?
>>
>> I've met Ukrainians (on two occasions) that actually use "na." They were
>> from Crimea and East Ukraine, and both stated that it was not uncommon in
>> their view for Ukrainian citizens to use the construction. Arguments for
>> continuing the use of "na" included 1) that's the way it's always been
>> (granted, which is a flawed argument) and 2) it recalls Ukraine's "great
>> Soviet past."
>>
>> Obviously these are not the habits and opinions of all Ukrainians, but
>> knowing that Soviet nostalgia is fairly common in many places of the
>> former
>> USSR, I would be interested to know just how widespread it is in Ukraine
>> and
>> how this might affect language use there (and how much diversity in this
>> remains in Ukraine), should anyone know of such a study....
>>
>> Miru mir,
>>
>>
>>
>> Josh Wilson
>> Assistant Director
>> The School of Russian and Asian Studies
>> Editor in Chief
>> Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
>> SRAS.org
>> jwilson at sras.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
>> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul B. Gallagher
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 5:56 PM
>> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Ukraine/The Ukraine
>>
>> anne marie devlin wrote:
>>
>> > Dear Seelangers
>> >
>> > Would any of you happen to know when 'The Ukraine' officially became
>> > known as 'Ukraine' in English?  I presume sometime after 1993, but
>> > would be very grateful for precise information on this as I can't seem
>> > to find it anywhere.
>>
>> Since there is no "académie anglaise" or equivalent, everyone pretty much
>> does as they please; there is no "official" English.
>>
>> Of course, you can make up your own definition by setting some
>> organization
>> as your standard. E.g., "since xx.xx.xxxx, the U.S. State Department has
>> dropped the article." That makes it much easier to do the research.
>>
>> This article may be of use in that research:
>> <http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/2006/460614.shtml>
>>
>> --
>> 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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>
>
>
> --
> Professor Evgeny Steiner
> Senior Research Associate
> Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures
> SOAS, University of London
> Brunei Gallery, B401
> Russell Square
> London WC1H 0XG
> United Kingdom
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