Etymology of Ukraine
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- What is the origin of the word Ukraine? In this video, we'll explore how the name of this beautiful sovereign country in Europe is quite appropriate, and speaks to its heritage as an ancient home of many different peoples and languages.
NOTES: I am aware that the Ukrainian goverment recommends the spelling "Kyiv" as well as "Ukraine" without the article. I personally favor these two choices. However, I am not a prescriptivist, and I favor descriptivism as this is the policy of describing how language actually is. And the notion that traditional usages in English like "Kiev" and "the Ukraine" are expressions of support for the Russians government or its war against Ukraine, is intellectually dishonest in my estimation. They are merely linguistic habits. It would be equally wrong to say that spelling the Italian cities "Milan," "Florence," "Venice," and "Rome" is support for the Napoleonic French Empire's conquest of Italy.
Contrary to what some have expressed, the article "the" in front of a country name does not make that place sound like a mere territory of a sovereign state. However, I can appreciate the Ukrainians wanting not to stand out in this regard, and thus recommending English speakers say simply "Ukraine."
I think it’s vitally important not to allow our understanding of languages to be overpowered by political objectives, even when the political objectives are noble, such as the liberty and independence of Ukraine and the promotion of its culture.
The etymological dictionaries I consulted are not from Russian propaganda. The origin of /kraj/ is ultimately from “cutting” in PIE, and hence a cut out piece of land is a territory with a border; this is why both these meanings of “edge” and “region” are present for /kraj/ in virtually every Slavic language. Ancient Greek had a similar word κλῆρος meaning an "estate," from a word for cutting up or partitioning the land.
But it’s vitally important not to attach so much meaning to etymology. I have a video on this channel where I reveal that the etymology of “family” is from Latin “famulus” meaning a “house slave” ! Thus the word for the thing most dear to mankind, our families, comes from the enslavement and brutalization of innocent captives. It’s a horrible thought. Then, upon reflexion, we find that word origins are indeed interesting, but we realize also that they do not and should not have any effect on how we use them in our modern language. Thus it doesn’t matter if the etymology of “Ukraine” is “in the country” or “on the border,” and could easily have come from another Slavic language rather than Ukrainian itself, just as “France” is a Germanic word, “Scotland” comes from Latin, “Italy” is from Greek, “Spain” is from Phoenician, and “Russia” is from Old Norse. Incidentally, “Italy” probably means a “baby cow,” “Spain” likely means “land of the rodents,” and “Russia” we think comes from “rower,” who in many cultures were the slaves who rowed the boats. Thus, in the end, it doesn’t matter if any of our countries’ names originally meant “glowing dirt pile.” What we, their inhabitants, make of them is their constitution.
See more of my thoughts in the pinned comment.
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#Ukraine #Ukrainian #Russia
00:00 Intro
Corrections and notes: evidently the ó of Irish surnames has a different etymology, meaning "grandson;" the etymological book I was using must have had outdated information.
I am aware that the Ukrainian goverment recommends the spelling "Kyiv" as well as "Ukraine" without the article. I personally favor these two choices. However, I am not a prescriptivist (one who says there must be only one correct linguistic form, whether in spelling or pronunciation, etc.) and I favor descriptivism as this is the policy of describing how language actually is. And the notion that traditional usages in English like "Kiev" and "the Ukraine" are expressions of support for the Russians government or its war against Ukraine, is intellectually dishonest in my estimation. They are merely linguistic habits. It would be equally wrong to say that spelling the Italian cities "Milan," "Florence," "Venice," and "Rome" is support for the Napoleonic French Empire's conquest of Italy.
Contrary to what some have expressed, the article "the" in front of a country name does not make that place sound like a mere territory of a sovereign state - this is not how English works - otherwise the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the Gambia, the United States would all have a problem too, while Alberta, Kansas, and Tuscany would all sound like independent nations. And if propagandists from the Russian government are trying to convince English speakers to use the article in order to align their speech with Putin's perception of Ukraine, then they are as idiotic as they are wicked.
However, I can appreciate the Ukrainians wanting not to stand out in this regard, and thus recommending English speakers say simply "Ukraine." I also support "Czechia" as the name of that country in English, and I don't use "the Czech Republic" anymore. But I cannot blame people for continuing to use the old term, even if they have heard about the change, because almost everything about language is automatic and spontaneous; scrutinizing political motivations in accidents of linguistic history is needlessly persnickety.
I express these opinions more generally and much more extensively in these two videos:
Caesar Rant
czcams.com/video/IjcX3MVSdyA/video.html
Dialect vs. Language
czcams.com/video/zUlNhs8rJ_g/video.html
Ukrainian vs. Russian
czcams.com/video/2I-8pXalgGI/video.html
While there are many things we can do to show solidarity with Ukraine, and choosing to change how we spell and pronounce Kyiv may be counted among them, making a donation to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is probably a better thing to do. Some links if you're interested:
support.crs.org/donate/donate-ukraine?ms=agigoo0922ukr00gen00&gclid=CjwKCAiAprGRBhBgEiwANJEY7PxeHtVwx0V_NfrNXRG3XS159bYufTyCDHseajze_lCojeBqkceaUBoCDt8QAvD_BwE
www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi6642Ot8D2AhUKlYYKHZg4CcQYABAAGgJ2dQ&ae=2&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESWuD2AFGiB31F1E1pkH39KJsnG-NDyTORIMf95yJINgQ9SIFJsNgwpCRPMPFcOz-Sv3-G-iFM4vrxn6NlM5jOBmuQeen5ljab3npoP1mhh6AHHECuX89honWPUA&sig=AOD64_0ulAElyTgLxtX3OuzCIohEo1SZvQ&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwigqIKOt8D2AhVvkYkEHTL3BVEQ0Qx6BAgFEAE&dct=1
www.unicefusa.org/stories/unicef-children-crossfire-ukraine-crisis/39542?form=FUNKBHMZQDQ&Ukraine2&ms=cpc_dig_2021_Ukraine2_20210801_google_Ukraine2_delve_None&initialms=cpc_dig_2020_Ukraine2_20210801_google_Ukraine2_delve_None&gclid=CjwKCAiAprGRBhBgEiwANJEY7L0bVc_wjflpYOChvc-yQ_JLo8IgWb-ptxC8_y9Y8F5aHzvCZc2aUhoCDqYQAvD_BwE
EDIT 2022-03-13: A Ukrainian patriot, displeased with the etymology I reported, recently left a comment espousing a different etymology for "Ukraine," and insisted that the word was of uniquely Ukrainian language origin and not from any other Slavic language. Moreover, he objected to the idea that there exists a Russian speaking population in the country, and was apparently unaware that quite a few Ukrainians are bilingual. I wrote him the following response:
Слава Україні.
As you can tell from my videos, my support for Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, and the Ukrainian language is clear. I am also well aware of the oppression the Ukrainian people and its language have suffered under Russian influence and occupation for centuries.
However, as someone who studies and teaches languages, I think it’s vitally important not to allow our understanding of languages to be overpowered by political objectives, even when the political objectives are noble, such as the liberty and independence of Ukraine and the promotion of its culture.
The etymological dictionaries I consulted are not from Russian propaganda. The origin of /kraj/ is ultimately from “cutting” in PIE, and hence a cut out piece of land is a territory with a border; this is why both these meanings of “edge” and “region” are present for /kraj/ in virtually every Slavic language. Ancient Greek had a similar word κλῆρος meaning an "estate," from a word for cutting up or partitioning the land.
I am perfectly willing to entertain other etymological possibilities, some of which I mentioned in this video. But your definition sounds much more like folk etymology rather than one arrived at scientifically. I could be wrong.
But it’s vitally important not to attach so much meaning to etymology. I have a video on this channel where I reveal that the etymology of “family” is from Latin “famulus” meaning a “house slave” ! Thus the word for the thing most dear to mankind, our families, comes from the enslavement and brutalization of innocent captives. It’s a horrible thought. Then, upon reflexion, we find that word origins are indeed interesting, but we realize also that they do not and should not have any effect on how we use them in our modern language. Thus it doesn’t matter if the etymology of “Ukraine” is “in the country” or “on the border,” and could easily have come from another Slavic language rather than Ukrainian itself, just as “France” is a Germanic word, “Scotland” comes from Latin, “Italy” is from Greek, “Spain” is from Phoenician, and “Russia” is from Old Norse. Incidentally, “Italy” probably means a “baby cow,” “Spain” likely means “land of the rodents,” and “Russia” we think comes from “rower,” who in many cultures were the slaves who rowed the boats. Thus, in the end, it doesn’t matter if any of our countries’ names originally meant “glowing dirt pile.” What we, their inhabitants, make of them is their constitution.
Because the whole world has seen what Ukrainians are doing, now *Ukraine* for the world means: *Bravery. Freedom. Defiance. Victory.*
So don’t let Russian propagandists get in your head, and don’t play their stupid game. Rise above it. You’ve all proven you are better than they.
The change of linguistic identity that many Russian-speaking Ukrainians are now choosing - to speak Ukrainian rather than Russian - is a very recent phenomenon. The great President Zelenskyy is a shining example of this: not only is he a native speaker of Russian, but he starred in a comedy with a cast that spoke almost exclusively Russian. Yet Ukrainian is the official language of the land, so he now speaks in Ukrainian in almost every public address.
This demonstrates that, until just a few years ago, in order to have broad appeal to Ukrainian viewers, the Servant of the People TV show had to be primarily in Russian. This anecdotal fact, in addition to the surveys and linguistic data taken over the past four decades, shows that a substantial number of Ukrainians speak Russian as a first or second language. But after 2022 this will change.
I respect and admire the Ukrainians’ decision to embrace the official language more and more, and I understand their aversion to use Russian even if it is their first tongue. The murderous and unlawful invasion of your beautiful country by the Russians has ensured that Ukrainian language, culture, and independent identity will only grow in popularity and respect both in Ukraine and the whole world.
Героям слава.
U also exists in polish. Jestem u mojego kolegi (I'm at my friend's)
Also in polish we call it Kijów not Kiev. Also it's the same thing with lwów not lviv. lwów means lions
I am inclined to say “Czech Republic” only because of meeting people who introduced themselves to me as such.
I agree!
But note that 'Czech Republic' (Česká republika) is still the correct, full name for that country. The short form, Czechia, has been officially adopted and popularised over the last few years as another way of referring to that country. I, too, must say that the latter has grown on me.
Also, have you seen the Icelandic name for Kiev/Kyiv? It's Kænugarður.
czcams.com/video/A6MZFc8U7Vs/video.html&lc=Ugz_PhptGhHtlt04ZHJ4AaABAg
Man, I love etymology. I never knew about the origin of "sovereign". I guess I can add that to my list of "words that have a silent letter not because it used to be pronounced, but because someone made a false assumption about the word's origins and stuck it in there where it didn't belong", along with "island" and "doubt".
Dont forget comptroller, that word is a mess
In the case of doubt, they didn't really make assumptions. They just inserted the 'b' under influence of the Latin root.
What I find weirder is the added "b" in Germanic words like "thumb", "crumb", etc. etc. According to Wiktionary entry, the 'b' is considered 'parasitic", although I'm not sure what they mean by that.
@@YourCreepyUncle. well, from what I know: thumb USED to be pronounced with the "b",but not anymore due to sound shifts, though it is retained from old English in the word "thimble" (thumb-tool)
What? Island? Really?
And debt!
5:20; "Kiou" was actually the old common English name for the city, it comes via Polish "Kijów". "Kiev" started being used more in the 19th century, based on the Russian transliteration, and "Kyiv" even more recently, based on the Ukrainian transliteration.
Yeah. And the Russians, as opposed to the Poles, still must yet to accept that Ukraine is no longer part of their own country, but rather its own. In this sense picking the transliteration from Ukrainian, Kyiv, sends an important political message: the English speaking world recognises it as a Ukrainian city, to which Russia has no right.
@@berlineczka It’s never been called Kyiv in English up until the 24th of February. It’s only now that shitlib and progressive westerners are changing the name in order to signal their virtue about a country that they previously never cared about. They have not cared about this conflict for the eight years it has lasted. After it ends they will stop caring, and resume calling Ukrainians fascists and racists.
@@yoboyfargoth1208 hi bot, created before the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. The transliteration was there for a while, it has just become more popular. And about nazis: we didn't try to create the second swastika (it's letter Z I'm speaking about). And we didn't invade four countries.
You know the language is a live concept and because of that meanings change over time - for example in Polish literature both Litwa (Lithuania) and Ukraina (Ukrane) by facades meant the geographical region, it only after that became names of the countries that were created. Also I actually don't like when people especially in American English pronounce Warsaw because it almost sounds like there is an -l sound at the end so it should be spelled for them with a -v since the sound in Polish is a hard -w. For the Ukrainian city names in Polish Kijów and Lwów the -ó is a short -u sound and that suffix ow-ów is just very common
@@thedamntrain No, because Warsaw is derived from the Polish name for the city, not from a language that belongs to a country that is questioning Poland's right to exist. But if - when speaking English and meaning current events - you say Danzig and not Gdańsk, then that's offensive (or at least ignorant). When I speak German I say "Danzig", when I speak Polish or Russian I say "Gdańsk", when I speak English - I say Gdańsk/Gdansk, unless I mean the 1795-1918 period of the city.
In polish language:
1) "u" is rather archaic preposition which means "near, nearby, at" For example movie title "Enemy at the gates" is translated as "Wróg u bram"
2) "kraina" means "land" For instance " Alice in Wonderland" is translated as "Alicja w Krainie Czarów"
3) kraina -> land, kraj -> country, skraj -> edge
"u" also means "in", "inside". In fact in Ukrainian this is the main meaning of "u". The borderland theory is the Russian myth that was later used by Poles as well. The word itself is much older - from the times when those lands were the main Ruthenian core lands and not the borderland.
"u" in the meaning "near" or "by" is common in Russian but almost absent in Ukrainian. So meaning "u"+"kraj" (near/by the edge) works only for Russian language. Ukrainian language is based directly on Ruthenian language spoken on the lands that are now called Ukraine. The term "Ukraina" is very old - from the Rus' time. So it is incorrect to try to derive the etymology based on modern Russian meanings of prepositions.
@@Anton_Danylchenko Isn't the Ukrainian u just a derivation of the common Slavic v?
@@Turagrong "u" is a vowel sound, "v" is a consonant. The preposition "u" is also written as "v"(pronounced as "w") depending on the last letter in previous word in the sentence. So we have both Ukraina and Wkraina in old sources (e.g. in poetry of Taras Shevchenko, the founder of Ukrainian literature). That is exactly why "u" here means "in", "inside", "within". And Ukraina/Wkraina means “land/country within the limits/borders”.
"u" in the meaning "near" or "by" is common in Russian but almost absent in Ukrainian. So meaning "u"+"kraj" (near/by the edge) works only for Russian language. Ukrainian language is based directly on Ruthenian language spoken on the lands that are now called Ukraine. The term "Ukraina" is very old - from the Rus' time. So it is incorrect to try to derive the etymology based on modern Russian meanings of prepositions.
1. "Оук" in proto Slavic was "holy" or "spiritual"
2. "Рай" is "paradise"
3. "Край" is both "Homeland" and "edge"
4. "Україна" is "Spiritual Paradise Homeland"
Only Russian propaganda call's Ukraine"Borderland".
@Anton Danylchenko
It's definitely possible that for Ukrainians "u" meant inside while for Russians/Poles it gained a diffent meaning (close/next to/at)
Similarly how Germany is Niemcy in Poland. "Niemcy" basically means mute people. I doubt that Germans have ever thought about themselves as mute. Polish people simply couldn't understand them
Nonetheless Ukraina is still more interesting than our Field Land lol
Dear Luke! I see how, linguistically, it doesn't matter which spelling of Kyiv/Kiev to use. Nor whether to use the definite article before Ukraine. I also see that you attempt to build bridges between what is often perceived as "conflicting" Ukrainian and Russian speakers/languages/identities within Ukraine, by emphasizing on pluralism. That is a perfect way to do it and the best possible outcome - a world in which Ukrainian and Russian culture can coexist and enrich each other. However, right now and over the past few hundred years, Russian culture has been actively imposed onto Ukraine with brute force and coercion. Empires always try to abolish particularities and differences. Therefore, it is a matter of principle for us Ukrainians to insist that an understanding of Ukrainian subjectivity is established worldwide, especially in Russia. We see in Putin's theses and speeches what perceived similarity between "brotherly peoples" leads to: the right for Russia to impose itself onto Ukraine. And that is unacceptable, which is why we cannot adopt the language of the aggressor even in symbolic meaning. This is not against Russian language, it is pro Ukrainian subjectivity and uniqueness.
I can understand that, focusing on differences as political and cultural protection from an imperialist neighbor. Слава Україні!
I mean, I try to be as sensitive as possible about this. But it has to be understood that while Russian was historically forced into Ukraine, nowadays many Ukrainians speak it as their first, native language (for some it's even the only language they can speak), and being Russian-speaking doesn't make them any less Ukrainian, just like Ukrainian-speakers, Hungarian-speakers from Transcarpatia, Romanian-speakers from Chernivtsi or Budzhak or Crimean Tatar-speakers from Crimea aren't any less Ukrainian. And just like that, it doesn't either mean that those Russian speakers are pro-Russia or pro-Putin in any way (go ask someone from mostly Russian-speaking Kharkov, Sumy or Mariupol how much they like Russia or Putin these days... or better yet, don't)
As such and being respectful to the predominant language there, I'm more on the side of using Lviv (and not Lvov), Kyiv (and not Kiev), Mykolaiv (and not Nikolaev) and Chernihiv (and not Chernigov), but Kharkov (and not Kharkiv).
@@ivanmacgar6447 Kharkiv in English, Харьков in Russian. Most people indeed in Ukraine speak Russian, but the vast majority of people speak Ukrainian as their native language (>75%). It is respectful to use the Ukrainian variant, while using the Russian version can suggest simply being used to the Russian version that was standard in English until 1991, or choosing not to respect a sovereign nation’s wishes about how they wish to have their topography written. It’s a matter of respect.
@@masonharvath-gerrans832 Despite the street and store signs in the city (or what's left of it) being all in Ukrainian, it's still a Russophone city. We might as well respect that.
@@dvv18 Kharkiv is Kharkiv. You do you, but know that you are a part of a very strange minority.
If my memory serves me, the word "Україна" in the oldest usages didn't mean borderland, but was just kind of "a region". It became the designation of my land after Russia appropriated our older name - Rus.
Not the first time that's happened, if I'm not mistaken Azerbaijan is another such place as that used to be just a region within the Persian Empire.
It did though
@Onuphrius а ви експерт у словотворенні староруської мови
@Thomas Singer I'm currently reading a history of Russia for Russian kids, and it is said there that, at the time of the Rus' of Kiev (whose core territory corresponded more or less with modern-day Ukraine), the remote regions to the north-east, where Moscow was later founded, were called Окраина, meaning the borderlands - and those were the ends of the civilized world, which were attributed to the least favoured members of the Kiev Prince's family. That's what later became Russia.
YOUR older name? Then how do you explain the fact that the first capital of Rus was a Russian city called Novgorod and NOT Kiev?
Ukraine is just chuck full of really interesting and fun word etymologies. The surnames alone are a goldmine for enthusiasts to geek out over, the variety is insane. Heck, my own surname is super rare and has a crazy family legend about it's origin.
I think you should really consider doing more slavic-themed videos, since our cultures in non-slavic western societies are still viewed in a very stereotyped and ignorant way, and i have always found your videos to be really insightful and considerate in covering their respective topics, so i feel like you will do a great job. I mean, your Fomenko video is already top-tear in my book :)
I really like Slavic languages; I hope to be able to study them in more depth. Give us some surname anecdotes if you like.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Aww shucks, Luke, thank you for replying. Really love your work!
Well, the most fun Ukrainian surnames are the descriptive "Cossack" ones, originating in the various cossack formations (government-sanctioned or independent) essentially as nicknames, like Vernyhora - Вернигора (twist the mountain, mountain-twister - dude is super strong), Kryvonis - Кривоніс (curved nose - dude has a crooked nose), Molyboha - Молибога (pray to God - dude is either super religious or a hell of a fighter), Pidkuimukha - Підкуймуха (horseshoe a fly - dude is super precise), Nepyipyvo - Непийпиво (don't drink beer - dude is not fun to be around). And those were the simpler ones, they can get really elaborate and wild. This is what happens when bros are left being bros for way too long.
But even the more regular Ukrainian surnames are super diverse and have many interesting aspects to them. My grandmother's maiden name, for instance, came about because of a typo in the 19th century.
So you can gain a lot of insight from just analyzing various surnames.
Ukraine is really just a combination of 3 states and 3 ethinc groups. The south like Odessa are the cossaks nothing really to do w/ ukranian pickles and russians. Kiev is home to the medvev that gave birth to the Russians and ukranians . To the East near lyviv are your actual 'ukranians' aka the Ruthenians , the language of ukranian is just an evolution of ruthenian. Many prominent and influental Russians hailed from Kiev or west ukraine hence why Belarus is called 'white/snow russia'. Think of these 3 Kievans, Moscow and Belarusians as the Nahuatls
The Aztec, Tlaxcalans and Cholulans were all Nahuatl , the odessans are like the Otomi and the Lyviv are like the Chichimec.
@@chibiromano5631 все що ви написали є такою нісенітнецею(навіть в найпростішому-етимології Білорусі)
I can please you and say your culture is really respected here in Austria. So not all of the west is ignorant about slavs. Especially since austria has so many slavic people or people with slavic origins. My family is not of slavic origin but i am deeply in love with your culture. Especially eastern slavic culture! I am so jealous of many friends of me here who grew up bilingual in german and croatian, or german and czech, or german and russian. I love your traditions, music, food just all of it. So my deepest respect goes out to you and your culture! ❤️
Thank you for the video. As a Ukrainian I can add that in the last 20 years "Kyiv" has become the norm whereas "Kiev" is associated with Russia and is being avoided, especially now. As for the word "край" it also means "location" or "territory" not only the edge of something.
Do you mean that 'Kiev' is generally avoided by Ukrainians when writing/speaking English and other languages, or do Ukrainian Russophones also avoid that form when speaking Russian?
@@hrotha No, Russified Ukrainians and the Russian diaspora in Ukraine do not avoid this form when communicating in Russian. However, when communicating in English, most Russified Ukrainians avoid it, but the Russian diaspora, in unison with the Russians, insists on the Russian uniform.
Thanks, Yevhen!
@@hrotha Yep, the gentleman above is right. The same goes to some minor changes like Odessa (ru) -> Odesa (ukr).
@@delicateart8063 and Kharkiv, Chernobyl, Zaporizhzhia, Rivne
I'm not a linguist but I am Ukrainian and I can say for sure that 'Ukraine' does not come from the 'Borderland' word.
Let me elaborate. In Ukrainian we have a prefix "U" (У), which may turn to "W" (В) and basically means the "Nearby, close, in, inside or whole".
As the author mentioned previously, there is a Slavic word "Kray", which means "the native land or the territory". Ukrainian word "Krayina" (Країна) means "Country", therefore "Ukrayina" (Україна) means "The country inside", "The native land nearby" or "The whole country".
On the other hand, there is a russian language, which uses Slavic alphabet, however the meaning of Slavic words is different from the rest of the Slavic languages.
The word "Kray" in russian means "Edge or border". There is another russian word "Okraina", which means "borderland". Therefore, when russians hear the unknown word "Ukrayina", they try to find the similar ones in their language. However, the meaning is wrong because there is no such word "Okraina" in Ukrainian. The prefix really "O" means "out or off" and it cannot be changed to "U" or "W" - "in".
"Ukrayina" is a Ukrainian word with a different prefix, and has different meaning and ethnology from the russian "Okraina".
I hope I was able to make things clear for foreigners interested in the topic.
But it not true lol
no comments
🇷🇺🪖🚢🚶♂️🖕
Yes, Ukraine is Inland, not borderland, russian language is not really Slavic, and it can not be used for explanations of Slavic words. russian language is artificial language, it was created for communication amongst many different nations of colonies of Moscow., who spoke in Finnish, Tatar, Mongol languages.
Ukraine is an exonym, ukraine never had boarder conscience because they did not have a soverign nation until the soviet union created an SSR. Ukraine was called this way by the poles for the west bank of the dnipro until the dnieper, land that boardered the nomadic tatars of the other side of the river. Eventually, russia conquered the land and kept the polish name.
There is nothing wrong with this, Denmark has literally the same etimology and arguably Syria has too (harder to tell because the language it got its name no longer exists)
@@unanecyes, Ukraine in modern borders was formed during the Soviet times but it has its borders before that, when Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed, as well as it has its borders within the russian empire. Before that there was a different administrative-territorial structure still people considered themselves Ukrainians and were speaking the Ukrainian language. So, it's different.
“kraj” also means lovely or home land. I like to think that “ukrajina” means near father land or “at father land”. letter “u”(у) can be used in word “udoma”(удома) which means at home. Russians commonly think that ukraine means borderland, which is rude, offensive due to their cultural appropriation towards ukrainians and ukrainian lands. They think east ukrainian cities were always russian, because of russian speaking people in there, but it is simply not true, before soviet times those lands were very ukrainian speaking, but because of “red” regime, a lot of ukrainians were killed, and their homes were inhabited by russians. True genocide.
Don't forget the ethnic Ukrainians of Russia who were completely removed (Starodub,Billhorod,Rostov,Taganrog, Voronezh and The entire kuban region
And western Ukrainian cities are historically Polish. Lwów (Lviv) for example, throughout its history, had a predominant Polish population and before World War II was always considered by the Poles as much Polish as Warsaw, Cracow or Lublin. These historically Polish lands were occupied during WW2 by the Soviet Union and given to the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic illegally, contrary to international law and the Hague Convention. They were not bought from the Polish state (like Alaska was bought from the Russian Empire) nor taken in a war (as Polish Republic was officially allied with the Soviets against Hitler). Since you are fighting Russia now, you should return the Polish lands that Russia has illegally given you. And talking about genocide, study what happened in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia during 1943-1945, when Polish state was not able to protect its citizens: about 100,000 Poles (including women and children) were brutally massacred by the Ukrainians and their homes and lands were inhabited by the murderers. A true genocide indeed!
In Polish we have a dispute wether to say "in Ukraine" as traditional "na Ukrainie" or "w Ukrainie" which highlights its independence.
Ukraine was a part of Poland for quite a while.
Yes, I actually wanted to write about this.
Although, I think that the whole debate is a bizarre misunderstanding, because Polish language traditionally uses this "na" (literally "on") form for several countries close to us, including Hungary. Unlike with the other examples, I don't think that anyone could argue that we Polish people are looking down at Hungary or think about it as once belonging to us.
Wow, really?? Here in Russia we have exactly the same dispute with the same origin
for this theme: if name Ukraine for somebody means "border land", then Polish Armia Krajowa is only "border army" or "Grenzpolizei"...
@@wladjarosz345 Nice wordplay, although just a worldplay ;-)
@@Artur_M. To też prawda.
That's also true.
Wonderful video! Informative, and I also enjoyed all the Star Trek refs lol; I loved finding out that "sovereign" is cognate with "soprano," and that someone added in the "g" sorta like they did the "s" in "island" or the "p" in "ptarmigan" because they mistakenly assumed something about the etymology haha
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h2ew has a Sanskrit cognate too. Namely “ava” अव which means “down”. Look at the word avatar. “avatāra” अवतार. Avatar means “descending”, “coming down”. In avatar tar has a cognate “trans”.
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😂
Avatar-Trans
I love the videos on Ukraine. Просто чудово. Мир і свобода 🇺🇦
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It would be good to clarify that the name of the country Ukraine comes not from the word, but from the name of the historical and cultural region of Rus' (Kyivan Rus') between Kyiv and Kaniv, which was formed before the 17th century. And the name of the region comes from the Proto-Slavic word which could mean different things. So even if you etymologize like "borderland" it can be right only for small territory of Rus' til 17 ct. after it becomes the name of the region the meaning becomes not clear and not important for people, it starts to mean a Ukrainian Cossacks land, but at the time, not whole country where Ukrainians lived at that time, because country called Rus'/Ruthenia and people where called Ruthenians/Rusyns.
From the 9th century. Up to the 20th century land of Ukraine was called Rus' or Ruthenia, which was appropriated in the 17-18 centuries for political reasons by Muscovy (today russian federation), as well as the Holy Roman Empire appropriated the name of the Roman Empire. The name Ukraine in the 19th century originated as the name of the land of Ruthenia/Rus' on the lands of which in the 17th century the Ukrainian Cossack state appeared and the appearance of the name of the state as Ukraine in 1918 was to send us back to the Cossack past, to the freedom gained then.
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German still commonly uses "die Ukraine"
German uses 'die' for feminine country names in general, though: die Schweiz, die Türkei...
There is also a region in Slovenia, that used to be an Austrian province, called Krain. And it was also a borderland. Most of the inhabitants weren't Germans, not even when it belonged to Austria.
Another reason why Ukraine sometimes has a definite article in English might be that it has it in German: die Ukraine. In German the article isn't optional, though.
There's also the region of Srpska Krajina in Croatia.
@@aenesidemus8819 Actually there were historically the so called "vojna krajina", military borderlands in Croatia, that served as defense buffer regions against the Ottomans. Many of them also settled Serb refugees from the Ottoman territories to serve as soldier-farmers. Once these Serbs rebelled in the 90s they named their territories krajina to honor that tradition. It was not a historic region and it did not continue after the liberation of those territories in '95. One also has to add that there is also a Croatian tradition of naming an area around a town in the Dalmatian hinterland areas as krajina. There are historic microregions of Imotska krajina, Sinjska krajina, Vrgorska krajina etc. Most of them majority Croatian. One of them is the Kninska krajina, which was the center of the Serb rebellion but was not synonimous with the "Serb krajina" and continues to exist to this day.
Slovenia also has a region called "Bela krajina" (white krajina) in its south, on the border with Croatia.
@@mg4361 Imagine defending the illegal Operation Storm lmao
@@aenesidemus8819 nope. Just correcting a false statement that the so called "serbian krajina" was any sort of a historic region, because it really wasn't. It was an amalgamation of diferent regions and parts of regions.
As someone who lived in Ukraine, I just want to say this - You´re right, they don´t have the word ¨the¨ in their language, but they DO mind if you say ¨The Ukraine.¨ Because that is reminiscent of the time of the USSR. ¨The Ukraine,¨ referred to the territory of Ukraine which was part of the USSR, but now - they are their own country and they don´t belong to anyone else, so it is only ¨Ukraine.¨ No ¨the.¨
I address this in the pinned comment.
word "край" has several meanings: region, part, land, edge. In this context meaning land or region is more corresponding than edge. If simpler: Ukraine means "Homeland" but not an edge
I would disagree. How would you describe the many Krai's in Russia, like Krasnodarski Krai, Kamchatka Krai and so on. These territories were on the "edge" of the Russian empire and so that is why they have the word Krai in them. The meaning of Krai can be land, country or even neighborhood which is a rule for most if not all Slavic languages. Another example of Krai similar to Ukraine, would be "Vojna Krajina", a territory in Austro-Hungary inhabited by Serbs to be a buffer zone against Turks. The meaning of the territory is "military land on the edge" of the empire of AU. So the word Ukraina is simply "Land on the edge", which doesn't mean Russia can attack and occupy whatever Putin wants, but that also doesn't make up for the crimes Ukraine did to its own people in Donbas region simply because they think of themselves to be Russians... Peace to you Slavic brothers! 🕊️
@@thekopitski9718 I've written, that the word has several meanings. In context of russian regions it may has meaning "edge". But Kyiv was a capital of Rus and an economical and cultural center of Eastern Europe. Also word "Україна" in context of central regions of Rus firstly was met in documents when Kyiv was a center. So... that's it.
@@thekopitski9718 and Donbass conflict was totally made by Russia (by the way I've become a refugee from Donetsk) to create an occasion to invade Ukraine and destroy it
@@thekopitski9718 Stop saying "Slavic brothers". Brother will never act genocide of Ukrainian people, like Russia does today.
@@thekopitski9718 have you seen the size of Ukraine? To which country in the 16th century could it have been a border territory? The word Ukraine is in the annals of Kievan Rus, and this is from the 11th-12th centuries. Rus could be a border territory for which country in the 11th century? Then Rus became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and could not be a border territory either, because it was much larger in size than Lithuania. And it is the same in the Rich Pospolita. The only assumption is why the word Ukraine can mean borderland - this name could be used by the Zaporozhye Cossacks for their territory, which is the southern regions on the border with the Crimean Khanate. As for the Krasnodar Krai, are all border regions in Russia called Krai? I haven't heard of it. Only a few regions are called the Krai. And this is because the word Kray does not mean a border, it simply means a separate territory. Regarding the word Ukraine itself: the author of the video indicated inaccurate data, in the Ukrainian language the first letter "У" does not mean "near, at", it means "in, inside". This is also indicated by the frequent use of the word "Ukraine" in literature. Because "У" and "В" are the same, it means "in, inside".
Thank you for making this video Luke and the polýMATHY team. Дякую ❤
А тебе дякую. Heh, there is no team, just me, plus the outstanding filming done by my volunteer director when on location. She gets all my admiration.
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Awesome, as usual. One bit I missed was the link between kraj/kroj in many Slavic languages and “to cut”. This link is intuitively understood by most native speakers of e.g. Czech: “krájet” means “to cut”, and “kraj” is “the edge”, ie the thing directly produced by cutting.
if name Ukraine for somebody means "border land", then Polish Armia Krajowa is only "border army" or "Grenzpolizei"...
1. "Оук" in proto Slavic was "holy" or "spiritual"
2. "Рай" is "paradise"
3. "Край" is both "Homeland" and "edge"
4. "Україна" is "Spiritual Paradise Homeland"
Only Russian propaganda call's Ukraine"Borderland".
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@@wladjarosz345 Please take note that "kraj" is not the same as "oukraina". The Polish word "kraj" lacks the Old Slavonic prefix "ou".
Also, some words or words stems have several meanings even in one language.
@@Donello your private opinion is very important! for you...
Also in Croatian we say "Mir i sloboda". Slava Ukrajini! Glory to Ukraine!
@Фёдор Иванович No, I only said those were Croatian words too.
Mir i svoboda !
Merci beaucoup Luke. I appreciate how you put current political/military problems into your channel, with great sensitivity and tactfully ("avec tact").
Merci, mon ami! I’m trying my best.
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Ukraine means “land/country within the limits/borders”.
There are other meanings of "У" preposition in Ukrainian (in fact those other meanings are the most used meanings). There are cases when preposition "У"(U) is often written/pronounced also as "В"(W) depending on the ending of previous word in the sentence - in those cases it means "in", "inside" "within the limits/borders". We have an evidence (as minimum from XIX century) that the word "Ukraine" was used in both forms "Україна" (Ukraina) and "Вкраїна"(Wkraina) so this is indeed such case with the meaning "in the country", "inside the country" "within the limits of the country" and NOT the meaning of borderland or edge. Preposition "У" is very rarely used in the meaning "near" in Ukrainian (unlike it is in Russian).
The borderland theory is the Russian myth created in order to mock Ukraine as the "borderland of Russian World" while in fact it was the very center of Rus'/Ruthenia (cultural, political, religious center). Later Poles also start to use this myth in a form of “borderland of Poland”.
There is more evidence: Peresopnytsia Gospel - the 16th century first known example of a vernacular Old Ukrainian translation of the canonical text of the Scriptures written in local (Old-Ukrainian) dialect of Ruthenian. That gospel contains the word "Ukraine (Оукраина)" with the meaning not related to Ukraine at all, but as the common word with the meaning of the "land within the limits/borders", "country", "region" - this can be easily seen if we compare the same text in Ruthenian, Old Church Slavonic and Latin:
Below it means "in finibus" - "in the area", "within the borders":
И жилъ в капєрнаоумѣ за морємъ на оукраинах заоулонскыхъ и нєѳалимскыхъ...
Всєлися въ капєрнаумъ въ поморїє, въ прєдѣлѣхъ завулонихъ и нєфѳалімлихъ...
Et habitavit in Capharnaum maritima, in finibus Zabulon et Nephthalim...
Below it means "in fines" - "in the territories", "within the bounds of":
Вышоль з галилєи и пришоль въ оукраины иоудєйскыя по оноуи сторонѣ їордана...
Прєйдє от галїлєи и прїидє въ прєдѣлы іудєйскїя об онъ полъ іордана...
Мigravit a Galileaa, et venit in fines Judaeae trans Jordanem...
Below it means "regionem" / "regio" - "region", "country" and "страна" has clear meaning of the "country" in Old Church Slavonic:
И вышла о нємь повѣсть по всєи оукраинѣ...
И вѣсть изыдє по всєй странѣ о нємъ...
Et fama exiit per universam regionem de illo...
И прихожєвали к нємоу зо всєи оукраины їоудєйскои и иєр(с)лимьлянє...
И исходашє къ нєму вся іудєйская страна и ієр(с)лиманє...
Et egrediebatur ad eum omnis Iudaeae regio, et Jerosolymitae universi...
"u" in the meaning "near" or "by" is common in Russian but almost absent in Ukrainian. So meaning "u"+"kraj" (near/by the edge) works only for Russian language. Ukrainian language is based directly on Ruthenian language spoken on the lands that are now called Ukraine. The term "Ukraina" is very old - from the Rus' time. So it is anyway incorrect to try to derive the etymology based on modern Russian meanings of prepositions.
також треба уточнити, що в літературній українській є зкук "w", що читається на місті "в" після голосних та теж дорівнює по сенсу звуку "v"
the boarderland theory is not a myth because it aws the boarderland of poland, not of russia, and being a boarderland of russia is a false assumption the ukranians theirselves have made in a defensive manner. Ukraine is an exonym and it comes from polish w Krainie. And there is nothing wrong with that. Denmark is proudly using its name when half the neam means also boarderland, MARCH, because it was the northern boarder of Slesvig.
The term Ukraine was already used by the kievan rus to name different boarderlands they had with other peoples. When the poles arrived, they called the western bank of the dnipro until the teteriv and Dniester rivers ukraine, the boarderland with the nomadic tatars of the other side of the river. Russians took this name after making poland to collapse.
Old church slavonic is just that, liturgical content with no contact with the vernacular world rather than scripture for the church to function
@@unanecThe name is documented in Ruthenian chronicles of XII century - long before any Polish control of Ukrainian lands. So no. This is neither Russian no Polish word.
@@Anton_Danylchenko It's a slavic word, yeah, with the same meaning in all of them. Look up what was the meaning of the word in that chronicle, precisely determines bordering entities, it was a synonym of the english word March
I do wonder why so many people literally ignore the existence of the word 'Vkrajina' which means motherland. And as you know in Ukrainian v and u are interchangeable, so u have 'Ukrajina/Vkrajina' (transliterated from Cyrillic). Also 'kraj' have two meanings - not only 'border', 'edge' but also it means 'land'. Only taking some info and ignoring everything else can leave wrong impression.
We don’t ignore this meaning, but it’s likely secondary to the original meaning, which is the only thing I’m taking about; kraj means “land” only because it comes from the word for the borders they define a land. But don’t let etymology or propagandists who abuse it make you think that etymology should tell us anything about the value of a country: Italy means “baby cow,” Spain a pathetic rodent. Does this make them weak or worthless places? No. Don’t play the dumb game of the propagandists.
@@polyMATHY_Luke do that guarantees that the word 'Ukraine' comes from the first meaning? Was the 'land' meaning used in that era archives or the 'border' meaning, or if they used both which meaning was more prevalent? That is an actual, and very important question.
@@polyMATHY_Luke You are wrong, kraina in Ukrainian is country, Y is in, Ukraina is Inland. That is correct meaning of word Ukraine.
@@withrockinside Kraj is not used in Ukrainian as borderland at all, Kraj in Ukrainian means more the end of smaller things, like end of table. never it directly translated as borderland. Kraina is country in Ukrainian, y and v are in, so Ukraine is Inland. He is not Ukrainian speaker, so he does not know true meaning of word Ukraine.
Luke: -"What does sovereign mean?"
-Dominant? Independent?
Luke: - "SIKE, Space battleships! 🚀 "
Haha my man. You really do deserve the "polymathy" bit. Another good topic as always.
🖖 Ευχαριστώ!
Actually, I liked mentioning the Star Trek starship because it’s not a warship, but a ship of peace and exploration
@@polyMATHY_Luke is it? Oh OK then. Ty
Russians love the 'borderland' interpretation. In Russian sources, this interpretation is actively pushed because it implies that Ukraine is borderland of a greater entity.
But Край does not only mean edge. It also means 'land' or 'homeland'. In Poland there was Armia Krajova, in Russia there are several entities having Krai in their name. In literature and folklore there is phase often used 'ridnyi krai' which definitely does not mean the edge but rather fatherland.
Historically, 'borderland' interpretation is also not really relevant. The term was first used in written sources in the XII century, before Mongol invasion. At the time Kyiv remained the culture and political centre of by that time weaker and fragmented Rus.
So, why on earth would people call densely populated territory around the heart of the state a 'borderland'?
We'll never know the truth and it's all theory. But the historical context should be understood. People don't call something an EDGE OR BORDERLAND if neither of those.
I tend to agree. Thus it seems that the name "Ukraina" may have had more specific localization not near Kyiv before being applied metonymously to the whole area.
@@polyMATHY_Luke I am almost positive that "Ukraina" is of Polish, not Russian, origin, referring to the border region of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adjoining the Crimean Khanate.
Also, in 22 years of living in the former Soviet Union and travelling to about half of the former republics, I have never heard anybody discussing the etymology of "Ukraine" other than Ukrainian nationalists. Including in Crimea. Russians don't care. Well, I guess Dugin and people like that might, but he would throw something about Atlantis in there too.
@@user-ub4ud9gy4d You are wrong. As Ivan has already mentioned the first time the term Ukraina was used back in the XII century so before the Polish times. Back then it meant the territory between the Dniester and Boh rivers - modern Odesa and Mikolaiv regions. The meaning was in fact 'Borderland' - as those were the borderlands between Ruthenian states and the Cumans. Much later, in XVI c. this name was borrowed from Ruthenian into Polish as a general name for the Ruthenian speaking areas recently incorporated to the Polish crown (1569) - hence the area around Kyiv, Bratslav and Chernihiv. The ethymology of Ukraine is clearly Eastern Slavic. Although Polish did have its part in cementing this name.
And BTW, the Ukrainian identity, separate from the general Ruthenian identity, can be traced exactly to this period (XVI-XVII c.) and to the Cossacks, their specific borderland culture (I mean the borderland between not states but cultures: westernized Polish culture, Eastern Slavic culture and islamic Turkish and Tatar cultures). Hence, even if Ukraina does mean 'borderland' this ethymology only stresses how the modern Ukrainian identity has formed and that it is distant from the Russian identity (although they both share Kyivan Rus as their ultimate ancestor).
@@Vielenberg Could be. I'm getting this from wikipedia. So the original border meaning is Ruthenian.
Agreed, and :
1. "Оук" in proto Slavic was "holy" or "spiritual"
2. "Рай" is "paradise"
3. "Край" is both "Homeland" and "edge"
4. "Україна" is "Spiritual Paradise Homeland"
Only Russian propaganda call's Ukraine"Borderland".
"Kraj" means "a land defined by a certain border". It comes from a logical assertion that when you take a certain border, there is always some piece of land, that it defines. So the land/border debate doesn't make sense because it has similar meaning in slavic languages.
The word "Ukraine" appeared at 13-14 centuries after fall of Rus', and, as a ukrainian, I think that homeland/borderland variance between different people was present from the very beginning of this word's existence and it weren't a problem for anyone at that time. For ukrainians this word has always meant "homeland", but for russians it is crucial to recognize ukrainians as "some people on the border of a great Russia", so they would have the true rights for Rus' heritage. However, I think that Moscow has same rights for Rus' name as Constantinople had for Roman Empire. Ukraine was a word to describe a land where one certain nation lived but that was divided between different states and steppe frontier.
I think, between 13 and 20 centuries this word had same position as "Kurdistan" nowadays.
Hey polymathy! Great work!
Can you make a video about constructed languages? And do you ever heard about Enochian?
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Star trek, a world without income inequality, that is, no rich.
I long for such a future.
Hi! This is just my theory, a semi-native Ukrainian speaker, but growing up in the US. "Krayaty" (кpаяти) means to cut. A farmer with land in Ukraine would divide (cut up) his land among his sons, so this piece of the original holding would be a son's "cut". From the son's point of view, "мій край". Why would a person native to this land call it "the borderlands"? People think of their land as center to their lives and a far away land as a borderland on the corner with some other different country. Just a thought.
that's right, Ukraine is meaning Inland, not borderland. Borderland in Ukrainian is okolytsya. So Ukraine must be called Okolytsya by native people, not Ukraina!? BTW Vkraina is also correct name of country and used also.
Край - literally means: country, region, land, locality
Вкраїна - В Країні - У країні - Україна which literally means inside the country. As the Romans said in the City, which meant in Rome.
Fun fact: the yers were pronounced in Proto-Slavic in all positions
They were fully fledged vowels
They front yer was an ultra short i
And the back yer was an ultra short u
We're used to seeing languages like Latin or German with vowels that are longer than normal but we pretty much never hear of languages with vowels which are shorter than normal
/krajĭ/
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In Ukrainian there is a proverb “у” which sometimes reads as “w” («в») and can be changed to “в” before vowels (as “y” before constants). Both mean “in”. «Країна» as well as «край» means “land” or “motherland”, “country”. This meaning exists in Russian too, although “край” as “edge” is more common meaning.
Thus, “Україна” would mean “in [my] country”, or “ in motherland”.
Russia, especially, nowadays doing war, loves saying that “Україна” means “at the edge” (of Russia, ofc). Which is, obviously, wrong. Not only in linguistics, but historically, too. Kyiv Rus (with the capital in Kyiv) was there long before Moscovia, so this rather Moscow is “at the edge”.
Yes, in Polish we also can use 'u' in a way that mean being at someone's place - including 'being at one's own place' - 'być u siebie'
You are right.
Always with amazing topics! Thank you Lucius!
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Really cool video! Love seeing you branch out into other languages! I'm an undergrad student studying Linguistics with a specialization in east slavic languages and this was a lot of fun! Дякую!
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Itself the word kraj has several meanings. For example the word for regional studies is krajeznavstvo, the Polish Home Army in WWII was called Armija Krajowa. In these instances it is silly to claim that kraj has anything to do with edge or borderland. Ukraine in reality means homeland, that is all. The city of Kyiv/Kiev/Kijow is named after a legendary prince Kiy and has been a center of Ukrainian nation since the 4th century when the territory was part of Hunnic empire.
Kraj =/= skraj
Kraj means country. Skraj means edge/border aera
The English name "Kiev" does not come from Russian, but from the mediaeval variant of what is know Ukrainian (and Belarusian): Ruthenian, where it was written that way.
Why not Kyev then? since it was written Кыевъ, no palatalisation for к in south-eastern Slavic at that time
That's wrong - the medieval version is "Kyyev" - in Russian it is "Kiyev". In modern Ukrainian it is "Kyiv".
We could just take it easy, and refer to Kyiv/Kiev as Chiovia, the Latin way. 😁
Kænugarður is the way!
Strong agree. Stop arguing over endonyms, bring back more exonyms.
Or if you wanna sound a polymath (pun intended) call it Κyoava < Κιοάβα /kʲoáva/ (fem.) the Byzantine name for it. Interestingly enough, the Byzantines (Constantine Porphyrogenitus' "De Administratio Imperio" (mid 10th c.)), referred to it as Σαμβατᾶς /samβatás/ (masc.) also, probably from Norse Sandbakki-áss (Sandbank Ridge)
Sambat, the Khazarian way. It was a Khazarian city originally before Rus conquered it.
@@wordart_guian Some exonyms sound amazing in their native languages. The same word in one language can lose its beauty in another.
That's great editing and sound productiona as always, Luke. You just get better.
I appreciate that. It’s not easy to get the volume of the various sounds and music consistent
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Props to your editor! This was really well done, and I loved the footage of Ukraine from the air. I'm wishing courage and strength to all Ukrainians right now.
One note on "the" Ukraine. English sometimes uses the article to refer to regions that are not sovereign countries, such as the Savoy, the Basque Country, or, within Ukraine itself, the Crimea and the Donbass. I have heard -- but can't confirm -- that some Ukrainian English-speakers take issue with "the Ukraine" because it recalls a recent past where Ukraine was a Russian territory. Still, these are small potatoes, and I wouldn't think ill of someone for saying "the" instead of, uhh, "Ø." :)
Heh I don’t have an editor, it’s just me, and thanks.
I understand that Ukrainians have fought against having the article in front of the country name based on the perception that the article makes it seem like a non-sovereign territory, but this is not true in English; the occurrence of “the” in “the UK,” “the US,” “the Gambia” shows that its occurrence is quite random and need to be thought of as pejorative. My personal preference is not to say “the” and to write “Kyiv,” but I know countless numbers of people who emphatically support “the Ukraine” as an independent country. It’s just linguistic habit.
I have been to Ukraine many times and never met an English-speaker. They're irrelevant. This is an issue pushed by the English-speaking West Ukrainian diaspora in North America, who speak neither Ukrainian nor Russian (nor Surzhik).
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1:48 "край" have one more meaning, its a certain territory, not just edge of territory. On ukrainian you can say "рідний край", what means homeland, from this, "У" - in, "край(їна)" - homeland. Name of country "Україна" comes from this meaning. Because even in the annals the word "Ukraine" was used in the sense of a certain territory and not a part of something bigger
That is right, Ukraine means Inland, not Borderland, not knowing Ukrainian language is a problem in translation of word Ukraine.
Kraj-krajina, ukrajina, vkrajina, vukrajina, ukrajna, vukrajna means Land/Inland etc.. This word like synonym to word Zemlia. Came from medival time in documents for different state’s what were controlled by Kyiv. Later word start be unofficial name of mostly Ukrainian territory. Right now is official name.
I am reasonable sure that "Ukraina" was originally used by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to refer to the area closer to the Crimean Khanate.
Totally wrong! The first written evidence of the use of the word Ukraina dates to XII cent. in relation to the area around Kyiv. At that time there was NO Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and, certainly, that area was NOT a borderland, but precisely a heartland of Kyivan principality.
I think that this has got to be the least interesting and most meaningless line of historical inquiry of all time, but it has been brought to my attention in this discussion that the term actually seems to originally refer to Ruthenian border areas.
It means "borderland." Deal with it. AND IT DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL. Who cares?
Thank you very much for this video, from Ukraine ❤️
Слава Україні. 🔱 🕊
@@polyMATHY_Luke Героям слава! 😁
I'm also from Ukraine, and pay attention, please:
1. "Оук" in proto Slavic was "holy" or "spiritual"
2. "Рай" is "paradise"
3. "Край" is both "Homeland" and "edge"
4. "Україна" is "Spiritual Paradise Homeland"
Only Russian propaganda call's Ukraine"Borderland".
@@antiminer2422 Ukraine never existed as a country. It only appeared in 1991
@@youssefabdelaal434 so and russian federation never existed only appeared in 1991!
Did you know that the word War can be related to the word "cook" in some Slavic languages? Boiling - var , boiling point - bod varu, cooking - variť, it's all about fire, just like war, everything burns in it.
I will disappoint you, but in the Slavic languages the word war in principle in no way resembles the English word war and sounds something like this: війна(vijna).
@@yevhendykyi3937 Learn to read.
@@zdenekdanko4729 I can read, but in Ukrainian. As the translator translated, so I understood.
@@yevhendykyi3937 This is terrible what is happening in Ukraine. I cross my fingers for you. Where are you Are you safe there?
> Kind of like many Canadians speak both English and French
Not sure if that is a good comparison since many (most?) people not from Quebec are barely conversational in French and are not exposed to French in their daily lives. And of course there is no mutual intelligibility factor.
I'd rather compare it to Luxembourg where pretty much everyone is perfectly conversational in both German and Luxembourgish.
Thank You for this beautiful video as always.
Such a lovely country and thank you for making this video at this difficult time
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Glory for Hohland!
@@beria_ at this point we must all keep Russia accountable for their war crimes and particularly the crimes against children. We're all watching 👀
@@Lara__ i heard from hohols that "киев комбят нучу басилуют". I stand with Hochland.
@@beria_ you can call the peaceful civilised people of Ukraine whatever you like. The barbaric nature of Russia is exposed for all to see 👀
🕊️Мир 🌍Мир 🐾и свобода🌿 Thank you for this sympathetic video - with the splendid pictures of Ukrainian landscapes... 😁сердечно поздравляю🍀🌻pozdrawiam wszystkich bardzo serdecznie 💗🌿🌞
too much of our media focusses on slavic lands as they are seen between october and march, same is true for the nordic countries, though they exploit this, this is only being exacerbated right now due to the war, nice to see some vibrant summer landscapes
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The Gambia. Honestly, Ukraine still sounds weird to me as opposed to the Ukraine. It’ll always be Kiev and Odessa to me.
Yeah. It just comes from Slav speakers themselves learning English and definite articles.
This was a beautiful, kind thing to do. I think it probably says a lot about you as a person.
"Kray" also means land.
в далеком краю - in a faraway land
в родном краю - in native land
It is very very contextual, it is rather obvious semantic shift.
In Serbian. "Мој Крај" - means "my neighborhood" , but in it"s core "Kray" means "End, edge"
Same in Polish. Kraj is land. Ukraina would then mean a land (kraj) at at border (u-). There is also the verb krajać (somewhat archaic in modern Polish, replaced today by kroić) meaning to cut. So, if you cut the land into territories belonging to different tribes, and one of them is at the edge, then it may be called the edge piece, i.e. Ukraina.
@@berlineczka Exactly, in Serbian there is same verb infinitive form ''Korjiti' which has exact same meaning as polish '' kroić''.
-Now we are condemned to 100 years of pseudo bullshit from Ukraine and Russia about language and common history.
@@petarilic8695 Yeah... Especially since Russia is half a millennium younger than Ukraine (known as Red Rus' and later Kyivian Rus' before getting the name Ukraina). Even the oldest Russian entity (the Grand Duchy of Muscovy) is younger a few centuries.
@@berlineczka Thats kind a incorect, Slavs already lived there. And Novgorod was first capital of Rus, so it is not that easy.
As you may or may not know: "Krai" is also where Russian gets the word Край. Which is what some of their provinces are called. Ex: Алтайский Край, Красноярский Край (Altayskiy Kpay, Krasnoyarskiy Krai, resp.). Although others are referred to as Области (Oblasti). And some are even referred to as republics (ex: Dagestan, Tatarstan).
In Russian, the word "Krai" is used for regions that in Soviet times used to include an autonomous republic or oblast. Not all of them are border regions.
@@Donello Okay... That's something I didn't know 🙂🙂
In Russian there is a rough equivalent of the English usage "Ukraine x THE Ukraine". It's more polite to say "в Украине" (in Ukraine), but the traditional usage, to which Russian nationalists cling to, is "на Украина" (on Ukraine), that carries the connotation that Ukraine wouldn't be a independent land but just a part of Russia. Слава Україні! Вітаю всіх українців із Бразилії!
The version "на Украинe" has nothing to do with one's opinion on the independence/sovereignty of (the) Ukraine. It is just plain old-fashioned and politically incorrect etymology.
Otherwise, you should voice your objections to the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, who used the preposition "на" as in "на Bкраїні" in poetry written in Ukrainian.
@@DonelloнаВкраїні та вУкраїні, це аналогічне правило до англійського "anApple і aPear", тобто для швидшої та легшої вимови.
Always understand and described for myself sacral meaning behind name of our motherland as dedicated land, cutted off from rest world piece. As "Krajity" is mean "to cut", in this case we can say "Okrajena zemlia", cutted land, or as you can hear in the old Rus language historical toponimic term -"Oukraina" "Ѹкраина"(which in many sources synonymic to state) also "Vkrajina" , brings understanding as "Vkrajena zemlia", which means - cutted from all sides land, dedicated land, dedicated piece, in other words - state, territorial unit. Never accepted the latest muscovy-soviet historians explanations of Ukraine as okraina "окраина" or as edge, border, outskirts of something, in other words περιφέρεια...
All Ukrainians are welcome in Romania! Peace and prosperity to our neighbours! 🇺🇦
Are you sure about that? There are about 2.5 million of Ukrainians refugees already. I know a lovely family in Ukrainian Transcarpathia - will you host them? They've just had their first air raid alarm there.
@@dvv18 I don’t live in Romania. But I’m sure my old country welcomes Ukrainians. News reports say Romania is already hosting 260 000 Ukrainians and there are volunteers at the border who let Ukrainian families stay with them.
@@dvv18 Transcarpathia (capital : Uzhhorod/Ungvár) should go back to Hungary!!
@@Perririri They wouldn't mind at this point, I guess. But it won't happen. And I don't think that Lwów will go back to Poland anytime soon either.
nearly 80% of ukranians chose to go to Poland with 5% going to Romania?? Wonder why?? Afraid of Gypsey blood?
Small correction. In modern slavic languages "kraj" is understood as the end of something. But an older meaning is territory/region/ part of something whole . It is still used in some slavic countries as a term for country.
It's still a type of an administrative territory in the Russian Federation.
Kraj is Polish is a country. Skraj is the Edge, end of something.
Propaganda moment, "Kraj" means Homeland, Motherland.
"Ó Briain" does not contain the preposition "ó", but the noun "ó", which means "grandson, descendant". That noun is supposed to descend from h₂éwh₂os in PIE and is cognate with "avus" in Latin. I suppose it could be argued that the first part of h₂éwh₂os might contain the preposition, but it is difficult to be sure.
I’m of Russian descent, and based on my grandmother’s pronunciation I’ve always said Kyiv as “Key-if”
Careful there. As Luke said, "Kyiv" is the transliteration of the *Ukrainian* Київ - and word-final consonants are not devoiced in "standard" Ukrainian. In the *Russian* word Киев (transliterated as "Kiev") OTOH, the final в is _usually_ devoiced.
@@dvv18 I am intentionally mixing and matching my spelling and pronunciation, yeah. I prefer the Ukrainian spelling aesthetically.
there are no Bombay or Memel, that's why please Kyiv!
@@wladjarosz345 Is Kijów still there?
@@dvv18 where?
Ukraine doesn’t mean borderland in no way. And there are couple of reasons:
1. In “Ipatievskaya Letopis” word «Оукраина» was used to inner regions of Rus such as Galichina.
2. Krajina in Ukrainian means “a country”, an inner territory.
2.1 Ukrainian translations of Bible in 16th century translate greek word ὅριον (a region and its borders. A piece of territory) as «Оукраина».
3. « Оукраина» has to be read as Ukraina not as Oukraina. Оу in slavonic and old russian is always read as “u”. In east slavic languages you can’t mix “u, v” and “o, ob”. The meanings are antonymous since “u, v” always mean “inside” and “o, ob” is “outside”. Mixing them is like mixing yes and no in the same word. So, У + краина might only mean “in territory”. Plus in Ukrainian language, unlike Russian у and в (u, v) are synonymous and interchangeable.
4. Ukrainian songs and poetry of 16-19th century also sometimes call Ukraine as Вкраїна, literally In+territory.
5. Regardless of what the word meant before (edit: in proto-slavic), in Ukrainian language “Ukraine” always meant “inner territory, a piece of territory”. A borderland and analogue of modern Russian “okraina” in Ukrainian is okolytsya.
I would also add that “Ukraine” is not an exonym. It became a common endonym during cossack rebellion of 1648. Cossack territories were already called “Казацкие Украины». The word appears massively in folk songs of those time too.
It was also popularized in 19th century by our poet Taras Shevchenko who used word “Ukrajina” constantly in his poetry. He wrote his poems in central dialect of Ukrainian so we might assume that local population used “Ukraine” as endonym for really long time and it wasn’t common only at ex-cossack territories.
I LOVE that you use the Zauberflöte overture
Thank you very much for this. A wonderful way of showing solidarity!
And I really love you for those Star Trek quotes :)
🖖
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Finally, another etymology video, and there couldn't be a worthier subject! I missed these.
Now that's an account name I like a lot! Someone is clearly fascinated with written language!
@@scootergrant8683 thanks!
Here's an idea for your next videos. Explain how and why the Russian regularly becomes in Ukrainian words / city names.
Lvov → Lviv,
Rovno → Rivno
Kharkov → Kharkiv
Sol' → sil' (salt)
Kot → kit (cat)
Но это не "ы"
@@notfound9816 oops, i didn't mean to cross the i. I placed it between hyphens, and it got crossed itself.
Russian (or , like in Kiev) regularly becomes in Ukrainian... but then there is an alternation in the Ukrainian declension which seems to be closer to that /. So... you have sil' (nominative singular), but sóli (nom. pl.), sóli/sóly (gen. sg.) and so on. Or, in the case of Kýiv (nom.), you get Kýieva (gen.), Kýievu (dat.), etc.
As far as I can see, it happens in closed syllables, i.e. syllables ending in a consonant. This is also why you have the alternation of the vowels when the syllables alternate between open and closed in the declensions.
It seems rather straightforward that a /e/ would turn into a /i/ in a closed syllable but it is quite baffling that /o/ also turns to /i/, and not e.g. */u/, especially given that some consonants (alveolars) have a palatalised pronunciation in front of /i/ which makes the difference between a back vowel like /o/ and a front vowel like /i/ more far-reaching.
*RivnE, not Rivno
Ah, "Die Zauberflöte"; was thinking about watching it later but that made me stay 'til the end right away
Explanation is not correct. “Kraj” means “land”, “u” in Ukrainian and proto Slavic means “inside” and not “at”. Thus the name of the country means “inner land”, “central land”, or else “property of the prince”
I addressed this in the pinned comment. Please read it.
Thanks for the great video from Ukraine! I have a little trick for English-speakers how to make pronunciation of "Kyiv" more closer to Ukrainian standard. Just say sound "a", like in the world "cat". Actually, if you gonna to say word "cave" and will make the sound "ı" in it just a bit longer, it will work, I promise you. In Ukrainian the letter "и" is spelled like something middle between English "a" and "ı".
I think 'И' is most English to the English "i" in "lit", "fit", "bit". ' Ї ' is a "yee" sound and 'В' in Ukrainian depends on the dialect, but largely is the "w" sound in "word" or "will" or the "oo" sound in "mood", "food" and "moo".
So Kyiv in a standard Ukranian accent would sound like "kih-yee-oo"/"kih-y-ew"
There used to be another state called Krajina - "Republic of Serbian Krajina" which existed during '90 in Balkan, but all of its inhabitants were either brutally killed or expelled during the war, and their state cease to exist.
Thank you for this video!
How do the Russians or Ukrainians refer to the Kievan Rus?
uk.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Київська_Русь
I'm foreign to Ukranian and Russian culture and this was an interesting watch
Sorry, it's wrong, Ukraine means Inland, not borderland.
In icelandic we call the capitol of Ukraine "Kænugarður" which I think is from old russian (Kijangorod?, maybe). Kæna also means a type of small boat in icelandic but I doubt that's related directly. The word Kæna may be related though to Ukraine (because of the shape of the "kæna" boat) and the "Krajína" word through the sense of "edge" i dont know just spitballin'. Great video! ;)
It's from old east Slavic- Кыѥвъ via sagas where it was called Koenugarðr. Neither Russia nor Russian language existed yet at that point.
It's actually very possible that name of the boat comes from name Kyev. Kyev was located on the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks( Byzantium) and was the place where goods from varagian boats were uploaded to Kyevan boats that were capable of going through Dniper river rapids.
@@kicunya12 correct
Not really accurate about "kraj is a border".
Mostly, the word "Kraj" means "Land", and from this word were created another word "krajina", which means "country". It is obvious that the word "country" would be created from the word "land" rather than "edge".
Slavic languages have another word, more related to define different lands, borders etc, this word is "межа" ('miedza' on polish)
Except that this isn’t what /kraj/ meant in Old Slavic, which is the point. Later it comes to mean “land,” but not at first.
Because of you I fell in love with Latin and Greek.
I like how you support Ukrainian in a linguistic way.
There's no such thing as a "linguistic way of support". Support can only be financial or material - either humanitarian or military.
Neat
As an etymology nerd I loved this!
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Love the not so low key shade! Starting a video on the etymology of Ukraine, by first starting with the etymology of sovereign.
So Ukraine was a "march" like Brandenburg
Andorra was born out of Charlemagne's Hispanic March as well.
Finally somebody who's got it.
We'd have to talk too about how the modern nation of "Russia", the modern country of "'the Russian Federation" has appropriated the name for itself, given that "Rus" used to refer to the first and foremost East Slavic state, was centered in Kyiv. As such, the word "Rus" belongs to all East Slavic peoples equally, but only those from further North and further East, the kingdom of Muscovy and the principality Novgorod, started using the name to appropriate all of the East Slavic peoples and their legacy (the fact that Russian nationalism and some of their foreign sympathizers claim the Kyivan Rus' successor state is Russia and not Ukraine, despite having its capital in Kyiv, should be enough hint of this. It's roughly like claiming the actual successor state of the Roman Empire is not Italy, but Romania, because it somehow "kept" or "borrowed" the name).
Same goes for people claiming that Belarus means "White Russia", instead of "White Rus", with Rus meaning, the aforementioned Kyivan Rus and White being a way of saying "Northern", being barely North of Kyiv, as Slavs from the Early Middle Ages used to use colours to refer to cardinal points, most commonly Black to refer to Southern, South, Southerly and White to refer to Northern, North, Northly. This is also where the Black Sea, the Sea to the South of Kyivan Rus', comes from. Yet, Russia started calling this territory White Russia instead of White Rus during the Tsarist era and after the first partition of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth being dismantled (a state the territories of both modern Belarus and modern Ukraine were part of for all of its history), and this passed onto German "Weißrussland", which was then translated in Western Europe.
Even these days, Belarusians (even Russian-speaking monolingual Belarusians, who are the most common group of people in Belarus due to Russification policies during Tsarist and Soviet eras being more effective and successful in Belarus than in Ukraine) strongly prefer the term "Беларусь" while in Russia, the same country in the same language is most often refered to as "Белороссия". Again, a stunt to undermine Belarusian (and not Belarussian) unique identity, history and culture and embrace it as part of the wider "Russian" identity.
Slightly off-topic: To add to the paradox, Turks too used colours to refer to cardinal points, however Black being North and White being South, which results in the Black Sea being "Karadeniz" in Turkish ("Dark/Black sea"), being to the North of Anatolia, and the Mediterranean sea being "Akdeniz" ("Light/White sea"), being to the South of Anatolia. That's also why many, including Western, historiographic sources call the Kazakh tribes "Kara-kyrgyz", meaning "The dark Kyrgyz", as Kazakhstan is just to the North of Kyrgyzstan.
@@Alexander_Fuscinianus that's the point. The Kyivan Rus' was an East Slavic state, not a Ukrainian, Russian or Belarusian state... mostly because East Slavs were the same people back then, and only later on they started to diverge from one another. And it's this divergence which gave birth to the modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian (and Rusyn/Ruthenian whom everyone seems to forget) peoples.
What I was calling out on is Russian nationalism actively claims the Kyivan Rus' as a Russian state in order to claim all other East Slavic peoples are Russian as well, and it's that confusion some people outside of Russia or any Slavic state buy into.
So who is the actual, current successor of the Kyivan Rus'? All three of them, and none of them are. And same applies to the Romance-speaking countries, all of them AND none of them at the same time are the actual, current successor of the Roman Empire, as this entity died out with the Germanic tribes and later on the Ottoman Turks in the Eastern Roman Empire. Just like the Kyivan Rus' died out with the several Mongol and Tatar invasions.
"Rus" (Рꙋсь/Русь) was the medieval dynastic state of the Rurikids (the Rurikovichi) - until the Rurikids rebranded it "Руссія/Россія" in the 1500s.
@@dvv18 more or less. The East Slavic polity (that is, the Kyivan Rus') was mostly thrilling in the IX, X and XI Centuries, and by that time, the East Slavic peoples hadn't yet diverged. By the 1500s, the current territories of Belarus and Ukraine were a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and they stayed that way until the First Partition of Poland in 1795 where those lands, alongside Lithuania and a good chunk of Eastern Poland, fell into the hands of Tsarist Russia. Even then, claiming that Ukrainians or Belarusians are just Russians, or claiming Ukraine and/or Belarus illegitimate states and are parts of Russia with funny adjectives such as "White Russia" or "Little Russia", is disingenous or deceitful to say the least.
@@ivanmacgar6447 Not sure about "Little", but color-coded "Ruthenias" (Red/White/Black) were used to designate the territories while they were parts of Poland. In fact, the whole of the Russian tsardom was a part of the Polish Crown domain in the early 1600s.
Rossiskaya Federatsiya assidously avoids using "Rossiya".
So instructional! Tysm!
The Slavic term krajina (border, borderland) is also the origin of the modern German word "Grenze" (an old term was "Mark" which is related to march in English)
Not "krajina", but "granica", a different word! 😉
I've seen comments on youtube videos interpreting the use of the "Kiev" spelling as some sort of political statement which is unfortunate. "Kiev" is just the spelling most people have been familiar with the majority of their lifetimes and there's nothing wrong with it.
It's funny how "Kyiv" (and the newer pronunciation) became more fashionable to use in English-speaking media following the rise of Russian aggression, even though it's actually way closer to the Russian pronunciation than it is to either the Ukrainian one or the older English one.
No it's not lol
'Kraj' means in Slovene language settlement or place. 'Okraj' means district. 'Okrajina' then would means many districts. Maybe Ukraine means just land compose of many districts.
So in Latin the sound of the letter R does not change when is at the start of the word? I notice you say regnum with something very close to the spanish soft R, but they never use the soft R sounds at the start of a words, they use the hard or "rolling" R instead.
The Spanish or Italian model is correct for Latin
@@polyMATHY_Luke Wasn't that Spanish uses the alveolar trill in word-initial position, while in Italian, it's just a flap?
To be fair: край means border, країна means land as in farmland. It's more like that Ukraine Україна (actually У/В країні) means people from or in the farmland.
Edit: the distinction between that is really new in contrary to people who mostly don't live in cities or towns.
край does not mean border in either Russian or Ukrainian. It usually refers to an administrative region, lesser in size than a country/state. In Polish though, kraj means a country or state no less, while kraina means a region/realm/land. The words for border are кордон in Ukrainian, граница in Russian, granica in Polish, hranice in Czech and Grenze in German.
@@SzalonyKucharz still, kraj means in a sense end of territory like the Krajn in Slovenia/Croatia.
@@SchmulKrieger Not really. In Polish 'kraj' means simply a country, while 'skraj' or 'krawędź' means a border end / edge / verge. 'Polska to kraj leżący w środkowej Europie' = Poland is a country located in Central Europe. 'Kobiety na skraju załamania nerwowego' = Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In both Russian and Ukrainian 'край' (in territorial sense) means a region simply, a chunk of land, which doesn't have to be at the far end of anything. It is the Ukrainian-contested u- prefix that changes the meaning from land/region to 'at-land' / 'by-region' in both Russian and Polish. Due to euphonic rules of Ukrainian (милозвучність) 'u' is often just a vocalized version of 'v/w' (turned from consonant to vowel) when surrounded by consonants from both sides (for example він жив у Польщі means he lived in Poland, while Я живу в Польщі means 'I live in Poland; в became у in the first sentence only due to presence of consonant _в_ in жив on one end and _П_ in Польщі on the other, while still meaning 'in'); so they argue that u in Ukraine does not mean 'by' or 'at' but 'in', so the name of their country means 'in-land' (core land) not some borderland at the edge of either Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Russian Empire. Well, apart from Ukrainian language there's a clear distinction between 'v' and 'u' in other Slavic languages, including Russian and Polish. Thus the debate is heated as Ukrainians build their national identity now in opposition to anything even remotely Russian, linguistics included.
The etymological root of kraj/край is Proto-Slavic 'krojiti' which means to cut. In Polish 'kroić' means to cut, 'krawiec' (ukr. кравець) = tailor; 'krój' = fashion style; 'przekrój' = cross-section; 'skrawek' = a little cut piece. In Ukrainian кроїти means to cut (out), while the same word in Russian is кроить. Compare with English 'sector' or 'section', which is derived from a Latin word referring to cutting.
@@SzalonyKucharz українську мову розумію й розмовляю.
@@SchmulKrieger Рідна мова чи друга?
Slava Ukraini - love your work mate!
It's interesting you didn't go into the whole preposition discussion that goes along with the country's name. In Russian and in most Slavic languages the preposition "na" or "на" is used with Ukraine, so "на Украине" which corresponds to the English "on". This is pretty much an exception as for most countries you would use the preposition "v" or "в" meaning "in". The reason why in Russian/Polish/Czech/Slovak you say "on Ukraine" instead of "in Ukraine" is the same as why in English you wouldn't say "in the edge" but rather "on the edge". Ukrainian nationalists at some point changed the preposition in Ukrainian as they felt that saying "on Ukraine" made it sound as if it isn't a real country but some borderland of the Russian empire. They tried to force Russians to change their prepositions as well but they never did. I mean how can you try to dictate what preposition your neighboring State should use in their own language? It's also funny they're only hating against Russians and not against Poles, Czechs or Slovaks even though they are doing the same.
BTW, in Soviet Union Russian language had used in Ukraine, not on Ukraine, You can read Soviet newspaper Pravda and always see in Ukraine. In Soviet schools it was correct in Ukraine. That was norm for Russian language.
I would argue about the proposed etymology of the country name.
First of all, the word 'країна' means 'country', as a state or a territory. For example, if there's a summit of the country leaders, you would call them 'лідери країн', 'leaders of the countries'.
The noun 'край' is often used to refer to any part of land or country, which should not necessarily be at the border. There is a phrase 'мій край' ('my country/land') to define a region the speaker is from or where they live. You can use it in a more 'metaphorical' way, for example, Finland is often called the country (or a land) of lakes, and in Ukrainian you can say 'країна озер', or even 'край озер'. Or, there's a famous song called 'Країна мрій', 'the land of dreams' (check it out).
In Ukrainian, there is a verb 'краяти' which means 'to slice'. There is also a directly related noun 'окраєць' which means 'a slice' (of e.g. bread, the result of the action of slicing), and a verb form 'вкраяти', 'відкраяти' which means 'to complete an action of slicing', in other words, to separate a part from the whole. So you could think about 'край' as 'a part of land'.
The word 'Україна' itself could be spelled 'Вкраїна', which was popular in the 19th century poetry for rhyming reasons. This could be explained by the feature of the Ukrainian language where you can freely alternate the prefixes 'в' and 'у' without changing the meaning of a word. There's also a preposition 'в' which could be interchanged with 'у', e.g. 'у мене'/'в мене' are equivalent and mean 'I have'.
So, for me, it doesn't fit 100 % to the explanation that 'Україна' is derived from the word 'edge'. There is definitely the word 'край' in that meaning, like 'край світу' ('the edge of the world'), but it's just a second meaning of that word (a synonym to that would be 'межа').
By the way, the word 'kraj' in Polish means 'country'.
Thanks for your videos!
Ukraine is a name that was already used during the time of Kievan Rus. It doesnt make any sense for the Rus to call the heartland of their dominion "borderland". Ukraine comes from "Kray", which roughly means region and is often used as the word for the home region where one comes from. Your "kray" is where you orginate from. U-Kraina means the inner-region, the home-region, the heartland. As it was the center of the Kievan Rus/the small Russia, as in, the heartland vs the greater Russia as the periphery. Write that down.
On "The Ukraine" versus "Ukraine" in Russian (even through they don't have a word for 'the'). In Soviet times in Russian everyone said "на Украине" to mean "in [the] Ukraine." In most cases you would say "в [стране]" in Russian, so this was an exception we all learned. It set Ukraine apart. Sort of implies "on the border" rather than "in the country." Some of my tri-lingual friends in the 1990s opposed "the Ukraine" and "на Украине" simultaneously. Now in Russian sympathetic speakers say "в Украине" and never "на Украине." You can still pick out "woke" Russians form "Neanderthal" Russians based on witch preposition they use.
They still say "на Руси"…
I thought the Neanderthals were extinct :)
@@DieFlabbergast you might be really surprised if you take your genetic ancestry test.
@@thedamntrain No, it's become a virtue-signalling issue, so you really want to watch what you're saying and where.
The Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko wrote "на Вкрайне", since it is consistent with the word's etymology. I wonder if you'd call him "Neanterthal Ukrainian nationalist".
Interesting and informative!
It's mentioned below by others, but "border" and "country/region" have a long history of transference in Indo-European languages. Celtic, Germanic, Slavic all use words that either mean both border and country or once did and have become specialized later. Often it will mean border generally but country in compounds or toponyms (or region where there is no political meaning). Mercia, Denmark, Cambria/Cumbria, Breton bro, Marcomanni, Armenian marz (from Iranian), all "country/region" (the diminutive Gallic form results in brolo, brool, breuil garden/copse)
Serbian separatist regions in Croatia was called "Serbian Krayina", derived from "Military frontier" in serbian "Voiyna Kraiyna" .
So we have multiple Slavic languages containing old semantix of word "Kray" but only Ukrainian politicians think they know better etymology than most Slavic-linguists
2:02; Actually, we don't have "u" (as: near, by, next to, at, beside) in Ukrainian at all. We don't say "у края" (u kraja) in Ukrainian. We say "скраю" (skraju), or "біля краю" (bilá kraju) if you want. It has no sense in Ukrainian language. "U" in Ukrainian works as "in" only. For example:
Russian: "у дома" - near the home (outside). "в доме" - at home (inside)
Ukrainian: "удома/вдома", - at home (inside). у/в (u/w) are changeable in Ukrainian. "у домі/в домі" - in the building.
However, I believe the word "Ukraine" is indeed from a word "Borderland". Originally in was a small territory in central Ukraine, the edge of PLC, Moscovian Tsardom and Wild filds. Here, First Ruthenian Hetmanate was based, the first Cossack state. Its a relatively new name. Ukraine was known as Ruthenia, and people as Ruthenians like 2 ages ago. Its was changed, due to Moscovian appropriation of "Rus" name in 18th c. So Moscovian become Russians, and Ruthenians become Ukrainians.
5:14; U pronounced Ukrainian /ɪ/ as Russian /ɨ/. So You wasn't correct here at all. Ukrainian "и" sound the same way as English "i" in "kit, did and so on". Its pretty easy for an English speaker.
So "Ки-" sounds like "ki/kih". "-ї-" sounds like "yee" in "yeeha". And "-в" as english "w". So its ki-yee-w. Kiyeew.
I'm russian and i also believe that the country name comes from "borderland", but NOT the borderland of Russia as many of Russians think. When this word appeared, Russia simply didn't exist
Не зовсім "в" звучить як w після голосних та v після приголисних. ще українське и це суміш і та ы
Україна= вкраїна в краю. Край =земля. Рідний край=батьківщина
The name of the ship does affect the voyage. Having Kiev as their capital, they could've reclaim the name of Rus'. Who knows what way would history go then. But building a sovereign state named "Periphery" while located in quite a strategic area of Europe is clearly an exercise in futility.
Being an armchair philologist, this video was amazing! Thanks Luke.
What does that mean brah
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According to Putin, there _is_ no Ukraine and never has been. And he passed a law saying you can't disagree with him if you are within The Boundary defined by his tanks.
Let us hope those tanks don't get too much further.
Oh but the separatists are totally valid
@@siyacer I'm guessing he'll validate anyone who supports him.
@@siyacer what do you mean?
@@Alexander_Fuscinianus I can link to a video of people being dragged off like duffel bags for violating it
@Cementāriī 🇭🇺 wow okay.. the ideas you are expressing now are in line with what's shown on russian television. have you spoken a lot to ukrainian people? it is useful to hear out both points of view. if you are interested in what a ukrainian feels about this, you can speak to me :)