[drran]

> it literally translates to "borderland"

Can you tell us from which language you translate, please?

If you translate from Russian language, then note that Russian language was not existent when the term «Ukraine» was coined (1639). In Ukrainian and Polish languages, Ukraine means «fortified area» or «fortified country». Even Russian language has words like «укрепления» (fortifications), «укрытие» (cover) and «край» (land, area), thus meaning of word «украина» should be obvious even for Russians. However, they exchange Ukrainian word for Russian word «окраина» («outskirts», «околиця» in Ukrainian), to dismiss Ukraine as independent country.

[thaumasiotes]

> If you translate from Russian language, then note that Russian language was not existent when the term «Ukraine» was coined (1639).

You need to work on your facts. The term was coined several hundred years before 1639.

I would guess the /u/ - /o/ change happened for the same reason that the Russian word for "Russia", named after the Rus, is "Rossiya".

[drran]

> You need to work on your facts. The term was coined several hundred years before 1639.

Of course, the term «ukraine» was used for centuries before founding of Moscow, but in 17th century the set of ukraines was built on territory of former Russia (now Ukraine), so the whole territory of former Russia got name «Ukraine». From usage of the word it's easy to guess it's meaning: a land with fortification, which protects it.

> I would guess the /u/ - /o/ change happened for the same reason that the Russian word for "Russia", named after the Rus, is "Rossiya".

Rossiya is the late transcription of the word Russia to Cyrillic.

Originally, Russia meant the town of Russia (now: Old Russa, Старая Русса) or «red». In times of Justinianic plague (541–549 AD), original Russians abandoned their town and spread around large territory, between Azov sea and Spain, trying to avoid plague.

About century before that, Volyn kingdom, last kingdom of all Slavs, was broken into pieces when king Muzhyk (Brave) was captured by Greeks when he helped his brother to raid Byzantine. Russians (now Ukrainians) captured the city of Kyїv and start to rule 9 Slavic tribes in the freshly formed country. In Ukrainian, suffix -sia (-ся) means here/there/self, so it was dropped, thus the name of Russia shortened to just Rus, while keeping it original spelling at West.

When Moscow tsar Petro I captured Russia(now Ukraine), he appended «tsar of all Russia» to his title. Moscow tsar Caterina II, born in Prussia, renamed Moscow kingdom to Russian Empire and directed to return all correspondence sent to old name, so most Western countries started to call Moscow kingdom as Russia (except very few, which still know Ukraine as Russia, which is used by Russians to confuse people).

However, two Russia's created confusion in Moscow kingdom, so they refer to old one as Rus, while refer to modern one as Rossia. It has nothinh to do with «ou» to «o» (oh) and «u» (oo) transition.

It's similar to how RF captured their seat in UN: they never formally accepted into UN, so they just switched the country name on the table.

[thaumasiotes]

> Rossiya is the late transcription of the word Russia to Cyrillic.

This could be true.

> Originally, Russia meant the town of Russia (now: Old Russa, Старая Русса) or «red».

This is an ideologically-motivated delusion, more or less on the level of the Indians who are willing to claim that the Aryans were indigenous to the subcontinent while ignoring the linguistic and genetic evidence. Russia refers to the Rus in the same way that France refers to the Franks and Serbia refers to the Serbs.

[drran]

> This could be true.

It's written history. If you know Russian, just read chronicles.

> This is an ideologically-motivated delusion, more or less on the level of the Indians who are willing to claim that the Aryans were indigenous to the subcontinent while ignoring the linguistic and genetic evidence. Russia refers to the Rus in the same way that France refers to the Franks and Serbia refers to the Serbs.

Ideologically motivated delusion for Russian Empire was to be descendants of Rome Empire via Byzantine and Russia (Ukraine). No Emperor of the time wanted to draw their line from a bunch of bastards of unknown origin, which did raids on neighborhoods. The town of Russia moved up of the Russia (now Porussia) river, but it is still present on the map.

Russia is not a Slavic word, so you cannot draw such parallels. When Russians captured Kyїv (Oleg of Novgorod killed Ascold and Dir, Slavic rulers of Kyїv, in 882), Russians declared Kyїv as mother for Russian cities, but Russian were assimilated by Slavs, so they forgot their native language and started to use Slavic language, so, with time, name of their country was changed according to rules of Slavic language.