Definite articles

[Adassovsky Georges]

In my opinion (and in the opinion of some linguists who teached me),
grammar rules come from the way people speak, and are recorded by
linguists. Languages stand on usage, and not on some rule a
politician, a grammarian, or anybody, decides to impose.
In France, the names of functions may be masculine or feminine
gender. Feminists felt offended when a woman occuppied a function
which has masculine gender. So, instead of tell "Madame le ministre",
they imposed, against the Académie Française opinion, to tell "Madame
LA ministre".
That seems just ridiculous : will we say "le sentinelle" instead of
"la sentinelle" because it is most often a masculine function? The
gender of nouns comes most often from the ancient Latin
declinensions, and has nothing to do with the sex of the person who
do the job.
But in the case of "the Ukraine", it seems to be even more
ridiculous, as politicians from one country try to dictate how a
foreign nation must speak in its own language.
Now, why the English speaking people say "the Czeck Republic"? I
suppose because it is not ANY republic, but THE Czeck. "Czeck" is an
adjective. Why "the Congo"? Maybe because of the Congo river. Why
"the Crimea"? Maybe because of the Crimea peninsula. Why "The
Ukraine"? I don't know.

Georges

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