Regarding "Ukraine" vs "the Ukraine"

self | 23/12/14 | self

[Don W]

Fellow FReepers, know this:

In Russian, the ukraine means "the frontier".

To Ukrainians, Ukraine means HOME.

We don't call it "The France", or "The Germany", or "The Mexico", etc.

Drop the "the" and correctly use the nation's name uncorrupted by the oligarchs in "mothertrucker Russia".

[cunning_fish]

Both has strong ties to ancient Greek, probably based on it, but different. Ukrainian and Russian has more in common than both of it with a Greek separately. Pre-1917 Russian employed some Latin letters as well as extra original letters, similar to Ukrainian, but it was all eliminated by Bolshevik language reform.

[MosesKnows]

Drop the "the" ...

This is your concern? Really!

[pallmallman]

Don’t forget about The Gambia.

[NYFriend]

That's the part I never understood. Where “the” was a symbol of Russ-ion oppression (the Ukrainian SSR) or Soviet domination, but there is “the” in Russian.

Only think I don't understand is that my family emigrated to the US (mostly just before WWI), any both side of my family called it “The Ukraine”.

It could be that they picked that up in the NYC schools, or from speaking to people here, who used “the”.

I'm know the English form “the” under the Soviet era, pre-1991 Declaration of Independence, but I don't know whether it was “The Ukraine” before the Soviets.

Other possibility is that Western Ukraine, home of the ethnic Ukrainians, was under the control of outside powers since what, the 1400’s (Polish, Lithuanian, Polish-Lithuaian, Turks, Russians, Austrians, then the Soviets. The Ukraine (being geography, people, language culture, smoked meats and fish, and salo) persisted independently from who controlled it at the time. It was an expression of cultural or ethnic pride, and maybe, hope for independence.

Now, it's a country (defined by the borders of the Ukrainian SSR under the Soviets). The country includes the ancestral home of the Ukrainian People, and other territory that is ethnically Russian (or other smaller populations).

Let's see how the next six-months go before we settle on a name. It might appropriate to differentiate between the two concepts.

[KC_Lion]

Ukraine is Game too you?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzLtF_PxbYw

[bert]

Many go to hospital. I go to the hospital

[Shimmer1]

the United States of America

[Shimmer1]

Boy, I guess you got told, and rudely too. Nothing like an insulting, rude (and probably insecure) post to start off the day!! :D

[mac_truck]

Classic!

[Kirkwood]

The South, yankee.

[Kirkwood]

Funny, you don’t sound American.

[Veggie Todd]

Long ago I learned that the word vegetarian meant “really lousy hunter that relied on the womenfolk to feed him”.

Huh?

[Wuli]

you are right

but somehow the “the” became used frequently enough in “our world” (for many years) that using it became common practice to many people here

I have, on my own, tried recently to be sure and NOT say “the Ukraine” but just “Ukraine”

glad you are remininding everyone

[Nifster]

In the late 1950s, refugees from the Ukraine arrived in my city. Their children went to school with us. They ALWAYS referred to THE UKRAINE. It is not that different than when I refer to the United States.

Since the Soviet Union (formerly known as Russia), is still trying to reincorporate the Ukraine into its borders, the citizens of Ukraine ought to be rightfully fearful.

[Morgana]

When in Ukraine visit Chernobyl.

[dfwgator]

Vive LA France.

[dfwgator]

Poles were expelled from Western Ukraine after the war, and the Soviets sent Ukrainians in to take their place.

[FreeReign]

The Bronx.

[Jimmy Valentine]

The Cyrillic alphabet was developed by two monks Cyril and Methody The Kievan Rus had ties with Byzantium and many letters are Greek, alpha beta gamma lambda rho tau mu nu etc for sounds that they needed new letters for sha za ya they created them

Interestingly Ukrainian language has its roots in the Czech language not Russian. When well spoken it is very light and almost musical

[Verginius Rufus]

The Cyrillic alphabet is named for St. Cyril, but the alphabet he created was probably the so-called Glagolitic alphabet (which continued to be used for centuries in a few places in Croatia--there is an inscription in Glagolitic in the cathedral in Zagreb). The script now called Cyrillic was probably developed a generation or so later, maybe at Ohrid in Macedonia--it is essentially the Greek alphabet with several additional characters for sounds not found in Greek. Over time a more rounded form of some lower-case letters became customary in writing the Greek alphabet--the Cyrillic tends to more straight lines.

As the Slavs were Christianized, those converted by the Byzantines adopted the Cyrillic alphabet to write "Old Church Slavonic" which was used in the liturgy, while the more western Slavs were converted by Catholics and adopted the Latin alphabet.

The Russian alphabet included some redundant letters (different letters for the same sound), which were eliminated shortly after the Bolshevik takeover. They had a letter derived from Greek iota and another derived from Greek eta which represented the same sound--so they dropped the one from iota (the one derived from eta now looks like a backwards N).

The Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet has a letter that looks like our I, derived from the Greek iota, which is one of their divergences from Russian.

The Greek letter gamma corresponds to a letter with the same form in Cyrillic--pronounced like a G in some languages but like an H in Ukrainian. So they added a letter that looks almost the same but with a little extra stroke at the right, for a G sound (apparently similar to the Dutch G sound).

I don't speak Ukrainian but I took a bit of Russian and have attended some Ukrainian Catholic Masses (a long time ago).