ANSWERS: 2
  • Ukraine or the Ukraine? In English, the country is traditionally referred to with the definite article, as the Ukraine, as are the Netherlands, the Lebanon, the Gambia, the Sudan, the Congo and the United States. However, usage without the article is becoming more frequent, and has become established in journalism and diplomacy since the country's independence (for example, within the style guides of the Economist, the Guardian and the Times. This is a sign of a declining awareness of the name's etymology, similar to Denmark, which is used as a proper name and is not perceived as a compound "the Dane-mark" any longer, while Netherlands continues to be perceived as a plural "the nether lands". The style guide of Economist is particularly extreme by prescribing the omission of the definite article for Sudan, Lebanon and Punjab, as well. Preposition usage in Ukrainian and Russian In Ukrainian and Russian, there was a change in the usage of the preposition na or v with Ukraine following the country's independence. Traditional usage is na Ukrajini (loosely, at, as it were referring to a part of a larger entity), but recently Ukrainian authorities have been using v Ukrajini (in, referring to a spatially discrete entity), as this preposition is used with most other country names. While in Ukrainian the newly-introduced usage of v Ukrajini took hold, the usage in Russian varies. Russian-language media in Ukraine are increasingly using this form. However, the media in Russia mostly use traditional na Ukraine, in some cases defending it as correct usage and discounting the Ukrainian government's authority over the Russian language. Note that historically, the U- of Ukraine is itself a preposition See also Kiev or Kyiv? for a similar debate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine
  • This is purely a Western European construct, as there are no articles in the Russian or Ukrainian languages. Ukrainian people refer to Ukraine as YKPANHA (with the N the other way round), pronounced OOKRA-EENA. There is no "the".

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