--- "C. Darwin Goranson" <
cdog_squirrel@...>
wrote:
>
> > Oh, and there is nothing rude in saying "The
> Ukraine". I believe
> the word means "south", and like a number of
> placenames with "the",
> it is simply a geographic term. Most of them lost
> the "the" over
> time. By the way, do you say "Netherlands" or "The
> Netherlands"? "Hague" or "The Hague"?
> >
> > Peter
>
> I'd read an email, asked and got a response on this
> point. It's
> looked upon as a means of belittling Ukraine by
> Soviet Russia.
****GK: In the contemporary Ukrainian language, there
is only one main meaning for the term "Ukraine". It
refers to the state and national territory of the
Ukrainians. Two other senses are listed in
dictionaries as obsolete: "ukraine" as "land" and
"ukraine" as "borderland" (BTW Ukrainians NEVER meant
"borderland" when they spoke of "Ukraine" with a
capital "U"). This means that they are no longer used
in the language in these erstwhile meanings. Other
meanings of "ukraine", equally obsolete in Ukrainian,
must nevertheless be mentioned as significant for the
interpretation of historical texts. The earliest
recorded use of the term is the plural "ukraines",
which appears as an addition to a mid-11th century Old
Ukrainian translation of Gregory the Theologian, and
refers to a "remote area", "province" (with additional
connotations of "rural, 'uncivilized' area". Something
similar, perhaps, to the English expression "going to
the country" (minus the 'uncivilized' of course
(:=))). The Kyivan Chronicle uses the term "ukraine"
in the sense of "area around a capital urban center",
in the case of Kyiv (s.a.1187) and Halych (s.a. 1189).
[In the period 1180-1194 "Ukraine" even designated an
independent principality: the land of Kyiv minus Kyiv,
the result of a "deal" between Rostyslav and
Svyatoslav]. The Galician Chronicle does the same in
connection with the career of Prince Danylo
Romanovych, who ca. 1213 gathered "all ukraine" (i.e.
all the territory later subject to the Principality of
Kholm /today's Chelm GK/) under his jurisdiction.
Curiously the meaning of "ukraine" as "borderland"
only appears s.a. 1280 as far as I remember, and the
first "Ukrainians" are... "borderland Poles" (:=)).
As for the article "the" in "the Ukraine", it is
indeed considered as bad form by Ukrainians, who
interpret it as an attempt to belittle their country
as a mere "borderland" of Russia (and earlier of
Poland). Most people to whom this was pointed out
after 1991 had no problem with dropping the "the".
Those who wish to continue to speak of "the Ukraine"
are perfectly free to do so as long as they do not
apply the expression to Ukraine.(:=)) The French are
excepted of course.(:=))*****
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