Ukraine/The Ukraine

Sun Jun 22 15:55:43 UTC 2014

"Old guys like me are still coherent enough to switch to
African-American when speaking to my A-A neighbor, but my neighbor is
rational enough not to tell me to use only A-A even when speaking to my
own family members in the privacy of my home."

I will be unsubscribing from this list.  I'm very saddened at the number of people who said "I agree with Jules" after a comment like this.  To Jules, how exactly do you refer to African-Americans in the privacy of your home?

Believe it or not, there are African-Americans in this field, and some of us are subscribed to SEELANGS.  Though I don't know how much longer either of those will be the case if these attitudes persist and are supported openly.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Wilson

________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Stephanie Briggs [sdsures at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2014 10:47 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Ukraine/The Ukraine

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!

*****************************
~Stephanie D. (Sures) Briggs

Shorn Lambs: Hand-Knitted Scarves, Afghans, Throws and Baby Blankets
http://shornlambs.etsy.com<http://shornlambs.etsy.com/>

My blog: http://stephaniebriggs.co.uk <http://stephaniebriggs.co.uk/>
Twitter: @stephbriggsuk
Facebook: <http://warmochfuzzy.etsy.com/> http://www.facebook.com/stephanie.briggs3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:jwilson at sras.org>

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU<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<mailto: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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