Why Do Some Country Names Start With The?

support name explained on patreon for ad-free videos exclusive podcasts and blog posts and to help choose what names get explained click the link in the description if you ever want to make a noun sound more legitimate and important there is one simple way in which you can do that and that's by adding one simple word to the start of the noun that being the all-important word of the which yes i know thanks my speech impediment i can't say properly tell me that's like speaking down below if it helps you sleep at night anyway while we use the word the in multiple ways across the english language one specific way in which we use it has its own name that name being the definite article the definite article is when we use the word the to define something specific among many things a great example is with the dick dusterly spin-off series he wasn't trying to catch a pigeon he was trying to catch the pigeon also the show was actually called dustly and muddling their flying machines not catch the pigeon as i and many others thought it wasn't their childhood shocking i know tangent aside this shows us just how the definite article can elevate a noun in a sentence and give it more credence and importance the definite article can be used in a variety of ways some of the nations on our planet get one with some being more well known of than others however not every country is allowed a deafness article i'm allowed to say bahamas but not the india likewise i can't just say philippines so what gives why do some countries get to use the definite article but others don't well after searching for every country that is commonly seen as containing a definite article in some form or another i found a handful of reasons as to why this is the case most nations on our planet that use the definite article can fit into a certain category i've broken these into two categories with one of these categories breaking further into two subcategories let's start that category that breaks into two subcategories countries that fit into this category are nations that are made up of a series of things we use the definite article in this case to grammatically connect this series of things together into one entity it's something of a linguistic lasso as for the subcategories for this one the first of those are countries that use the definite article that are a series of islands this is probably the most prevalent way in which the definite article appears in country names think of countries like the bahamas the philippines or the maldives these nations are all made up of multiple similar sized islands this fact is important as there are island nations we don't give the definite article to example we don't call iceland the iceland this is because iceland is primarily one large island plurals also seem to help us in deciding if we use the definite article or not as most of these island nations that use one are pluralized meaning they end with an s plus and definite articles tend to go hand in hand across english language in general in example look at dogs it make as much grammatical sense as a look at the dogs however these rules of consisting of multiple islands or ending with an s aren't very consistent in example we have indonesia a country made up of a huge amount of islands of varying sizes yet it does not use the definite article likewise we have barbados too which ends with an s but doesn't start with either also barbados is primarily one single island too it would seem a couple other interesting island names i want to point out are saint vincent and the grenadines this name has the definite article in the middle which is pretty rare especially in location names this is because the nation is formed with the large single island of saint vincent and the smaller chain of islands the grenadines it's a very interesting one that's for sure another one of interest is also the isle of man this one is a real outlier and doesn't quite fit into either of my categories the isle of man is not a plural and while it is an island it's primarily just one large island so why does it get the definite article well it's because it features another grammatical feature that being the possessive of when there's a possessive of in the name they usually get a definite article too this is seen in other geographic features too like the isle of wight or the cape of good hope the isle of man is just the only nation with possessive of however and yes it is its own nation despite what some think though not all countries that feature the definite article a series of islands however there's still a series of things subcategory 2 of category 1 but these nations are a series of certain entities a great example is with the united states of america instead of ireland being the plural and multiple of here it states so it still holds true to the formula the two other huge examples that will most likely come to mind for most people are the united kingdom and the united arab emirates the usa isn't the only country to be made up of states however most countries break down into some sort of small entity they just don't all hint towards it in their name well at least in their short names anyway this is something we've talked about in the past in way more detail but if by chance you are not familiar most countries actually have two names these two names are their short name and their official long name some countries have the definite article in both their short and official name like the short name of the usa and the official name of the united states of america many however only have the definite article in their official long name take france an example that's the nation's short name its official name is the french republic likewise you have the short name of mexico and its official name being the united mexican states it's in these official names we find more possessive offs too such as the republic of latvia or the sultanate of oman once we delve into these not as common but nevertheless official names for countries a load more definite articles make themselves present to us with a lot of them referring to the fact that these countries are made up of multiple things whether those be states kingdoms or something else entirely so that covers category 1 but what about the aforementioned category 2 of definite article names there aren't as many of these but there are some i find highly interesting the second kind of countries that use the definite article are countries that have what i like to call descriptive names a great example of this is with the netherlands this country's name means things along the lines of the lowlands so it makes more grammatical sense to use a definite article with it it would not be grammatically correct to say something like i'm going to lowland however saying i'm going to the lowlands is correct hence why the definite article is used with the netherlands you may also notice that the netherlands is pluralized too which gives us more reason to use it unlike most other countries that end with land like finland or poland what isn't pluralized however is the ivory coast yet this name is still a descriptive one this country has this name as it does in fact have a coast and historically traded in ivory hence why it fits so neatly into this category historically other parts of west africa had descriptive coast-based names centered around what they exported which featured the definite article too we had the gold coast the pepper coast and the much more unpleasantly titled slave coast one of the most talked about definite article nations is with the ukraine calling it the ukraine it does seem strange at first as this word is not a plural nor does the ukraine at first seem like a series of things ukraine however is once again another descriptive name this is because ukraine translates into meaning borderland so calling it the borderland is much more grammatically correct than just calling it borderland however in more recent times people have started to say that we should not be using the definite article with ukraine the use of the with ukraine comes from its past ties with the soviet union in which it was quite literally the borderlands of that union now as an independent nation is no longer just a borderland but its own distinct place hence why people wish for the definite article at the start of this name to be dropped it seems that this isn't the only definite article to disappear in history i was rather surprised to hear that in the past argentina was known as the argentine in english this was a name i'd never heard of with the nation in the past it was truly surprised to see perhaps in the future some of these definite articles will disappear or maybe more will come into existence one definite article that completely bugs the trend and doesn't fit into any of my categories however is the gambia the gambia is not a collection of things nor is it a plural nor is the name descriptive so why does the gambia get that definite article well simply because they wanted one the gambi has a very similar name to another african nation zambia we have a whole video about it unsurprisingly for a long time this country was known as just gambia however many often confused gambia with zambia this understandably annoyed many people someone who was immensely annoyed by it was gambia's prime minister in 1963 sir dada ke jarawa so upset by this confusion he wrote to the united nations to formally declare that going forward his country will be known as the gambia to help differentiate it from zambia since then the gambia has become the nation's official title so it seems you could ignore grammar rules altogether and just insist that your country starts over there they can be a part of this name however comes from the river gambia that flows through the nation many countries are named after rivers that are in them and this allows us to neatly segue into other geographical features that do and don't include definite articles when we take a wider look at what kinds of things it do and don't get a definite article it gets really interesting some follow a similar pattern towards already being established with countries while others just do their own thing it also seems to be less pick and choose with our features unlike countries where some do and don't have it things either all have them or don't but i'm happy to be proven wrong on that one so let me know if i've missed anything in example all mountain ranges get definite article however no single mountains use it eg the himalayas and mount everest also chains of islands get a definite article but no single island themselves don't well unless that island has a possessive off of his own nation which kind of messes things up eg we have the dodecanese islands of greece with individual names like rhodes while these examples make some sense that logic quickly disappears when we look into the names of bodies of water lakes don't get a definite article however rivers seas and oceans do why this is the case i have no idea likewise continents streets towns and cities and states lack definite articles but points in the globe at the north pole or crater deserts and peninsulas do get definite articles attached to them cardinal directions are interesting too they can be used without definite articles when describing a route easy go north for 10 miles however they need it when being used as a location name easy i'm in the west like most things in the world of english grammar there is very little rhyme or reason one last country i want to cover is the seychelles or is it just seychelles that's why i want to cover it here this small island nation is off the coast of africa and is named after jean mauro de ceciles the 1756 french minister of finance while that's all well and good and agreed upon something that is not as agreed upon however is if this nation should get the definite article the country is made up of a series of islands and is even plural but many sources say that its shorter name is just seychelles though likewise many other sources do call it the seychelles i personally kind of lean towards the latter but where exactly do you think the definite article lands for this nation's name seychelles was suggested by ekmal socano and thanks their suggestion they will now be honored as name explains the patron saint of seychelles do you have a good idea for someone that's name could be covered in a name explained video if so then please consider donating on patreon just one dollar a month helps keep the channel running and earns you a weekly chance to suggest somewhere to be turned into a video and you too could be a name explained patreon saint thank you to all my patrons who support name explain on a monthly basis patreon is vital to name explain and donating just two dollars a month allows you to enjoy ad free videos and bonus patreon exclusive content it also allows you to help choose what names get explained in upcoming videos and get your name here with all these awesome people thank you so much for all the support you guys give a name explain thank you so much reaching the end of the video check out another video and subscribe to stay in the loop on all things name explain don't forget to follow me on instagram name explain yt and also join the facebook group friends of name explain both of which will be linked down below anyway i hope you enjoyed this video and once again thank you all so much

Channel: Name Explain

Views: 204,191

Keywords: name explain, etymology, language, word origins, ukraine, the ukraine

Id: 2wefp21i2cE

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021