this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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[–] Bldck@beehaw.org 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Similar for The Ukraine which means “the frontier” in Russian and evokes the history of Muscovite imperialism over their frontier states

[–] FundMECFS@anarchist.nexus 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

For those wondering, Xinjiang, the province controlled by China where the Uyghurs are is named similarly. It literally means “new frontier” in Mandarin.

Many Uyghurs prefer the name East Turkestan. (But ofc thats heavily repressed by the CCP).

[–] ApertureUA@lemmy.today 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There's no such thing as "The" in both Russian and Ukrainian, but what I've seen happen is pro-russian people intentionally saying "on (the) Ukraine" (as if "on the edge") instead of "in Ukraine" to piss people off.

[–] Bldck@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Huh. TIL Slavic languages don’t have a definite article.

So it’s this grammatical mess of Germanic definite articles attached to a Slavic word and the outcome is politically fraught

[–] GreatRam@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I can't speak to all Slavic languages but in mine it's concatenated to the subject rather than being its own word

[–] CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The word "Ukraine" itself doesn't mean anything in russian nor ukrainian, it's just a name for a state

[–] Bldck@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Ukrainian embassy says that The Ukraine is both grammatically and politically incorrect. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[–] CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 6 months ago

but of course. I never said otherwise. it's your words about it meaning "frontier" in russian is what i was debating, please read my comment again.