'The' Ukraine?

[Hrabia]

(2016 May 27 20:08)W. R. Wrote:  ‘Ukraine’, ‘Crimea’ or ‘the Ukraine’, ‘the Crimea’?

Ukraine and Crimea.

[Osweo]

Ask a NATIVE speaker, my dear Lyakhovsky Graf!

THE Ukraine, and THE Crimea. However, it is "encouraged" to update our speech to fawn upon some butthurt idiots' tender feelings. So you will see these names without the traditional "the" in the mainstream press now. You will even see the hideous monstrosity that is "Kyiv", wtf.....

Likewise, we're "not supposed to" say THE Sudan anymore. And good old Burma has inexplicably disappeared off the map, along with Peking...

As an unrepentant reactionary, I prefer to say Rumenia, too.

[Hrabia]

(2016 May 27 20:35)Osweo Wrote:  Ask a NATIVE speaker, my dear Lyakhovsky Graf!

THE Ukraine, and THE Crimea. However, it is "encouraged" to update our speech to fawn upon some butthurt idiots' tender feelings. So you will see these names without the traditional "the" in the mainstream press now. You will even see the hideous monstrosity that is "Kyiv", wtf.....

Likewise, we're "not supposed to" say THE Sudan anymore. And good old Burma has inexplicably disappeared off the map, along with Peking...

As an unrepentant reactionary, I prefer to say Rumenia, too.

So on what it is based? I was taught all my life, that unless you talk about the U.S. you do not add "the". Do you have "the Poland" or "the Sweden" too? Why is there "the Ukraine"? I have never heard about "the Sudan" neither.

[Godyfa]

Why Ukraine Isn't 'The Ukraine'
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukrai...13-12?IR=T

The correct terms in English are without the "the". I guess "Ukraine" sounds a bit more definite, more like a nation, than 'the Ukraine'. I dont know why people started referring to it in that way.

[Osweo]

(2016 May 27 20:49)Hrabia Wrote:  So on what it is based?

God knows, but it's all I heard until around 2000 AD!

I wonder if some other examples can shed any light on it? The Sudetenland. The Rhineland. The Ivory Coast. The Gold Coast, Mosquito Coast, Skeleton Coast... The Auvergne. The Alfold. The Middle East. The steppe. I think the common theme is that these are geographic expressions, rather than specifically "national". This is why the Ukrainians don't tend to like it, as they think it kind of relegates their country to the status of a mere "region". Their actions tend to do this all the more, however!

The Sudan was once a much wider term. Like the Sahel, or the Sahara itself. I think it refers to a specific kind of landscape, like the Savannah. It was just chance that it got applied to a modern state, which was "the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan". The territory immediately to the west was "the French Sudan", now Chad.

People used to say "the Argentine", too.

For examples closer to the Ukraine, I also say "the Volyn", the Donbas and the Kuban (though these two are river names, which adds an extra complication). What else....? The Trans-Caucasus. Hmm, but never "the Podolia"! I suppose Podolia looks too much like an ordinary country name. Yes.... if the Ukraine had been introduced to English speakers early on as "Ucrania" (like they say in Spain), perhaps we would never have felt the need to put a "the" on it. Yes, there is an issue of euphonia here at work! That's probably partly what motivates my own rejection of what seems absurd in saying only "in Ukraine"! It's just got too few syllables to be comfortable!

(2016 May 27 20:49)Hrabia Wrote:  unless you talk about the U.S. you do not add "the".

You've forgotten your old friend THE good old Soviet Union already?

(2016 May 27 21:28)Godyfa Wrote:  Why Ukraine Isn't 'The Ukraine'
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukrai...13-12?IR=T

The correct terms in English are without the "the".

Now now, since when has either Business Insider OR a legislative body in a foreign state been the legitimate arbiter of what is "correct" English?!?!? Sod that!

The instances of use without the article sound so FORCED and just downright wrong to me.

[Phlegethon]

German is so much better!

Die Ukraine, die Krim, der Tschad, der Sudan, die Wallachei, die Tschechei, die Mongolei etc. pp.

[Temnozor]

While this might not be obvious to English speakers, every reasonable Slav who is not in some sort of unhealthy denial mode understands that the word 'Ukraine' as such refers to a geographic region, literally (the) 'borderland'. The concept of a 'Ukrainian nation' or even 'Ukrainian people' sounds entirely laughable. One of the westmost Slavic tribes who lived in today's Austria was called 'Ukrani', because they lived on a border that separated them from Non-Slavs. Same can be argued in relation to the famous Serbian Krajina in Croatia:

Quote:The name Krajina ("Frontier") was adopted from the historical borderland, the Military Frontier, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which existed up to the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_o...an_Krajina

Also, Ukrainians are the only Slavs besides Macedonians whose ethnonym ends with a –ci (Ukrainci, Makedonci) in Russian, indicating inhabitants of a certain region rather than a people.

Ukrainian nationalists don't want people to say the Ukraine or na Ukraine simply because they live in a fantasy world.

[Raskolnikov]

[Flavius]

(2016 May 27 23:24)Temnozor Wrote:  While this might not be obvious to English speakers, every reasonable Slav who is not in some sort of unhealthy denial mode understands that the word 'Ukraine' as such refers to a geographic region, literally (the) 'borderland'. The concept of a 'Ukrainian nation' or even 'Ukrainian people' sounds entirely laughable. One of the westmost Slavic tribes who lived in today's Austria was called 'Ukrani', because they lived on a border that separated them from Non-Slavs. Same can be argued in relation to the famous Serbian Krajina in Croatia:

Quote:The name Krajina ("Frontier") was adopted from the historical borderland, the Military Frontier, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which existed up to the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_o...an_Krajina

Also, Ukrainians are the only Slavs besides Macedonians whose ethnonym ends with a –ci (Ukrainci, Makedonci) in Russian, indicating inhabitants of a certain region rather than a people.

Ukrainian nationalists don't want people to say the Ukraine or na Ukraine simply because they live in a fantasy world.

It was a common tradition for Slavs to name themselves after the region they lived in. The Vistulans named themselves after the river, the Czechs called themselves Bohemians until only the 19th century. The Slavs in Macedonia named themselves Macedonians after the region. It doesn't mean they are not an ethnicity or a nation because they are otherwise they would not have strong feelings about it all!

[Quaestor]

(2016 May 27 23:24)Temnozor Wrote:  While this might not be obvious to English speakers, every reasonable Slav who is not in some sort of unhealthy denial mode understands that of a 'Ukrainian nation' or even 'Ukrainian people' sounds entirely laughable. [...]

Ukrainian nationalists don't want people to say the Ukraine or na Ukraine simply because they live in a fantasy world.

Thanks! Osweo (who speaks Russian) indeed mentioned this on the old OE. Makes sense.

On the other hand, ethnogenesis is a weird thing; a bunch of these people does indeed feel like they're a distinct nation. I'm not for or against this; just observing.

I personally think these intra-Europid quarrels carry the risk of making us forgetting to focus on what threatens us all: being run over by the swarthy aliens from the south!


Btw until somewhere in the early 2000s, it was customary to speak of "De Oekraïne" ("The Ukraine") in Dutch too. Neerlandici (those whith a 'scientific' knowlegde of what correct Dutch is ) rationalize this by saying that the name of a region sometimes requires an article, while the name of a country usually doesn't. source (in Dutch)