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Comment by generic92034 | Hacker News Reader

generic92034

I am not sure what you are talking about. Could you please elaborate?

EDIT: Found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#Etymology_and_orthogra... now. Thanks for the correction!

Referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" is a symbol for many people of when it was a colony of part of the Soviet Union, rather than an independent nation. Similar to how many people use to refer to Kyiv as Kiev but changed as that was the more Russian spelling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#Etymology_and_orthogra...

It's the difference between a descriptive name for a region and the name of a sovereign country. This is particularly relevant given the repeated attempts to conquer it and make it no longer a sovereign country.

The Ukraine is a translation of Imperial Russia's name for the country. Whereas Ukraine is the self-selected name for the Sovereign Nation.

I was under the impression that Russian does not even have articles??! What do you mean by that? How can "The Ukraine" come from the Russian language??

Using "the" affirms it as "this one particular borderland (of Russia)" instead of the name of a specific country. I misused the word "translation". Not sure if transliteration is more apt.

Nowadays people prefer to call the country "Ukraine", rather "the Ukraine". I admit I've made that mistake more than a few times.

See here for some backstory and history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine

Sorry, how does that refute anything?

The point is that in English, adding the definite article makes it sound like a region rather than a country: "the mountains", "the veldt", "the border land".

Removing the article is appropriate for a country, unless grammatically necessary like "The United States of America", but not "The America" or "The Germany".

Misread the paragraph first, then edited the edit. Sorry!

Oops, that makes sense. Sorry that instead of thinking you reasonably missed two letters in that sentence, I assumed you were an idiot and started arguing with you. Personal issues.

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