Why Do Some Country Names Start With The?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 เม.ย. 2021
- HELP SUPPORT NAME EXPLAIN ON PATREON: / nameexplain
INSTAGRAM: / nameexplainyt
FACEBOOK: / 248812236869988
TWITTER: / nameexplainyt
BOOK: bit.ly/originofnames
MERCH: teespring.com/stores/name-exp...
Thank you to all my Patrons for supporting the channel!
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
The Definite Article: www.grammar-monster.com/gloss...
The Country Names: www.grammar-quizzes.com/artic...
When To Use the With Country Names: www.engvid.com/english-resour...
Geographical Use Of The Definite Article: www.grammarly.com/blog/geogra...
The Definite Article With place Names: www.grammaring.com/the-defini...
Country Short & Official Names: www.fao.org/countryprofiles/is...
The Ukraine: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-1...
The Argentine: www.dailywritingtips.com/the-...
The Gambia: theculturetrip.com/africa/the...
Seychelles: afrolegends.com/2018/10/01/wh...
![[Teaser EP.2] “MasterChef Junior Thailand Season 3” วันอาทิตย์ที่ 9 มิ.ย. นี้ 6 โมงเย็น ทางช่อง 7HD](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KojBzrifbWg/mqdefault.jpg)
In this video I say that the Isle of man is the only country to have of in it's name then immediately mention the United States of America. What I meant by this is that the Isle of man is the only country to have of in it's short name, which is just the Isle of Man. Countries like the United States of America lack it in their short names, in this case the short name being USA, US, The United States, or just The States. I worded it poorly in my video but I stand by it, or I might be wrong still who knows. I'm tired.
I would wager most of us Americans use “the” with the abbreviations
Actually, The is in our official name twice. (The) Federal Republic of (The) United States of America.
What about Isle of Wight?
The UK also, the United Kingdom OF Great Britain and Northern Ireland xD
Some of us say "The US of A". I think it's regional, but we do say it. I would've own the mistake, as I watched the video I noticed you circled "The" and "of" of several long name nations but not for the USA, so the explanation makes no sense. Own it, it wasn't a big deal, trust me.
None of us is perfect and if people can't handle that then you must anoint thyself with oil, my dear Patrick,
... and let it slide.
Ngl, St. Vincent and the Granadines sounds like a cracking name for a band.
Pope Rock
There is a good musician names St Vincent. She just needs a band and call them the Grenadines.
Made me think of Jem and the Holograms
You're going to lie, liar.
I think there is a band with that name
As Ukrainian, I never knew that somebody says "The Ukraine"
I was understood by Ukrainians that spoke English not to say "The Ukraine" as it can be seen to delegitimize the autonomous governance.
It is one thing to say, "Should Ukraine (nation) have self governance?"
Or, "Should The Boarder Land have self governance?"
In German , we also use 'the' when referring to your country!
Isn't it the name that was used during the ussr times? If I recall correctly, a couple of years ago there was a campaign led by our foreign relations ministry to urge the global media to stop referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine", since the article is signifying Ukraine being a territory within USSR, not an independent country.
The "borderland" meaning is not the official theory, rather one of many and possibly artificial.
Another meaning of the word, which has been used a lot, especially in literature and folklore , is simply "Land" (mostly in feminine, sometimes in masculine form) or "In-the-Land".
So this way the exact meaning and ethymology of the word "Ukraine" is more of a definitive type, rather than descriptive.
> 6:58
Don't forget that El Salvador literally means "The Savior." It was commonly referred to as just "Salvador" in the 19th century until 17 June 1915 when the President made the official name "El Salvador" instead of just "Salvador."
When Castillian/"Spanish" speakers refer to somebody or something going "to El Salvador", do they say "van a Salvador", "van a El Salvador" or "van al Salvador"? (The latter is how we would construct the phrase in French - "(ils) vont au Salvador" - but since the use of prepositions is often quite different even between Romance languages, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that your usage is different...)
It's interesting that a lot of the commentary about "Ukraine" under this video is one about prepositions too.
@@PeloquinDavid the correct way would be van a El Salvador, but I think most would pronounce it as van al Salvador in all but the most formal situations. Note that articles in country names is much more common in Spanish though. You CAN say voy a Salvador, but that means you are going to the Brazilian city of Salvador (de Bahía).
@@jcarloscmz you covered it very well.
In Spanish they call India, Havana, La Habana, La India they use Spanish articles with "La" when translating in English it literally translates,The India The Habana
At least in Central America, the most common thing to hear is "Van a El Salvador", which is also the grammatically correct form when the article is part of place name. To write "Van al Salvador" is incorrect.
example of a single mountain that has "the": The Matterhorn
Or the name of any other mountain in German ;)
The French name for the Matterhorn is Mont Cervin (no article). The same in Italian (Monte Cervino).
@@daisybrain9423 and adding to it the confusion with different grammatical Gender: Der Brocken, Die Zugspitze, Das Matterhorn.
Or: Switzerland - Die Schweiz / Austria - Österreich
the Feldberg, the Zugspitze... every mountain has the in German
The Eiger
The Philippines once was called "Las Islas Filipinas", meaning "The Philippine Islands" hence "The Philippines" both was commonly used.
The former was more commonly used during the American Era, said term today is mostly used by countries not the Philippines, but isn't used a lot (except when you want to sound fancy) in the country itself.
Also as a Filipino myself, I see a lot of people mess up the definite article when referring to litterally their own country, and sometimes I'm just disappointed at my own fellow people.
The Netherlands is plural because it was all ready in use in the time it were 17 provinces. We say it without ‘The’, just ‘Nederland’. When we use ‘de lage landen’ (the low lands) we mean The Netherlands plus Belgium. (And you can say “going to Lowlands” because that is one of the biggest festivals here 😉
actually it's offically called De Nederlanden (The Netherlands) because it was a federation when the Dutch Republic was founded aka The United Provinces of The Netherlands so it should be in the same group as The USA
And then there's the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Koninkrijk der Nederlanden)
Another fact: netherlands in Spanish have 2 translations: Países Bajos and los Países Bajos. So in a litteral translation to English would be Low Countries and The Low Countries.
Lekker feesten op lowlands😊
In English, we also have the term “The Low Countries”, referring to The Netherlands (“nether” is an older English word for “lower”... “beneath” = “below”), Belgium and Luxembourg... also known in marketing circles as “Benelux”.
Any Ukrainians are free to correct me, if I misremember something. To my knowledge, Ukrainians don't like people to call it "The Ukraine", because using the article reminds them of the time, when they were influenced by the Soviet Union.
EDIT: Thank you, for pointing it out, Patrick.
My clickbait thumbnail to enrage people and then they realise that I know what I'm talking about in the video worked!
@@NameExplain I had been living in St. Petersburg, Russia, for three years, so I was still acutely aware of it.
@@myrarblom9539 Happy to help, neighbour. I'm from Germany.
It actually traces even to the times of the Russian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (partially) and allegedely has a sidekick name for a central-southern part of Ukraine as "the wilderness" (Дике поле)
@b phillip At times we don't give it a second thought and accept both. I personally call it Ukraine but times The Ukraine. "' I'm going down to The Ukraine today" or " I love to visit Ukraine".
I thought The Gambia gets its article due to it being named after the river. It only really exists because we didn't want Senegal to have access.
But Jordan is also named after a river and doesn't get a "the"
it was a slave port for the British, who didn't want to use French ports.
@@slangjo1 because Jordan wasn't named after the river Jordan, it was called transjordan (across the Jordan) then they dropped the trans later on.
Little known fact:
This is also how The Bronx got its definite article.
It was named “the Borough of the Bronx” in 1898 after the Bronx River which runs down the middle of the Borough
@@helloworld0911 then how about Niger from the Niger River, why isnt it called The Niger
Also, Slavic Languages don't have definite articles, so politics aside, Ukraine shouldn't have one.
@Абдульзефир And Macedonian. :)
The word "kraj" or "krajn" means the same as "march", not the borderline itself, but the region along the border. In medieval Europe, there were no fixed border lines, but regions considered the borders. The Holy Roman Empire for instance had about a dozen marches. One of them was the Danish March, now called Denmark. Another one the Marca Fermana, now the region Marche in Italy. And thus, in languages with an article, it's "the march". The Ukraine is interesting as the y- in front means something like "at". So the real name would be "at the borderlands".
in romania we have for example "ucrain"(ukraine) "a"(def. article which is in romanian translated to "articolul hotarat")
why not? i mean clearly it can't have one in it's endonym but what linguistic reason bans "the" from it's endonym?
It was called Ukraina in both Russian and Ukranian in the Soviet era, was it not? The ''the'' must have come from people speaking some language with a definite article, which neither Russian nor Ukrainian possess. The ''the'' did not Russify the name, nor does removing it deRussify it. Or so it would seem.
Fun fact. My name is LaMonica. Way back when I used to frequent chatrooms, a Spanish speaker would strike up convo. They thought it was a screenname, meaning The Monica since "la" is a feminine article in Spanish.
Looooooool 😂
And Monica is also a female name
That's actually pretty interesting, because historically a lot of African-American names are descended primarily from French names like monique and andre, but usually have altered spellings, and french also has the gendered articles of "le" and "la".
Interestingly enough, Monica (mónica in spanish) is actually the Spanish equivalent of the name Monique, so that connection to french still applies to your name.
Name history is fun. I see why patrick likes it.
@@freedomgoddess Thank you
I think it has to do with the caps in the "L" and the "M", and if not, I was also confused for 3 seconds until you explained it (Yeah, native Spanish speaker). Interesting to know, LaMonica
One city that uses the definite article is The Hague in the Netherlands, and also does that in Dutch, Den Haag. It's an interesting and fun exception to the typical rule of cities lacking articles.
Not to mention The Bronx NY, The Dalles OR an ~14 more I found on worldpopulationreview.com…
And Den Bosche
's‑Gravenhage & 's-Hertogenbosch.
The count's wood & the duke's wood respectively. I believe the 's is short for "des" back when Dutch had three definite articles like German.
also Le Havre and Le Mans in France.
"I'm going to Lowlands" would actually be grammatically correct. Lowlands is also the name of a music festival held each year in August, in... you would never guess... the Netherlands!
So Patrick is a bit too rigid about that or maybe unaware of an exception.
LOL.
But why isn't the festival called "the Lowlands" then?
I always remember the pilot in the movie "Shogun" talking about sailing through "The Japans".
I mean, cuz really it's the islands *of* Japan.
Also "all the Spains" and tsar of "all the Russias.
The Japan sea is a thing though
@@haruhisuzumiya6650 Sea of Japan
The indias
Very nice video. Never mentioned it before, but I love your accent!
In Canada we have three territories: Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon.
Nunavut has never had the definitive article, it’s always been Nunavut (since its creation in 1999.
The Northwest Territories has always had it; it would look and sound funny without it!
Yukon is different. There is a huge debate going on, more or less, here in Canada: is it The Yukon (Territory), or is it simply Yukon Territory? In the past 30 years, or so, the word “territory” isn’t being used much as part of it’s official name. What’s left behind? Either “The Yukon” or “Yukon”. To complicate things, CBC News, frequently refers to it as “Yukon Territory”, without the article!
When you study German you must learn some countries with articles, Die Schweiz, Switzerland (no The in English). I never thought about all the “The” countries in English, like The Philippines, The Netherlands. It seems natural yet inexplicable.
"You may be A doctor, but I'm THE Doctor, the definite article" - 4th Doctor
English teacher here 👋
So I teach my students that this whole "the + country) breaks down like this.
1. We use the with plural groups (🇵🇭🇧🇸etc)
2. We use it with countries where the name is not a "name name".
What????
Well... "Poland" eg, is just a name. The word Poland doesn't mean anything else. But "The United States" - a "state" is a thing in its own right. It's not a name name. 🇵🇱🇺🇸
That's why it's "The United States" but not "The America" and "The United Kingdom" but not "The Britain". Don't believe me? Well, we often refer to the US as just "The States" 🇺🇸 and you'd always say "The Kingdom" or "The Republic" - it's the same rule if it's in a country name 😁
Same goes for "The French Republic" - a republic is a noun in its own right. But France is just France because the word France doesn't mean anything except as a name. Same for all the other countries with long names starting with The 🇫🇷
Still not convinced? Well, it can't be because of the descriptor because some countries with descriptive names don't take The. French Polynesia, for example 🇵🇫
Isle of Man? Well, "Isle" is noun in its own right so it's The Isle 🇮🇲
Same with The Ivory Coast - coast is a noun. 🇨🇮
This rule works for all countries 😁
Interesting extra fact about Ukraine, it used to be called The Ukraine in English, despite the fact neither Ukrainian nor Russian languages have "The" 🇺🇦
Good on The Gambia though for smashing those pesky grammar rules 😎🤣🇬🇲🇬🇲🇬🇲
Not knocking the video, btw. Thoroughly enjoyed it :) just presenting an alternative theory
godzilla had stroke reading this and fucking dies
@Thomas Holdstock:
I am a native speaker of German and in general your rules for article usuage apply to German, too.
Yet in German there are a few more countries that sound odd if you don't add an article. Those are located in the Middle East (der Libanon, der Irak, der Iran). I once heard the explanation that those country names entered German through French, the former language of diplomacy, which ALWAYS uses articles with country names.
Maybe this also applies to *the* Ukraine.
@@Galenus1234 not sure about the explanation. What do you make of "der Kosovo" (or "das Kosovo", but never without article). Also, why does Ukraine come with an article, but not Belarus, or literally any other ex-Soviet republic?
Also, it is not true that French uses articles on ALL countries. There are in fact exceptions, e.g. Israel, Cyprus, and Oman. The latter seems to disprove the theory, as in German it would usually be "der Oman".
@@arthur_p_dent
Languages are weird and there are hardly *universal* explanations for certain features as you can always find exceptions for a any given rule.
As for "der/das Kosovo"... here Thomas Holdstock's Rule #2 does apply:
Kosovo is short for "Kosovo polje" (German: Amselfeld, English "blackbird field"). There may be other fields where blackbirds flock, but if you are talking about *this specific* one, you use the defintite article. It is a "name name" as Thomas put it above.
Fun fact: In Dutch the Netherlands are known as 'Nederland' which literally translated would be Netherland (singular). Although as correctly pointed out in another comment, the official full name is "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden" which literally means Kingdom of the Netherlands. Also I don't understand why Ukraine has a definite article as definite articles aren't a thing in all Slavic languages (except Bulgarian and Macedonian) including Ukrainian and Russian.
Since when do Bulgarian and Macedonian have a definite article?
@@zesky6654It was something I read, I don't know either of those languages. So I've looked into it and apparently it's a suffix and not a separate word.
English words can have grammatical features like definite artices even if they describe things in countries where these grammatical features are not used. You also say "the Kremlin" and "the Chinese Wall".
@@androlsaibot true true, but I still find it strange personally.
In Romanian most country names end with "a" which means "the", so there you go.
I've always loved the ambiguity of "is 'germania' just the -ia suffix or is it 'the germani'?". Makes is a lot easier to solve conflicts like Ukraine vs. the Ukraine, because it could be whichever you want and nothing changes
Same in Italian. Every country is "the" something. La Romania, l'Italia, la Francia, la Germania, il Giappone, etc. Problem solved.
Even in Russian, which has no definite article, there’s a similar controversy. If you’re in Ukraine, do you use the proposition в (‘in’, usually used for countries) or на (‘on’, used for islands and regions). Ukrainians tend to want в, for the same reasons as they’d rather not have ‘the’ in the English name. Older Russians will often, so I hear, say на.
Considering the historical context. The older generation would be considered right. But now these simple names have political connotations.
Think of it as dead-naming someone.
yea, we hate it when somebody says “на Украине”. I also can’t stand when the older Russian generation says “Малороссия” (the smaller Russia) instead of Украина (Ukraine), it’s just so annoying and it’s almost like denying Ukraine’s independence and it just insults any Ukrainian
@@user-xq8ej1cz3n you're making stuff up my friend. I've never heard anybody say "Malorossiya" in modern context. Malorossiya was during Yekatherine time. Doubt that people who lived during the time are still alive. If they try to insult the Ukraine they use the word "Khokhlyandiya". So stop playing the victim.
Same thing in Polish, "na" and "w".
I don't know the rule, or if there is any rule, but there are some countries wehre we say "na" (na Węgrzech [in Hungary], na Ukrainie), and most where we say "w" (w Polsce, w Rosji).
Ukrainians tend to dislike the "na", which we just say out of habit.
@@kensukefan47 Are they "playing the victim" now?
there is a Bollywood movie, where the protagonist who's not well educated and cannot speak English. literally this was one dialogue, one question she asks
English Vinglish and Sridevi 🙂
@@dwarasamudra8889 you know people would ask if they wanted to know
What movwi
@@racket753 the first5 reply already mentioned it, but it's called English Vinglish
These replies are actually pretty funny
The Federated States of Micronesia fits both categories in group one.
As a Seychellois it’s strange cause we would say I’m going to ‘Seychelles’ but we then would say I’m from ‘The Seychelles’ but that would be the only instance (that I’m aware) where we use ‘The’ in the name
But do you always capitalise the "T" in the "the"?
@@MyRackley I wouldn’t no
Do you pronounce the s at the end of Seychelles when saying it in English? I always thought it was silent.
In spanish, Peru is sometimes still refer as El Peru ("El" being either "The" or "Him" in spanish), and its official spanish name translates Republic of The Peru. It dates back to the spanish empire, when The Peru was a place filled with minerals. In english, The Peru is never used.
Do you know why we call Canada "El Canada"?
In Spanish the official name of Peru is República del Perú, the word "del" is the fussion of de+el(of+the), for that reason the short name is el Perú, the origin of the prefix "de" is from the spanish conquer of the Americas, the Spanish called "El Perú" to all the lands south of Panama, later was called "Virreynato del Perú" and finally "República del Perú"
And even in English, we say "El Salvador"!
And most people are completely forgetting about the most obvious one... El Salvador. Ok it’s technically Spanish but it still counts imo
"El" translates to "the", but definitely not to "him".
It is "él" with an accent that means "he" or "him". They're similar, but completely different words.
So weird to think about these definite article rules that I follow naturally without every having considered
It's called prosody. We just know what sounds well when speaking and that's it.🤷♂️
When I was kid we used say The Sudan, but I haven't heard that as much over the last few years.
Me too!!!!!!!!
I am 16, and I still hear both of them being used. Sometimes, it's "Sudan", other times "the Sudan", still other times "Republic of the Sudan".
@@Hand-in-Shot_Productions this shows the colonial dimension the video is forgetting to mention, als explains the Argentine, since the English were so dominant in trading in the 19th century there..
I'm Australian, and only found out when I was about 14, that the official name of Australia is ~ The Commonwealth of Australia ~
Yeah, i forgot we had that! #Australia.
In Spanish, we also use articles for a lot of nations, specially in South America, where we talk about "el Perú", "el Uruguay " or "la Argentina" as you mentioned. I'm not sure why, but I do know that Uruguay was given that name because it was east of the Uruguay River, so its full official name is "The Republic East of the Uruguay" or something like that.
The name would be “The Oriental (or Eastern) Republic of the Uruguay.” (In this case, the Spanish contraction of “del” would be translated as “of the.” And you are right, throughout Latin America we refer to several countries with the article “el or la”: el Uruguay, el Perú, la Argentina... and there’s El Salvador, which already has the article as part of its official name.
@@jmannysantiago si, era Este, me confundí, gracias por la corrección
For some reason Canada can also get that treatment as I've noticed sometimes a sentence being written like “…del Canadá…”, but it seems nowadays it's rare when referring to that country.
@@jmannysantiago
I've never been a fan of the English translation for it's official name, I prefer what the original post says, the “Republic East of the Uruguay”.
In Spanish the official name of Peru is República del Perú, the word "del" is the fussion of de+el(of+the), for that reason the short name is el Perú, the origin of the prefix "de" is from the spanish conquer of the Americas, the Spanish called "El Perú" to all the lands south of Panama, later was called "Virreynato del Perú" and finally "República del Perú"
Here in Canada, we have the Yukon, which was named after the Yukon River, and it used to be called the Yukon Territory. Now, it is just Yukon, officially. The Gambia was also named after the Gambia River, so it's like they just dropped river from the name. However, if one were to say "the Colorado," "the Arkansas," or "the Mississippi," most people would assume the rivers, not the states.
As Argentinian I can confirm that, actually it’s used until today in “La Argentina”
Land of silver.
Growing up in Australia, I learnt it as “the Argentine”, but nowadays it is referred to as Argentina. It’s interesting to know that Argentinians call it “La Argentine” and that what I was taught was correct.
Awesome voice. Interesting content when I’m awake, comforting cadence when I’m sleepy💙
In italian determinative articles are used before countries. However when you mentioned "the argentine" it reminded me of the form "the + denonym" to indicate an area. So for example "the Roman" (il romano) is the area around Rome or "the Apulian" (il pugliese) is the area around the region of Apulia, however it is not generally used with countries, like your example: "the argentine"
Three others you don't mention are the Sudan, the Lebanon and the Yemen. El Salvador incorporates the Spanish definite article in its name, even in English. There are also sub-national regions which include the Punjab in India, the Algarve in Portugal, the Yucatan in Mexico, the Yukon in Canada, the Languedoc in France, and doubtless many others throughout the world.
Legit 2 years late lmao but Sudan is the only one of those that does have a "the" to my knowledge, and that's because its name is a descriptive in Arabic. El Salvador is named after Jesus, who is the definitive messiah (savior/salvador) to the Christians that named it. Naming it just Salvador would ambiguate the meaning
Similar to St. Vincent and The Grenadines, the full name of the smallest U.S. state is Rhode Island and The Providence Plantations.
Que the PC police!!!! It's just Rhode Island lol. None of that Plantations part, please.
@@rfe8nn2 my bad, but it's been less than the last 6 months over the nearly 250 years of statehood that they dropped the Providence Plantations.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island
@@spddiesel Don't worry I being Sarcastic on the issue.
@@spddiesel I would of kept the name and.
@@rfe8nn2 made me look it up and amend my knowledge on the subject. It was pretty quiet news tho when it happened.
Until recently, I thought that French was easy in this regard since the definite articles are used for all countries. Even the gender of the countries was easy to determine (uncharacteristically for French!) because almost all the countries ending in E are feminine and the rest are masculine and/or plural (there are a few exceptions like “Le Mexique” but it’s quite reliable as a rule).
And then a few months ago I got my students to do a project on French-speaking countries of the world.
I found out that rarely, some countries don’t have a definite article! Countries like Monaco and Singapore don’t have one, but that makes sense since they’re city-states and cities don’t generally have articles in French. Some smaller nations named after islands don’t have one, like São Tomé and Príncipe, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint-Martin, Cuba, and so on, but many others still do. And then there are other countries like Djibouti, which only has 54% of its population living in its capital, so it’s not a city-state, and it’s not on an island either. Oman and Israel are other outliers. I can’t figure out why those countries don’t have one.
So there you go: leave it to French to upset the one thing that made sense in their language. 😂
The Hague is a city whose English-language name starts with "The." That's so rare that lots of people assume it's just the name of the building where the World Court is or something.
Not just English. In Dutch it's Den Haag. Also in New York we have the Bronx, which always takes a definite article even through the other boroughs (e.g. Manhattan or Brooklyn) don't.
Le Havre in France is another one that confused the heck outta me. What's a Havre and why is this one so important xD
@@stevenhochhauser3709 Den Haag used to be called "der Haag" in German, but nowadays we just use the Dutch name.
Indonesians use "Den Haag"
"I can say The Bahamas but not The India"
*laughs in Spanish*
Not exactly a country, but one of the territories of Canada is called the Yukon. The only other region to get the definite article is the Northwest Territories, but that one fits into both the descriptive name and plural category, but not the Yukon. Even better, the most common nickname for the Yukon (and possible region, though it's boundaaries are unclear) is the Klondike. Again, with the definite article infront.
Signed up to Patreon, felt guilty consuming your content and not giving a euro a month. Great channel. Keep up the good work.
The distinction of using a country's name in a sentence versus as a label is an important one. If a representative of every country got together and had to wear a nametag with the name of their respective countries(aka the UN), a person representing the United States would have "United States of America", on his or her nametag, while someone from The Gambia would have "The Gambia". This is something I thought the video would touch on, but it didn't.
Formula 1 used to have a Argentine Grand Prix. The late great Murray Walker often referred to Argentina as The Argentine into the 1990s.
The Matterhorn is a single mountain
I call my junk "The Horn That Matters". Ijs
The Congo refers to the river, but also used to refer to the region (now comprised of two Congos). Other multinational regions with the definite article include the Levant, the Maghreb, the Sahel, and even the Middle East and the vague and outmoded the Orient. Collectively, I've heard references to the Guianas, as there were originally five separate colonies sharing that name.
Do people say the Ukraine? I've never heard it
same
Its an old fashioned name for that region of the Soviet Union. Ukrainians don't really like it when their country is called the Ukraine. So older people are more likely to say the Ukraine.
One of my teachers, who was on her last year before retirement, used it that way. It was the only time I've ever heard it spoken in English.
6:23 In Dutch, we use “Nederland”, which is singular with no article.
Same goes at the Filipino, We Use “Pilipinas“ same goes at Spanish
Canada was once officially called "The Dominion of Canada".
Pretty much every country has a long-form name
In some ways, it kind of still technically is, but isn't used much. For more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Canada#Use_of_Canada_and_Dominion_of_Canada
A lot of Spanish names also keep “El”, like other have pointed out, like in “El Peru” and “El Salvador”, which is the latter’s official name even in English. Also, it’s still coming in Spanish to refer to the state of Florida in the U.S. as “La Florida”, it’s original Spanish name, meaning “The Florid One” or florid region.
in spanish a lot more of countries were named with an article in the past, now usually we don't use that. For example, la China, el Japón, el Perú, la India (still used)... However, I never heard of Ukraine or Gambia being called with an article in Spanish. Curious!
nice video btw
El Salvador is the only country to use the particle "The" in Spanish, and the only one to retain it in almost any language. In Spanish, "the" in the name is rare. While in English its official name is "The United Mexican States", in Spanish it doesn't retain "The": "Estados Unidos Mexicanos". The only one to keep it is the United States: "Los Estados Unidos". And a few others like The Emirates and UK keep it, but it really is rare. Almost the same rule as English applies for bodies of water: "El Pacifico", "El Rio Grande", "El Amazona". But lakes do get "the" sometimes: "El lago Titicaca".
I find the name “El Salvador” fascinating! Even in English, it’s always been “El Salvador”, and not directly translated to “The Saviour”.
It should be pointed out, however, that beyond El Salvador, in Spanish the definite article is oftentimes used for certain countries although it’s discretionary. For example, La Argentina, El Perú, El Líbano, La Guyana, El Japón, La China, La India, El Congo, Las Bermudas, etc. Moreover, some cities must mandatorily use the definite article, for example, La Habana, El Cairo, and others. The logic pretty much follows that of English but in Spanish, as in other Romance languages, history and tradition also play a significant role.
Peru actually has a "The" like "Republica del Perú" where del = de + el bc it used to delimitate a region called "El Perú"
In the Philippines some of us calls the United States "Estados Unidos" without the article
@@SM-ky6pb in Argentina we call them just United States too, without the article. Using the article for the USA sounds extremely formal, but one wouldn't even use it in formal situations because it also sounds dated
The use of the definite article in country names is surprisingly similar in Spanish. The main differences are Ukraine and Gambia (without article) and the fact that Argentine, Brazil and Peru (and other countries where the article is historical) are sometimes used with an article before.
I don't think I've ever called it "the Ukraine," it's always been "Ukraine" to me.
You must be young
... older people like me remember using the Ukraine
@@UlisesHeureaux here is the joke.
Pojęcie Ukrainy, ukrain równoznaczne było najczęściej z pojęciem pogranicza państwowego. Były tedy ukrainy tatarskie, moskiewskie, litewskie, polskie, a nawet w samej Rzptej polskiej (...) były różne "ukrainy" czyli krańce państwowe Por. Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński, Nazwa Ukrainy: jej początek i charakter, "Ruś", 1911, z. 1
There were numerous ukraines. Ukraines of tatar hordes, of russian Tsardom, of Lithuania, of Poland. The word "ukraine itself" literally means borderland in older polish language.
@@user-xw5xo3bv1n What in tarnation is this? I don't speak or read Polish, dude.
@@UlisesHeureaux you can send this to any auto-translator so and read. This is quote from some polish book or atricle from 1911 written by historican named Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński. He says that ukraine is synonimous to pogranice - borderland. And that there were numerous ukraines (borderlands) of various states.
I've always called it "Ukraine" as well. Then one of my teachers called "The Ukraine". Tbh, it doesn't make grammatical sense to me.
I think that that "the Seychelles" makes more sense for English speakers because it sounds plural (maybe folk etymology is at work here?)
But in French, it'd probably use a singular "le/la"
Hello, in French we definitely say "les Seychelles", the reason is because it is an archipelago, so we mean "the islands of Seychelles" and we just say it shorter, same for "les iles Marquises", "les Philippines", "les Kerguelen" or "les Antilles" (perhaps same reason in English ?). On the other hand, an isolated island will have a singular article, such as "la Réunion" or "la Martinique". Anyway, in French we put a lot of articles before country names : l'Allemagne, les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, la Russie, l'Ukraine, le Maroc, la Chine, la Norvège... it is rare to have a country name without an article in French, if any. So French is not making such a difference, as I discover it is in English.
I've just realized how good it is to have a definite article of a single letter.
I mean look at 0:27, in hungarian we have 'A' and it's just perfectly fits in those texts
Ukraine, not the Ukraine. This one drives me absolutely nuts when I hear it.
Same
they both work
@@proudtitanicdenier4300 nope they don't. Unless you don't care about respecting a group of people.
@@EliEli-vf4yy i am literally from rivne ukraine you dolt brain
@@proudtitanicdenier4300 I'm literally from Kyiv and telling you "the" is wrong because the official name doesn't have it and way too many don't like it. Also how was I supposed to know that you're from Rivne!?
Have you done a video about the "types" of countries/states? Such as "Republic", "Islamic Republic", "Kingdom"...um..."Bailiwick" ;) Be interesting to hear about those.
omg yaaasss. unique ones would be the "Plurinational State of Bolivia", and the "Co-operative Republic of Guyana"
The I Love Man
Democratic republic of Congo 😳
@@crkcrk702 Democratic Republic of North Korea. I think only two nouns in that name are true.
Fun fact about The Bahamas. We are a archipelago of archipelagos so that means we have other island groups that uses "The" as well. "The Abacos" and "The Exumas" are the best examples.
I'm thinking about Spanish... and I believe definite articles are much more common. Since you mentioned "The Argentine", "La Argentina" is as correct and used as plain old "Argentina". The same can be said about "El Uruguay", "El Brasil", "La India", "La China", "El Japón", "El Ecuador" and many more.
same in French, "L'Uruguay", "Le Brazil", "L'Inde", "La Chine", "Le Japon", "L'Équateur"
So ready for this vid as this a question I have asked many times! 😂
On rivers, I would say that they get the definite article because you can think of them as made up of all of their different sections of rivers. Lakes usually have one big intermixed ecology and economy. On the other hand river ecology and economy can change a lot along its length. Oceans and seas are similar to rivers, their ecology and economy vary a ton over their area and coast lines.
This video cleared up so much confusion I've had for most of my life! I've been bugged by "The" being part of place names ever since I was a little kid. As a young child, I especially used to be baffled by "The Hague" and "The Netherlands" and "The Philippines."
You should do a video explaining why some countries have different names in English than they natively do (Japan and Germany spring to mind)
In the UK many roads do get definite articles, the M1, the A1, the Great North Road, the Ringroad, etc.
This is true - I live just off the B269. If I want to go south I may use The Godstone Road (the A22) or The Brighton Road (the A23). It would be unnatural to refer to them as Godstone Road or Brighton Road.
thank you SO MUCH for thud one! it's been bugging me for so long!!!!
@5:26 ...it gets even more complicated, when we consider THE names of countries in their native language,
or even, THE neighbors, and/or depending on their "ancestor"/previous state / union / commonwealth / ...
( but I know, even the THE title of THE video tells me, that it is about THE English naming of countries )
Greetings from Slovenia (the only country that has LOVE in it('s name)). Each language is weird (in it's own way)~
When I was at school in the 80s we learnt that countries ending in the phoneme /n/ were given the definite article: The Argentine, The Yemen, The Lebanon, The Sudan, The Ukraine etc.
Interesting!
Good point. The Japan mentioned in the movie Shogun
In The Netherlands, the sentence "I'm going to lowlands" makes a lot of sense though
Oh yeah! Love it when a youtube video gets stuff correct, like your Ìsle of Man comments. Nice work!
Umm, I sorry Patrick, but there is one huge mistake in the video.
The word "Ukraine" preceeds the Soviet Union by about 700 years.
The word was used to describe the borderlands of the Golden Horde. Not Soviet Union. Like litteraly Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Shakespeare, used word in his works all throughout his life (1814-1861)
being Ukrainian I thought of it like this: the name Ukraine can also be interpreted as "In country" because україна can be split into у and країна meaning In and country respectively.
Why do we say Lake Ontario but Bear Lake? Can you make a video on this?
"Bear" is an adjective in this context...
So is "Superior", but we still say "Lake Superior". Also, "Seneca" is not and adjective but we say "Seneca Lake"
I would assume it's due to the language of origin, since Germanic languages put the adjective before the noun and Romance languages after.
but they are both English
In N. Indiana, we have both Pleasant Lake, and Lake Pleasant. Many people mix them up.
French uses the article with countries that English doesn't, including la France.
In both French and Spanish, some prepositions contract with some forms of the definite article. In Spanish, this does not happen when the article is part of a geographic proper name (El misionero fue a El Salvador para predicar al Salvador), but in French, it does.
An interesting one I’ve noticed with American cities is we may include a definite article if the name and article are both borrowed from another language, particularly Spanish (Las Vegas, La Quinta, Los Angeles, El Paso) but we’d never precede a city name with an English “The”. (although we do have the NYC borough of The Bronx)
Lebanon used to be referred to as The Lebanon, meaning “The White (Land), and also, The Levant, an old name for the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, from French, meaning The Rising (of the Sun).
I'm not to sure if you know this, but the areas of tye easteen shores of the Mediterranean Sea is still called "The Levant". It is by no means old.
The funny thing is that in french some cities actually do get a definite article, for example, cairo is called the Cairo (le Caire). I could never figure out why tho...
Poor Patrick has enough to worry about with just English names, without having to worry about other languages (which he doesn’t speak).... but the answer to your question is a simple one.
The Arabic name for Cairo is Al-Qāhirah, meaning The Victorious (one)... I guess you could say it shares its name with the capital of British Columbia, Victoria. Since the definite article (al) is present in the Arabic name, it was directly translated into French as Le Caïre. A lot of Arabic proper names include the definite article, but not all of them, when translated into French, include the article. But Cairo, being a large and significant city, once governed by the French, claims this special honour. Algiers, capital of Algeria, is known in French as Alger. Since the Arabic definite article, al, is already present in the name (Al-Jazā’ir, meaning The Islands), including the French definite article would be tautological.
I do know of some places that use "the" before streets. People in Western New York and California (and probably some other areas of America) put "the" before the numbers of numbered highways. They'll talk about "driving on the 90" or "taking the 1" to places.
Others have already brought up The Hague and The Bronx as examples of cities that do get "The", and there are streets that do as well. In London alone, for example there is:
The Oaks
The Orchard
The Old Orchard
The Oval
(and that's just the Os . There appear to be over 400 of them. In LONDON.)
The Federated States of Micronesia fits into category 1.2 despite being an archipelago.
In non-English-speaking countries, a lot of towns take the definite article, yet for some reason I can't think of any in an English-speaking country.
The Bronx
It’s weird because I’m Filipino/Tagalog our closest equivalent to “The” is Ang but they very in uses and you don’t always have to put Ang before Pilipinas (The Philippines) in fact, almost all countries have an Ang when they start in the sentence but they may not have an Ang if you use them in other ways
I assume Portugal doesn't have the Ang prefix thingy? I mean, no one calls Portugal "The Portugal", not even in Romance languages.
@@GumSkyloard its only limited to us filipinos
bitin kasi kapag walang THE sa PHILIPPINES 🇵🇭
As somebody already mentioned in the comments, there are several other countries in Latin America that use the definite article, at least in their official names. "La" Argentina is very seldom used, although it's historically the correct official way, because "argentina" it's actually not a noun but an adjective. The noun is "República". What república? -- "The Argentine one", the silver one. Other names that come to mind are "El Ecuador", since it refers to a thing, no matter how imaginary: the equator. Also "el Perú", already mentioned in the comments, and others. As I said those articles are more often than not dropped nowadays.
11:20 In Norwegian, it is "Seychellene".
Plural definite form of (theoretical) "Seychell" (but never using another form); using plural definite ending "-ene" (we have different ending for definite and general, no definite article.)
That is consistent with using the English definite article "the" and plural ending "-s"
Organising international festivals in Thailand, where plural forms and articles aren't used in the native language, I can't tell you how many times I've had to say, "It's THE Philippines!" or, "THE NetherlandS, not just Netherland!" and still see it printed wrong when we get to the festival. I need a drink now...
The same applies for Chinese. No articles. At least you don't have signs that get translated into "translate server error". It was a real sign outside a restaurant in Mainland China.
Wasn't Sudan historically called "The Sudan"? Also, Spanish has its own separate list of countries that use the definite article ("El"). I remember in Spanish class years ago learning about the "PUPE" countries in Latin America that used "El" - El Panama, El Uruguay, El Paraguay, and El Ecuador.
the British used "The Sudan", "The Khyber", "The Ukraine". The rest of the world, not so much
Native Spanish speaker. I've never heard of El Panamá. To me it's just Panamá. Another countries that use "el" are Peru (really common, Peruvians always say el Perú), Brazil and ofcourse Argentina with "la".
Also, opposite to the video, in Spanish we can say "la India".
@@julianbeltran4200 That was it! Peru, not Panama. I did not know that Brazil used "El."
@@EnigmaticLucas yes, it does, el is an arcticle. The only exception is El Salvador. E.g. República de El Salvador, República del Paraguay, República Oriental del Uruguay.
I’ve always been confused bc I’m from Maldives and I’ve seen a lot of ppl from other countries call it The Maldives 😃
"towns/cities don't get a definite article" *watches from The Hague*
At 10:15 you say that Cities dont use a 'the', but that reminded me of "the Hague", which is a city in the netherlands
I have no idea why it uses that definite article tho ^^'
@@MyRackley Las Vegas, Le Havre, Le Mans
Den Haag in Dutch
I’m surprised he called it “The Ivory Coast” because I would’ve assumed using what they want everyone to call them as just, “Cote d’Ivoire”
Officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire
Yeah but, in the and that (d’) is also a definite article
@@dayman7136 de is not a definite article .. and (d') basically means "of" in this context.
@@organicstorm still descriptive tho
I learned the phrase "The Argentine" from Carol Burnett singing to Daddy Warbucks in the movie Annie. :)
I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed this.
The theory that Ukraine means Borderlands is only one of theories. This theory of course was propelled by Russian nationalists. It could be derived also from meaning “the land that has definite borders” or “land inside the borders” aka Motherland.
It is not a theory, lul. It's fact. That is how poles called their borderland. Ukraina, ugranicze, pogranicze. Different variants of the very same word. Ukrainian nationalists claim that it means "Land inside the borders" because on some medieval maps on latin langugage it was called Vkraina, but the joke... the joke is that there was no letter U in latin language at all, only V. So this "Vkraina" on maps is the very same "Ukraina" with latin stylization. The very same polish borderland.
I know that Ukrainians see Russian nationalists in everywere but think about it for a sec. Ukraine and Okraina are pretty similar words.
@@kensukefan47 Obviously if you measuring in Russian, and not in the original language of the name wich is Ukrainian, it has completely different meaning, it's like asking what does Глеб mean not from you but from your neighbor next door
@@user-xw5xo3bv1n Interesting) Do you have any proof?
@@kensukefan47 True. But it is also close to Kray (Territory)
Ah, now that line from the musical "Annie" makes more sense. The matron of the orphanage sings about going to "The Argentine".
The actual name of the country is The Argentine Republic, at some point, for some reason, people stopped using argentine as an adjective. As an Argentine I do prefer The Argentine Republic as the translation of our nation.
I'm from the Philippines and this is in the back of my mind ever since I learned English, so thanks
Te be fair, "I''m going to Lowlands" would actually make sense in The Netherlands considering that's how they named a festival. And also today I realized where they got their name.
I'm chilean (So next to Argentina and Peru) and specially old people still say 'La Argentina' (femenine definite article) and 'El Perú' (masculine definite article) really don't know why, but it happens
"El Perú" viene del nombre oficial del país "República del Perú" la palabra del es la combinación de las palabras de+el, y antes de la independencia era conocido como el Virreynato del Perú, probablemente porque los conquistadores llamaron al inicio El Perú a todas las tierras al sur de Panamá y el nombre se quedó hasta nuestros días.
Hi! I'm from Uruguay, I'm writing in English as it would be understandable for more people. It's "La Argentina", with the article, because "argentina" it's an adjective (meaning "made of silver"), so it's "La (República) Argentina". Here we even mock them because when they say it they usually make the "a" sound quite long, like "Laaaaaargentina".
@@gchocca jajajajaj muy cierto que lo hacen una palabra 'LARGENTINA'
I saw the thumbnail and instantly said "ohnonono my boy is gonna get shredded- I have to save him"
7:50 in spanish it can either be called Argentina or La Argentina (with the article), i think it fits the descriptive names category since it meant silvery
10:10 I think there’s actually a lake in Mammoth Lakes CA called a the Twin Lakes. Could be wrong though.
Maybe The Argentine has that name because in Spanish it means ' the one of silver' . Argent is the Latin form for Silver
Also because it used to be The Provinces of Rio de la Plata" and rivers take an article and La Plata = silver
It's because Argentina has never been a noun, but an adjective, its name is the Argentine Republic. In Spanish, Argentina is the female form of the adjective, not an actual noun.
@@CorvusLeukos amazing! Good to know!
Interesting Video Essay, I'm watching from the Philippines,
or República de las Filipinas/Las Islas Filipinas in Spanish.
Very informative 👍.
You mentioned mountain ranges and mountains. I believe there's a mountain with the definite article, the Matterhorn.