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

[David A. Daniel]

I wrote to the person below, and got the answer below (Kyiv Post is an
English-Language weekly newspaper in, well... Kiev/Kyiv).

"Dear Mr. Daniel,

My name is Zenon Zawada.
I am chief editor of the Kyiv Post.
I am an American of Ukrainian descent.
The term "The Ukraine" is offensive because the
article implies that it's merely a territory, rather
than an independent nation.
For example, The Rhine, The Sudetenland, The Kuban
 are all territories (in Germany and Russia), not nations.
So Ukrainians in the West always viewed "The Ukraine"
as offensive because it denied Ukraine recognition
as a nation.
When Ukraine became independent, the government
appropriately assumed that position as well.
Placing an article in front of the region's name denies
its recognition as a nation.

Zenon Zawada"



>It seems to be not a question of Russian or Ukrainian, then, but of
>English. We don't use the definite article with the names of most
>countries -- I know this topic (definite articles in country names,
>not this one specifically) has been discussed either here or on ANS-L
-- and as a rule we don't use articles with proper nouns that refer to
a single entity. (Never mind ethnonyms like "the Dutch" (collective)
or "the Dane(s)".) So when we say "the Ukraine", we're treating
>"Ukraine" like a common noun, and all Ukrainians know what that common
>noun means. Eh?

m a m

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
wrote:
> As I recall it, Bulgarian does, though it's suffixed, as in many
>  Balkan languages.
>
>  Yours,
>  Paul Johnston
>  On May 7, 2008, at 3:34 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>  > ---------
>
>
> >
>  > 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?

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