Imperialist definite article, part 2
See this, from the Guardian readers' editor in 2004. He seems to suggest that "the Ukraine" was specifically introduced into English translations from Russian by Soviet-era translators who saw the pattern of the IDA and wanted to linguistically imply that Ukraine was similar to Sudan, Gambia, Yemen et all.
Cheers for the Guardian!
ReplyDelete(Shouldn't that be "Cheers for Guardian!"?)
ReplyDeleteWell, he says that, but he also says that what his source says is disputed.
ReplyDeleteIn order to know, you'd want to find out if the translation policy changed - either by finding an edict which says "change it" or discovering that after a certain date the term was translated differently.
Of course Mayes' source may well provide this information, but if it does, he doesn't apear to say so.
(This may come under the heading "Justin posts the bleedin' obvious" again, but I thought it worthwhile nonetheless....)
No that's a good point and urban myths do grow up around these things. But he is right about Ukrainians getting really worked up about the definite article in English translations, whereas Yemenis don't, and Gambians even less so.
ReplyDeleteThen again a very large number of Ukranians tend to see everything through the prism of Russia, the USSR and the famine (I don't know that there's a country on Earth where extreme high-pitched anti-communism is so common*, even perhaps Croatia and the Baltic states) and so it tends to be at the forefront of the way that everything is viewed.
ReplyDelete[*or perhaps so understandable. The only real comparison I can think of is something a friend told me after he'd done VSO in Eritrea, and said that absolutely no European can say anything at all in criticism of anything - not because the government says so, but because people just won't have it.]
I'm fairly sure "the Ukraine" was in common use at the time of the first world war.
ReplyDelete"I'm fairly sure "the Ukraine" was in common use at the time of the first world war."
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly.
No, before WWI most people called it "South Russia" - at least my ancestors did. I find the claim difficult to swallow w/o serious footnoting and give it no credence until then. It's not as if Russian translators had a monopoly on press coverage at the time, with the 3 or 4 different Ukrainian states in operation during the Russian Civil War.
ReplyDeleteThose 3 or 4 different states didn't last that long, didn't really have many spokesman (or much of a government really), and I think the period of "the Soviet translators" refers to post Russian Civil War. But yeah, it could be a myth.
ReplyDeleteBTW, apparently you can get a used copy of Utopia in Power via Amazon for 12 cents.
In a perfect world you could get it for free.
ReplyDeleteit's a scam, by the way (all these cheap books on Amazon for one or two cents are actually exploiting the fact that Amazon Marketplace allows sellers to quote prices gross of postage & packing and then they overcharge you for p&p). Obviously things were worse under Soviet Communism, but this is a bit of a bilk.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the P&P rates set by Amazon. I suspect that the overcharging is largely Amazon's overhead, but I could be naive here.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the overcharging is largely Amazon's overhead, but I could be naive here.
ReplyDeleteYou're naive here. Amazon's used books thing in the US actually provides a fairly generous allowance of $3.99 per byuke.
There was a piece in the NYT about this the weekend before last: the margin comes entirely through shipping arbitrage.
$4.11 ain't that bad either
ReplyDeleteOn Amazon Marketplace, you pay the postage.
ReplyDeleteIn Soviet Russia, the postage pays you.
The post in the Soviet Union was so slow that not only did the World Correspondence Chess Championship use to take place over a five-year period, but the internal, Soviet Championship took even longer.
ReplyDelete"Ukraine" means something like "borderland" or "frontier" for what it's worth.
ReplyDeleteThe Czech I know best likes "Czechia" as the name of that country.
Amazon charges a standard $4 or so for shipping that really costs $2.00 or so. The free books are still darn cheap. I recommend ABE books as the best e-bookstore.