[mova] Cogo: The the in Ukraine matters

[Hanya]

Read the complete article here:
http://www.cogo-news.eu/news_The-the-in-Ukraine-matters_1860.html

"Curiously, the name Ukraine is derivative from the Ukrainian word border.
The original name appeared as a term that marks the region near the
border."

My comment below the article:
The theory that the name "Ukraine" means "border" or "borderland" is a
common one and repeated frequently by scholars and the public in general,
but this may well be an under-researched subject. In fact, Ukrainian lands
were once called "Rus" (a name later taken by the Tsar of Muscovy when he
renamed his northern territories "Russia"). In Latin, the word "rus" means
"country" or "countryside". It is likely that the territory once known as
"Rus" (today's Ukraine) actually got it's name from the Latin "rus". The
word "krai" in Ukrainian means "country", and this suggests that "Ukraina"
(u-KRAI-na) was actually a translation of the Latin "rus". True, the word
"krai" also means "border," but Ukraine's lumpy shape resembles nothing
like a border, so there is no logical reason for it to be called a
borderland. All countries of the world (or nearly all countries) share
borders with other countries. Many countries have elongated shapes that
could be perceived as borderlands, such as Chile, Norway, Sweden, Vietnam.
It is purely by accident that the word "krai" means both "country" and
"edge" or "border", and it was probably an assumption on the part of some
scholar or other that the second meaning made sense. And that assumption
has been repeated by others ever since. Anybody need a research topic?




-- 
Less is more, more or less.
- Mies van der Rohe