Question about German usage

[Raskolnikov]

Hello,

Does anyone know why for a few countries we have to say "die"? What is special about these countries?

die Schweiz
die Slowakei
die Türkei
die Niederlande
die Ukraine
der Iran
der Irak

Thank you.

[Katya]

I haven't studied German, but for the Netherlands and the Ukraine, this is equivalent to the English usage. In Arabic there are also some countries which require a definite artical, including Iraq, but not Iran.

Based on your username, you might already know this, but Ukraine in Russian means something like "the country at the borderlands," so it is similar to when we say "the United States" or "the Netherlands." Russian doesn't have articals, but the distinction is preserved in the preposition used with Ukraine vs. most other countries. (в России, на Укаине)

NB In Russian and English it is now politically incorrect to say "the Ukraine," although this was the proper form until quite recently. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine decided that it disliked the implication that it was remote province of Russia, and I think there was some official change in the name. I would be interesting to know how recent your German list is.

My guess is that there is a general pattern where countries whose names are descriptions- such as alMaghreb (=the West) for Morocco tend to take definite articles until the name becomes sufficiently disassociated from its etymology, either through translation (i.e. alIraq in Arabic and die Irak German, but just Iraq in English) or through the evolution of the native language, that it is seen as just a name.

Sorry this is mostly my musings. I hope someone else responds, because its an interesting question. Here is an official list of country names in various languages from the UN:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/N0241147.pdf

[ldngli]

Most German country and city names are neuter nouns - with few exceptions like:

die Schweiz
die Türkei
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
der Libanon
der Irak
der Iran
die Niederlande (a plural noun)
die Sowietunion
die Vereinigten Staaten

Plural names apart, it is not easy to trace the origin of those exceptions as they are not consistent from one language to another. In my own language (Italian) Japan is masculine while most geographical names are feminine. For some (e.g. the Zambia) the gender has not settled yet, some 40 years after that country changed its name. And so far few languages have come up a single term for the Czech Republic.

What you are asking is something which requiires a lengthy philological research - or Google

[ElieDeLeuze]

For some of them, it's historical grammatical logic. Die Schweiz is the old name of a Kanton, and the meaning of it is unknown, but it's striking that it has never been used without the article.
Countries ending with -ei are normally feminin, like normal words with this originaly latin suffix are.. Historical provincies, parts of greater Empires or entities, can be neutral or masculin. There is no logic in that, it's just that very few are masculin.

[Raskolnikov]

Based on your username, you might already know this, but Ukraine in Russian means something like "the country at the borderlands," so it is similar to when we say "the United States" or "the Netherlands." Russian doesn't have articals, but the distinction is preserved in the preposition used with Ukraine vs. most other countries. (в России, на Укаине)

I don't speak Russian, but that is another question I had also. Do you know of any other instances in Russian where a country is referred to using "на" instead of "в"?

By the way, the list I have is pretty new. I wonder if Germans will have to stop saying "die Ukraine"?

[michka]

I would like to add some names to the German list.

Names with a feminine or plural “base”:
die Cookinseln acknowledged by Germany as a sovereign state
die Fidschi-Inseln
die Dominikanische Republik
die Elfenbeinküste
die Vatikanstadt
die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate

Some archipelagos:
die Bahamas
die Kapverden
die Komoren
die Malediven
die Marshallinseln
die Philippinen
die Salomonen or die Salomoninseln
die Seychellen

Some African countries, which are called the same name as the great rivers flowing through them:
der Kongo
der Niger
der Senegal
But Suriname and Paraguay (in Southamerica) are neuter nouns.

Some more feminine and masculine nouns:
die Moldau but Moldova (n.) in Switzerland
die Mongolei

der Jemen
der Sudan
der Tschad

[svernoux]

thanks Michka for the list! I see those for the first time!

By the way, the list I have is pretty new. I wonder if Germans will have to stop saying "die Ukraine"?

This is a very hot question. I have seen it discussed in Russian forum (whether they should say v Ukraine or na Ukraine). One of the alleged reasons for a change, by the way, is that they say "v Ukraine" (or similar) in Ukrainian. But as the Russian say, why should they change the way they say it in their own language (I mean russian) just because the Ukrainian say it differently?

And indeed, I agree with them. I see no reason why the German should change their own language just because the Ukrainian say so. Each people copes with it own language, and everything will be fine

[michka]

And indeed, I agree with them. I see no reason why the German should change their own language just because the Ukrainian say so. Each people copes with it own language, and everything will be fine

This is my opinion, too. Let's think about bilingual countries, like Belgium, whose name is feminine in French and neuter in Dutch... which gender should other people use in their own languages? Maybe masculine, like in Italian?