[mova] Little Russia or Russia Minor ?

[I Bell]

To Mova -
I agree with Hanya that the Ukraina meaning of 'borderland' is questionable .
I also think that "Little Russia" should more accurately be "Russia 
Minor",  IF one accepts reference to the 'Russia' term at all ....
                                 Irena

At 08:58 AM 20/04/2012, Hanya wrote:

>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
>
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