Fin da quando è slava l’Ucraina?

Herodotus’ first mention of Dnepr/ Dnipró, Βορυσθένης, is a transparent compound (in Pre-Proto-Balto-Slavonic phonology) with typical East Slavonic lexemes; its borrowing into Greek, as well as of Βουδῖνοι (a people East of the Don), is of Pre-Scythian date. Ῥᾶ (Greek name of the Volga, from Scythian) < Proto-Indo-Iranian *Răsā́ (possibly mentioned in the Vēdas) is an isogloss between Slavonic and Indo-Iranian of Proto-Indo-European antiquity (*h₁rŏs-ắ‧hₐ ‘moistness’ > Russian роса ‘dew’). Stress alternation in the name of Ukraine (Ukrájna / Ukrajína) is due to the presence / absence of a Proto-Indo-European laryngeal phoneme as a consequence of suffix variation; stress retraction in Černóbyl’ vs. černobýl’ ‘mugwort, wormwood’ is best explained if ascribed, as a possessive word-formation strategy, to Proto-Indo-European. (+ 24 more etymologies.)