> my middle name on my birth certificate translation got changed to Andriyovich
To anyone else following along (since I'm sure a Ukranian understands how Ukranian names work): this is not a middle name, but a patronymic, similar to Icelandic "surnames" which are really all patronymics too. Russians and Ukranians and other Slavs use "givenName patronymic familyName", where family names are a relatively recent invention (so the traditional formal form of address is "firstname patronymic" instead of "Mr familyName").
In Lord of the Rings, these patronymics are played with in names such as Aragorn son of Arathorn and Frodo son of Drogo.
> PSA: it's pronounced ukrAIne, not UKraine, and definitely not "the UKraine"
Why are Ukranians so insistent on not being called "the Ukraine"? I honestly do not understand. There are no articles in Slavic languages except Bulgarian, so why do they care so much if an article is used in English?
Because "the Ukraine" makes it sound like a territory, like "the South West". Ukraine is an independent country. You don't say "the England" or "the Canada". So please stop using the grammatically incorrect "the Ukraine" in favor of the correct "Ukraine".
Ah, I see. It was a territory and no longer is. And some Ukranians don't like the suggestion that they're somehow part of Russia, like the etymology of their name might suggest.
We do say "the Netherlands" or "the USA", though, so it's not gramatically incorrect to use "the" for some country names, it's just a matter of politics.
I am not actually sure why it's "the Netherlands". I suspect it's because "Netherlands" means "low countries", and countries is a common noun. In that light it could be similar to "The United States" or "The United Kingdom". Here you are referencing common nouns "state" and "kingdom", but proper nouns should not include an article such as "the". "The" implies "specific instance of" vs "a" which implies "any one of many". There are many "kingdoms", but we are talking about "United Kingdom", a very specific kingdom.
Long story short, I don't think it's just political, but based specific rules of the English grammar. Further reading:
Well, "Ukraine" probably means "the region" or "the border" or something like it, so the name sounds like something generic too that would need an article to disambiguate.
It really is politics, you can't be objectively correct here. It's just like me trying to convince you in accordance with my Mexican upbringing that America is not a country. I will not succeed, because the distinction is political. Since human languages are also consensus-based, grammar is in a sense also political (e.g. sociolinguistics).
By that logic we should all be saying "the England" because England is a "land". No, there is one objectively correct way of saying the name of a country (in English), and there are even explicit grammar rules for this specific instance. See the two pages I linked above.
Kind of related, in German we mostly say "die Ukraine" (the Ukraine", exactly the same as "the Netherlands" and surprisingly Slovakia (and former Czechoslovakia, but not always "the Czech Republic", only when we say "die Tschechische Republik", not "Tschechien" (which is informal, to be fair, as is "Slowakei" - but afaik "Tschechoslowakei" was official).
Did I confuse you already?
There's also "die Elfenbeinküste" (Ivory Coast), and certainly a few more.
Yes, you shouldn't do this. ;) In this case "Bein" (or in the long form "Gebein") is an outdated term for bone or skeleton.
"Elfenbein" is the modern word for ivory. The meaning of Elf is somewhat similar (though not identical) to English and therefore refers to the perceived beauty of ivory.
A tusk on the other hand is called "Stoßzahn" recognizing it as a tooth ("Zahn").
My German is not so great but bein means both leg and bone. I know that much. I just wasn't sure about the "elfen" part. So glad to see someone else provide some info on that bit.
FYI: Google translate is not the most reliable translator.
For the US, the full name is "The United States of America". In this name "State" isn't a common noun, it has a specific legal meaning identifying one of the 13 originally independent countries that joined together to form The United States of America. I'm not sure why they were never called countries, but that's essentially what they were, and to a limited extent they still function as small(ish) countries.
This is the same as saying "The European Union" rather than "European Union".
This article [1] attempts to clarify, while actually muddying the waters considerably from my point of view.
In addition to "the United States", "the United Kingdom", they list "the Congo", "the Bahamas", "the Netherlands", "the Phillipines", "the Sudan" -- the article also lists others, like Gambia, Yemen, and Lebanon, where I personally am not as familiar with the use (although I've heard "the Yemen" before, probably from that movie about salmon fishing).
You do say "The UK," "The USSR," and "The United States" though. I wonder if, because of this, it's a habit among English speakers to refer to countries who's names start with that U sound (juː according to wikipedia) to put the article in front of it.
This native English speaker would never think to say "The Uzbekistan" or "The Uganda" though. All of your examples are country names that are compound names, and hardly natural-sounding names at all.
Nothing like that at all - it's quite simple: a name that is a collection of things can be 'The [collection of]'.
- The Netherlands = The [collection of] lands that are 'nether' (=associated with reclamation from the sea, presumably)
- The USA = The [collection of] states
- The UK = The [collection of] kingdoms
- The USSR = The [collection of] soviet republics
The country called Ukraine is not a collection of ukraines, so it shouldn't be The'd. :)
In those cases, the elements of the full name of the country in question are each common nouns rather than proper nouns. Thus, "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" is more useful/appropriate than "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" because without the "The", it's not clear that the name describes a unique entity rather than a generic union of soviets.
To anyone else following along (since I'm sure a Ukranian understands how Ukranian names work): this is not a middle name, but a patronymic, similar to Icelandic "surnames" which are really all patronymics too. Russians and Ukranians and other Slavs use "givenName patronymic familyName", where family names are a relatively recent invention (so the traditional formal form of address is "firstname patronymic" instead of "Mr familyName").
In Lord of the Rings, these patronymics are played with in names such as Aragorn son of Arathorn and Frodo son of Drogo.
> PSA: it's pronounced ukrAIne, not UKraine, and definitely not "the UKraine"
Why are Ukranians so insistent on not being called "the Ukraine"? I honestly do not understand. There are no articles in Slavic languages except Bulgarian, so why do they care so much if an article is used in English?