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This is plainly not true. As a Polish native speaker I could observe the same old custom of relating to Ukraine/Belarus/Lithuania as a territory by using simila

by alkyon 4y ago

This is plainly not true. As a Polish native speaker I could observe the same old custom of relating to Ukraine/Belarus/Lithuania as a territory by using similar preposition "na" in Polish. And yes, we also use "na" for islands (Cuba, Manhattan) but it's still deprecating. What happened when your country invaded Ukraine was that practically from Day 1, everyone in Poland switched to "w Ukrainie" - a preposition used normally for the country. Edit: "w Ukrainie" instead of "w" to make it more clear what I mean

azangru 4y ago
> This is plainly not true. Which part isn't true? There's an online corpus of the Russian language [0], whose entries of usage of the word Urkaine date back to the 17th century — you can easily see which preposition that word took throughout centuries. If you search through books on Russian grammar on Google Books, you will find examples specifically prescribing the preposition "на" throughout the 20th century. The whole controversy about the preposition started somewhere around the year 2000, and quickly became political. For a disinterested Russian, who is not into politics, "на" would be a natural preposition to use with this word simply because he would have encountered it in classical literature, in the movies, or on TV. It was semantically charged only for those who were aware of the debate. The response from the linguists used to be that if Ukraine wants to use the preposition "в", it is free to do so for the Russian language spoken on its territory; but that it should have no say on how a language is used in another country. I understand that in the recent years the usage of this preposition has become a political shibboleth; but I am not speaking about it from a political angle. My points are that the usage of this preposition, with this word, in Russian, is 1) historical, and 2) to those who aren't making a political statement, semantically neutral (i.e. it does not, in itself, connote derision, imperial ambitions, or anything of the kind). I have not made any claims about the Polish language (other than that, to my knowledge, it doesn't have articles). [0] - https://ruscorpora.ru/ https://ruscorpora.ru/
- alkyon 4y ago
  It's not the question of grammar but semantics. Wrong grammar is when you put the verb before the subject in English. The grammar does not decide whether you say "on a call" or "in a call". Wrong grammar would be if you used an incorrect case after the preposition, but the very choice of it involves the speaker and what semantics or meaning is meant by them. Okay - you would find "NA" in the Russian corpus from the 17th century - but it is totally meaningless because East Ukraine was annexed in 17th century by Russia. I would have bet that this particular preposition was preferred. I don't think any books on Russian grammar recommend a specific preposition - most likely you meant some stylistic compendium, but the style is something more subjective and even political in nature, isn't it? In a nutshell, it's not a grammatical or historical thing, it's just shameless linguistical colonialism in its purest form.

by alkyon 4y ago

azangru 4y ago

> This is plainly not true. Which part isn't true? There's an online corpus of the Russian language [0], whose entries of usage of the word Urkaine date back to the 17th century — you can easily see which preposition that word took throughout centuries. If you search through books on Russian grammar on Google Books, you will find examples specifically prescribing the preposition "на" throughout the 20th century. The whole controversy about the preposition started somewhere around the year 2000, and quickly became political. For a disinterested Russian, who is not into politics, "на" would be a natural preposition to use with this word simply because he would have encountered it in classical literature, in the movies, or on TV. It was semantically charged only for those who were aware of the debate. The response from the linguists used to be that if Ukraine wants to use the preposition "в", it is free to do so for the Russian language spoken on its territory; but that it should have no say on how a language is used in another country. I understand that in the recent years the usage of this preposition has become a political shibboleth; but I am not speaking about it from a political angle. My points are that the usage of this preposition, with this word, in Russian, is 1) historical, and 2) to those who aren't making a political statement, semantically neutral (i.e. it does not, in itself, connote derision, imperial ambitions, or anything of the kind). I have not made any claims about the Polish language (other than that, to my knowledge, it doesn't have articles). [0] - https://ruscorpora.ru/ https://ruscorpora.ru/

alkyon 4y ago
It's not the question of grammar but semantics. Wrong grammar is when you put the verb before the subject in English. The grammar does not decide whether you say "on a call" or "in a call". Wrong grammar would be if you used an incorrect case after the preposition, but the very choice of it involves the speaker and what semantics or meaning is meant by them. Okay - you would find "NA" in the Russian corpus from the 17th century - but it is totally meaningless because East Ukraine was annexed in 17th century by Russia. I would have bet that this particular preposition was preferred. I don't think any books on Russian grammar recommend a specific preposition - most likely you meant some stylistic compendium, but the style is something more subjective and even political in nature, isn't it? In a nutshell, it's not a grammatical or historical thing, it's just shameless linguistical colonialism in its purest form.