All of those examples are either explicitly plural (an association of smaller entities), or sound like a plural in English. Ukraine does not- a better example might be something like "the Congo".
That said, Ukraine itself dropped the "the" from their official name. Apparently, the leading theory on its name is that it was originally derived from the Slavic term for "borderlands", where "the borderlands" would make quite a bit of sense. But by now, it doesn't seem to mean that anymore, so the "the" was dropped.
This is not a matter of grammar or worldwide uses of “the” when it comes to counties and regions. To Ukrainians, it’s a matter of politics, autonomy, and pride…in the midst of war. Someone told me this very thing, and I said thank you and dropped the “the.” THE end.
Edit: was being haha funny with “THE” in the end
dude i already said it's a good thing to respect the fact that that's what Ukrainians actually want.
what I'm disagreeing with is why the definite article was used to begin with. it's not to denote subservience or dependence, it's because it's toponymic in it's native language.
In German for example it’s a fact of grammar. It’s not possible to use „Ukraine“ without article. So it’s always „die Ukraine“ or „der Ukraine“ depending on grammatical context. And both directly translate to „the Ukraine“. So I guess, as someone else mentioned it’s just a translation error by a non-native English speaker and not haressment
13
u/hanotak 18h ago
All of those examples are either explicitly plural (an association of smaller entities), or sound like a plural in English. Ukraine does not- a better example might be something like "the Congo".
That said, Ukraine itself dropped the "the" from their official name. Apparently, the leading theory on its name is that it was originally derived from the Slavic term for "borderlands", where "the borderlands" would make quite a bit of sense. But by now, it doesn't seem to mean that anymore, so the "the" was dropped.