Ukraine vs The Ukraine

Wed Mar 5 21:52:56 UTC 2014

What about THE United States of America?

DanG

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ukraine vs The Ukraine
>
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>     We seem to go through this every couple of years.<br>
>     <br>
>     <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/0JvT3m">
> http://goo.gl/0JvT3m</a><br>
>     [quoting a Guardian article from 2004]<br>
>     <blockquote type="cite">Moscow's goal was to eliminate Ukraine and
>       Ukrainians as political and cultural entities. Soviet translators,
>       who knew the patterns for country names in English, deliberately
>       translated the name of this area with the article 'the' because it
>       then sounds to English-speakers like a part of a country rather
>       than the name of an individual, independent country.</blockquote>
>     <br>
>     I'm going to call bullshit on that one. There's no "the Latvia", no
>     "the Kazakhstan", not even "the Belarus".<br>
>     <br>
>     <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/wzctX">
> http://goo.gl/wzctX</a><br>
>     <blockquote type="cite">There are many other country names that are
>       habitually referred to with "the", such as Congo, Gambia, Yemen,
>       Lebanon, Sudan, Netherlands, Philippines and Bahamas.<br>
>       <br>
>       But according to several authoritative sources, such as the CIA
>       World Factbook, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World and the
>       US Department of State, only two countries, The Bahamas and The
>       Gambia, should officially be referred to with the article.<br>
>       <br>
>       The two Congos are officially Democratic Republic of the Congo and
>       Republic of the Congo. And the longer, official name for
>       Netherlands is Kingdom of the Netherlands.</blockquote>
>     <br>
>     [the three links in the quoted text are <a
> class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/nqZw">http://goo.gl/nqZw
> </a>  
>     <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/I6RE9D">
> http://goo.gl/I6RE9D</a>   and   <a
> class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/03pUu">
> http://goo.gl/03pUu</a> . I didn't check if
>     they work.]<br>
>     <br>
>     <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/uwsc59">
> http://goo.gl/uwsc59</a><br>
>     <blockquote type="cite">Until a few decades ago, Ukraine was almost
>       always referred to as <i>the </i>Ukraine. Then people started
>       dropping the definite article, and now you almost never see it.
>       What gives?<br>
>       ...<br>
>       Most historians and linguists agree that the name Ukraine comes
>       from the Slavic ukraina, meaning "borderlands." Since many
>       countries whose names derive from a geographical feature or factor
>       have a definite article--"the Philippines" referring to the
>       Philippine islands, "the Netherlands" meaning "the lowlands"--the
>       Ukraine makes sense in terms of "the borderlands."<br>
>     </blockquote>
>     <br>
>     Nice save. I doubt there's much evidence behind it. But it comes
>     with a nice Ngram--unfortunately only going back to 1945. Ugh! Even
>     worse--Grammar Girl only goes back to 1961, with the same
>     explanation:<br>
>     <br>
>     <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/JlpqSD">
> http://goo.gl/JlpqSD</a><br>
>     <br>
>     She also mentions the "subjugation" theory, but more dismissively.<br>
>     <br>
>         VS-)<br>
>     <br>
>     <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/5/2014 6:11 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
>       wrote:<br>
>     </div>
>     <blockquote cite="mid:201403051111.s2561eoP027928 at willow.cc.uga.edu"
>       type="cite">
>       <pre wrap="">Tweet message:
> Author: Di W â€@di_f_w
> Time stamp: 5:46 AM   5 Mar 2014
> [Begin excerpt]
> I wonder why we started saying "the Ukraine" and who I need to talk to
> about getting a power name like "the New Zealand"
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Wikipedia: Name of Ukraine
> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine">
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine</a>
> [Begin excerpt]
> The name "Ukraine" (Ukrainian:
> Ð£ÐºÑ€Ð°Ñ—Ð&frac12;Ð°
> Ukrayina [ukraËˆjina]) has been
> used in a variety of ways since the twelfth century. Today, it is the
> official name of Ukraine, the country in Eastern Europe. Previously
> the country was generally called The Ukraine in English, but this
> usage is on the wane and officially deprecated by the Ukrainian
> government and many English language media publications.
> [End excerpt]
> </pre>
>     </blockquote>
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