Most of the US is under the “wine-whine” merger, where the two sounds are exactly the same (about 83% of the US and Canada, according to Wikipedia.) We were, actually, taught the /hw/ pronunciation here in Chicago in grammar school, but I’ve never heard it outside that context except for parts of the south. Literally almost nobody speaks like that around here (and most of the US).
The reason why Tim Horton’s, er, Tim Hortons does not have an apostrophe is because of the language laws in Canada. Quebec told them that if their name had an apostrophe, it was clearly an English word, so they’d have to have a French version on their signage as well (“de Tim Horton”?) which was absurd, so they just dropped the apostrophe and now it’s not necessarily English so they don’t have to translate it into French. I assume they aren’t the only business that this has happened to, but I wouldn’t be surprised that most of the time the apostrophe is dropped more out of ignorance.
I was going to finish by mentioning that Sears originally had an apostrophe, but I figured I should make sure of that before posting it, and it seems that the source that I got that tidbit of knowledge from made it up to make the 1890s setting of their game feel older by supposedly having an “original” spelling of Sears on their catalog. The guy’s name itself was actually Sears.
My understanding is that the definite article was only used by Russians when speaking English, hence my qualifier.
I believe it’s been shown that Stewie does it intentionally. I haven’t watched the show in a long time, but I remember Brian catching him using it for words that don’t start with “wh,” and leaving it out when it doesn’t.
In fact, on the TNG episode, Stewie clearly says Whil Wheaton, and Patrick Stewart even calls him out. He even says “wheat” as “weet.”
Russians speaking English said it that way, because native English speakers said it that way.
I don’t see any reason to assume that. Why would native English speakers spontaneously put a definite article in front of a proper name? It only makes sense if one knows that “Ukraine” means “borderlands.”
No, I very much suspect that the English use reflects the Russian. There are apparently two different prepositions на and в (na and v in Ukrainian). The first is used in front of regions, and is usually translated “in the”, while the other is used in front of countries, and is translated just “in.”
Maybe they have spent a lot of time in the Gambia, the Ivory Coast, the Sudan, the Congo, the Central African Republic, and the Midlands?
As opposed to the Ukrainian? Are we to assume most English speakers are fluent in one or both of these languages? Even in the case of these English speakers fluent in Russian, however,
Those are indeed prepositions (“na” + locative means something like “on”; note that Russian and Ukrainian differ somewhat in the use of grammatical cases and prepositions) and have nothing to do with definite articles. @RivkahChaya is correct that Russian has no definite or indefinite articles.
Why would I pronounce wh as hw? Why would anybody pronounce it that way? It’s backwards. If you want it said that way, then spell it that way.
It has been; e.g. (skimming the dictionary)
Hwæt wilt þu þæt ic þe do?
Hwat is þis þe astihȝð alse dai rieme?