Ukraine; was Re: I say Myanmar, you say Burma

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:51 PM -0500 5/7/08, Dan Goodman wrote:
>Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>
>>
>>Yes. In Russian, "kraj" (pronounced like English "cry") means
>>"edge, border, and "u" means "at." So: "at the border."
>>But I don't see the difference between thinking of the country as "The
>  > Border Land" ("The Ukraine") vs. simply "Border Land" ("Ukraine"). Why
>>  is "The" so important here?
>
>What seems likely to be:  They overestimate how important it is in
>English.  If I recall correctly, at least some Slavic languages don't
>have direct equivalents of "the."

Are there any that do?

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org