Как пишется украинская мова

Ukrainian
українська мова
Pronunciation	[ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ]
Native to	Ukraine
Region	Eastern Europe
Ethnicity	Ukrainians
Native speakers	27 million (2016)[1] L2: 5.8 million (2016)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ukrainian
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old East Slavic Ruthenian (Old Ukrainian)
Dialects	Balachka Canadian Motolian Pokuttia-Bukovina Hutsul Among others, see: Ukrainian dialects
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ukrainian alphabet) Ukrainian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine Republic of Crimea[note 1] Transnistria[note 2]
Recognised minority language in	Belarus  Bosnia and Herzegovina[2]  Croatia[2]  Czech Republic[3]  Hungary[4]  Moldova[5][6][7]  Poland[2]  Romania[2]  Serbia[2]  Slovakia[2]
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, Potebnya Institute of Language Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uk
ISO 639-2	ukr
ISO 639-3	ukr
Glottolog	ukra1253  Ukrainian
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ed < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eda to 53-AAA-edq)
The Ukrainian-speaking world:   regions where Ukrainian is the language of the majority   regions where Ukrainian is the language of a significant minority
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Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва, ukrainska mova, IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ]) is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the native language of the Ukrainians.

Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of the Cyrillic script. The standard Ukrainian language is regulated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU; particularly by its Institute for the Ukrainian Language), the Ukrainian language-information fund,^{[citation needed]} and Potebnia Institute of Linguistics. Comparisons are often drawn to Russian, another East Slavic language, but there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian.^[8][9]

Ukrainian is a descendent of Old East Slavic, a language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rus’. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the language developed into Ruthenian, where it became an official language,^[10] before a process of Polonization began in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the 18th century, Ruthenian diverged into regional variants and the modern Ukrainian language developed in the territory of present-day Ukraine.^[11][12][13] In the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian language was later banned as a subject from schools and as a language of instruction as a result of Russification.^[14] However, through folk songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors, the language maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine.^[15][16]

Linguistic development

Theories

Specifically Ukrainian developments that led to a gradual change of the Old East Slavic vowel system into the system found in modern Ukrainian began approximately in the 12th/13th century (that is, still at the time of the Kievan Rus’) with a lengthening and raising of the Old East Slavic mid vowels e and o when followed by a consonant and a weak yer vowel that would eventually disappear completely, for example Old East Slavic котъ /kɔtə/ > Ukrainian кіт /kit/ ‘cat’ (via transitional stages such as /koˑtə̆/, /kuˑt(ə̆)/, /kyˑt/ or similar) or Old East Slavic печь /pʲɛtʃʲə/ > Ukrainian піч /pitʃ/ ‘oven’ (via transitional stages such as /pʲeˑtʃʲə̆/, /pʲiˑtʃʲ/ or similar).^[17] This raising and other phonological developments of the time, such as the merger of the Old East Slavic vowel phonemes и /i/ and ы /ɨ/ into the specifically Ukrainian phoneme /ɪ ~ e/, spelled with и (in the 13th/14th centuries), and the fricativisation of the Old East Slavic consonant г /g/, probably first to /ɣ/ (in the 13th century), with the result /ɦ/ in Modern Ukrainian, never happened in Russian, and only the fricativisation of Old East Slavic г /g/ occurred in Belarusian, where the result is /ɣ/.

The first theory of the origin of the Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov. This theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus’. According to Lomonosov, the differences that subsequently developed between Great Russian and Ukrainian (which he referred to as Little Russian) could be explained by the influence of the Polish and Slovak languages on Ukrainian and the influence of Uralic languages on Russian from the 13th to the 17th centuries.^{[18][full citation needed]}

Another point of view was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by other linguists of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. But unlike Lomonosov’s hypothesis, this theory does not view «Polonization» or any other external influence as the main driving force that led to the formation of three different languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) from the common Old East Slavic language. The supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed.

Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old East Slavic to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kievan Rus’ were redrawn in the 14th century.

Some researchers, while admitting the differences between the dialects spoken by East Slavic tribes in the 10th and 11th centuries, still consider them as «regional manifestations of a common language».^{[note 3]}

In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Aleksey Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times.^[20] According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century.

Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak stated that the Old Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus’ during the 11th–12th century, but
started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus’, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way.^[21]

Some Ukrainian features^[which?] were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented.^[22]

Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky denies the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past.^[23] Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today’s Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also supported by George Shevelov’s phonological studies.^[24]

Origins and developments during medieval times

External video
The Ukrainian language in the graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv National Sanctuary «Sophia of Kyiv». YouTube

As a result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of the Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea, lasting into the early Middle Ages, the appearance of the voiced fricative γ/г (romanized «h»), in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects is explained by the assumption that it initially emerged in Scythian and related eastern Iranian dialects, from earlier common Proto-Indo-European *g and *gʰ.^[25][26][27]

During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh (roof), rura (pipe), rynok (market), kushnir (furrier), and majster (master or craftsman).^[28]

Developments under Poland and Lithuania

In the 13th century, eastern parts of Rus (including Moscow) came under Tatar rule until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy, whereas the south-western areas (including Kyiv) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the following four centuries, the languages of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of the Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century.^[29] By the 16th century, a peculiar official language formed: a mixture of the liturgical standardised language of Old Church Slavonic, Ruthenian and Polish. The influence of the latter gradually increased relative to the former two, as the nobility and rural large-landowning class, known as the szlachta, was largely Polish-speaking. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics.^[30]

Polish rule and education also involved significant exposure to the Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać) and from Latin (via Polish) raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal).^[28]

Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into the Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco).^[28]

Due to heavy borrowings from Polish, German, Czech and Latin, early modern vernacular Ukrainian (prosta mova, «simple speech») had more lexical similarity with West Slavic languages than with Russian or Church Slavonic.^[31] By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages had become so significant that there was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav, between Bohdan Khmelnytsky, head of the Zaporozhian Host, and the Russian state.^[32]

By the 18th century, Ruthenian had diverged into regional variants, developing into the modern Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian languages.^[11][12][13]

Chronology

The accepted chronology of Ukrainian divides the language into Old, Middle, and Modern Ukrainian.^[33] George Shevelov explains that much of this is based on the character of contemporary written sources, ultimately reflecting socio-historical developments, and he further subdivides the MU period with Early and Late phases.^{[34][35][36][37]}

• Proto-Ukrainian (abbreviated PU, Ukrainian: protoukrajinsʼkyj period, until the mid-11th century), with no extant written sources by speakers in Ukraine. Corresponding to aspects of Old East Slavic.
• Old Ukrainian (OU, davnʼoukrajinsʼkyj period or davnʼoukrajinsʼka mova, mid-11th to 14th c., conventional end date 1387), elements of phonology are deduced from written texts mainly in Church Slavic. Part of broader Old East Slavic.
• Middle Ukrainian (serednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period or staroukrajinsʼka mova, 15th to 18th c.), historically called Ruthenian.
  • Early Middle Ukrainian (EMU, rannʼoserednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, 15th to mid-16th c., 1387–1575), analysis focuses on distinguishing Ukrainian and Belarusian texts.
  • Middle Ukrainian (MU, serednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, mid-16th to early 18th c., 1575–1720), represented by several vernacular language varieties as well as a version of Church Slavic.
  • Late Middle Ukrainian (LMU, piznoserednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, rest of the 18th c., 1720–1818), found in many mixed Ukrainian–Russian and Russian–Ukrainian texts.
• Modern Ukrainian (MoU, from the very end of the 18th c., sučasnyj period or sučasna ukrajinsʼka mova, from 1818), the vernacular recognized first in literature, and subsequently all other written genres.

Ukraine annually marks the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language on November 9, the Eastern Orthodox feast day of Nestor the Chronicler.

History of the spoken language

Rus and Kingdom of Ruthenia

During the Khazar period, the territory of Ukraine was settled by Iranian (post-Scythian), Turkic (post-Hunnic, proto-Bulgarian), and Uralic (proto-Hungarian) tribes and Slavic tribes. Later, the Varangian ruler Oleg of Novgorod would seize Kyiv and establish the political entity of Kievan Rus’.

The era of Kyivan Rus is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as the language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Church Slavonic. Literary records from Kyivan Rus testify to substantial difference between Russian and Ruthenian form of the Ukrainian language as early as Kyivan Rus time.

Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here, calling it Old Ruthenian; others term this era Old East Slavic. Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. However, according to Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak, Novgorod people did not call themselves Rus until the 14th century, calling Rus only Kyiv, Pereiaslav and Chernihiv principalities^[21] (the Kyivan Rus state existed till 1240). At the same time as evidenced by the contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes of Kingdom of Ruthenia and Kyiv called themselves «People of Rus» – Ruthenians, and Galicia–Volhynia was called the Kingdom of Ruthenia.

Also according to Andrey Zaliznyak, the Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kyivan Rus during the 11th–12th century, but
started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kyivan Rus, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way.^[21]

Under Lithuania/Poland, Muscovy/Russia and Austro-Hungary

After the fall of Kingdom of Ruthenia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old East Slavic became the language of the chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by the Polish nobility.^[38]

Many Ukrainian nobles were forced to learn the Polish language and convert to Catholicism during that period in order to maintain their lofty aristocratic position.^[39] Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church. Most of the educational system was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish.

The Polish language has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish.^[40] As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the predecessor of the modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), founded by the Moldavian Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila, was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of the Orthodox church spoke Ruthenian.

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire and closed down later in the 19th century. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian.

During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia. The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv applied an old word for the Cossack motherland, Ukrajina, as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins’ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits.

However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools.^[14] In 1811 by the Order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. The academy had been open since 1632 and was the first university in Eastern Europe.^[41]

In 1847 the Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk. The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that «there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language».^[42]

A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II’s secret Ems Ukaz, which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores.^[43] A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia.^[44]

For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovina, where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents.^[45] The suppression by Russia hampered the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ukrainians were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the Ukrainian People’s Republic, shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved.^[16]

Speakers in the Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of the Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census’s terminology, the Russian language (Русскій) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ‘Little Russian’), what is known as Russian today (Великорусскій, ‘Great Russian’), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, ‘White Russian’).

The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language («по родному языку») in 1897 in Russian Empire governorates (guberniyas) that had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.^[46]

	Total population	Ukrainian speakers	Russian speakers	Polish speakers
Entire Russian Empire	125,640,021	22,380,551	55,667,469	7,931,307
Urban	16,828,395	1,256,387	8,825,733	1,455,527
Rural	108,811,626	21,124,164	46,841,736	6,475,780
Regions
«European Russia» incl. Ukraine & Belarus	93,442,864	20,414,866	48,558,721	1,109,934
Vistulan guberniyas	9,402,253	335,337	267,160	6,755,503
Caucasus	9,289,364	1,305,463	1,829,793	25,117
Siberia	5,758,822	223,274	4,423,803	29,177
Central Asia	7,746,718	101,611	587,992	11,576
Subdivisions
Bessarabia	1,935,412	379,698	155,774	11,696
Volyn	2,989,482	2,095,579	104,889	184,161
Voronezh	2,531,253	915,883	1,602,948	1,778
Don Host Province	2,564,238	719,655	1,712,898	3,316
Yekaterinoslav	2,113,674	1,456,369	364,974	12,365
Kyiv	3,559,229	2,819,145	209,427	68,791
Kursk	2,371,012	527,778	1,832,498	2,862
Podolia	3,018,299	2,442,819	98,984	69,156
Poltava	2,778,151	2,583,133	72,941	3,891
Taurida	1,447,790	611,121	404,463	10,112
Kharkiv	2,492,316	2,009,411	440,936	5,910
Kherson	2,733,612	1,462,039	575,375	30,894
City of Odessa	403,815	37,925	198,233	17,395
Chernihiv	2,297,854	1,526,072	495,963	3,302
Lublin	1,160,662	196,476	47,912	729,529
Sedletsk	772,146	107,785	19,613	510,621
Kuban Province	1,918,881	908,818	816,734	2,719
Stavropol	873,301	319,817	482,495	961
Brest-Litovsk district	218,432	140,561	17,759	8,515

Although in the rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odessa (then part of the Russian Empire), at the time the largest city in the territory of current Ukraine, only 5.6% of the population said Ukrainian was their native language.^[47]

Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kyiv, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.^[47]

Soviet era

During the seven-decade-long Soviet era, the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR.^[48] However, practice was often a different story:^[48] Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to de facto banishment.

Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language was the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions.^[49] Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR, and so on. However, Russian was used in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, «a language of inter-ethnic communication», was coined to denote its status.

Soviet language policy in Ukraine may be divided into the following policy periods:

• Ukrainianization and tolerance (1921–1932)
• Persecution and Russification (1933–1957)
• Khrushchev thaw (1958–1962)
• The Shelest period: limited progress (1963–1972)
• The Shcherbytsky period: gradual suppression (1973–1989)
• Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika (1990–1991)

Ukrainianization

Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire was broken up. In different parts of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a renewed sense of national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years the Ukrainian language gained some usage in government affairs. Initially, this trend continued under the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union, which in a political struggle to retain its grip over the territory had to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire. While trying to ascertain and consolidate its power, the Bolshevik government was by far more concerned about many political oppositions connected to the pre-revolutionary order than about the national movements inside the former empire, where it could always find allies.

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into a policy called korenizatsiya. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization by lifting a ban on the Ukrainian language.^{[citation needed]} That led to the introduction of an impressive education program which allowed Ukrainian-taught classes and raised the literacy of the Ukrainophone population. This policy was led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk and was directed to approximate the language to Russian.^{[citation needed]}

Newly generated academic efforts from the period of independence were co-opted by the Bolshevik government. The party and government apparatus was mostly Russian-speaking but were encouraged to learn the Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly literate ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities, which became rapidly largely Ukrainianized – in both population and in education.

The policy even reached those regions of southern Russian SFSR where the ethnic Ukrainian population was significant, particularly the areas by the Don River and especially Kuban in the North Caucasus. Ukrainian language teachers, just graduated from expanded institutions of higher education in Soviet Ukraine, were dispatched to these regions to staff newly opened Ukrainian schools or to teach Ukrainian as a second language in Russian schools. A string of local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of Ukrainian studies were opened in colleges. Overall, these policies were implemented in thirty-five raions (administrative districts) in southern Russia.

Persecution and russification

Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early 1933, with the termination of the policy of Ukrainianization. In December 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by V. Molotov and Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the Ukrainianization policies.^{[citation needed]} The telegram condemned Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded to «immediately halt Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized newspapers, books and publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the switching of schools and instruction into Russian».^{[citation needed]}

Western and most contemporary Ukrainian historians emphasize that the cultural repression was applied earlier and more fiercely in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union,^{[citation needed]} and were therefore anti-Ukrainian; others assert that Stalin’s goal was the generic crushing of any dissent, rather than targeting the Ukrainians in particular.

Stalinist policies shifted to define Russian as the language of (inter-ethnic) communication. Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in print, education, radio and later television programs), it lost its primary place in advanced learning and republic-wide media. Ukrainian was demoted to a language of secondary importance, often associated with the rise in Ukrainian self-awareness and nationalism and often branded «politically incorrect».^{[citation needed]} The new Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936, however, stipulated that teaching in schools should be conducted in native languages.

Major repression started in 1929–30, when a large group of Ukrainian intelligentsia was arrested and most were executed. In Ukrainian history, this group is often referred to as «Executed Renaissance» (Ukrainian: розстріляне відродження). «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism» was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine.^[50] The terror peaked in 1933, four to five years before the Soviet-wide «Great Purge», which, for Ukraine, was a second blow. The vast majority of leading scholars and cultural leaders of Ukraine were liquidated, as were the «Ukrainianized» and «Ukrainianizing» portions of the Communist party.

Soviet Ukraine’s autonomy was completely destroyed by the late 1930s.^{[citation needed]} In its place, the glorification of Russia as the first nation to throw off the capitalist yoke had begun,^{[citation needed]} accompanied by the migration of Russian workers into parts of Ukraine which were undergoing industrialization and mandatory instruction of classic Russian language and literature. Ideologists warned of over-glorifying Ukraine’s Cossack past,^{[citation needed]} and supported the closing of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literary publications.^{[citation needed]} The systematic assault upon Ukrainian identity in culture and education, combined with effects of an artificial famine (Holodomor) upon the peasantry—the backbone of the nation—dealt Ukrainian language and identity a crippling blow.^{[citation needed]}

This sequence of policy change was repeated in Western Ukraine when it was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine.^{[citation needed]} In 1939, and again in the late 1940s, a policy of Ukrainianization was implemented. By the early 1950s, Ukrainian was persecuted and a campaign of Russification began.^{[citation needed]}

Khrushchev thaw

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages at the local and republic level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era, as well as transfer of Crimea under Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained).

Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the «oppression» or «persecution», but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available.

While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, Ukrainian was supposed to be learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in Russian and, as a result, students had a greater command of Russian than Ukrainian on graduation. Additionally, in some areas of the republic, the attitude towards teaching and learning of Ukrainian in schools was relaxed and it was, sometimes, considered a subject of secondary importance and even a waiver from studying it was sometimes given under various, ever expanding, circumstances.^{[citation needed]}

The complete suppression of all expressions of separatism or Ukrainian nationalism also contributed to lessening interest in Ukrainian. Some people who persistently used Ukrainian on a daily basis were often perceived as though they were expressing sympathy towards, or even being members of, the political opposition.^{[citation needed]} This, combined with advantages given by Russian fluency and usage, made Russian the primary language of choice for many Ukrainians, while Ukrainian was more of a hobby. In any event, the mild liberalization in Ukraine and elsewhere was stifled by new suppression of freedoms at the end of the Khrushchev era (1963) when a policy of gradually creeping suppression of Ukrainian was re-instituted.^{[citation needed]}

The next part of the Soviet Ukrainian language policy divides into two eras: first, the Shelest period (early 1960s to early 1970s), which was relatively liberal towards the development of the Ukrainian language. The second era, the policy of Shcherbytsky (early 1970s to early 1990s), was one of gradual suppression of the Ukrainian language.

Shelest period

The Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, Petro Shelest, pursued a policy of defending Ukraine’s interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

Shcherbytsky period

The new party boss from 1972 to 1989, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification was lessened only slightly after 1985.

Gorbachev and perebudova

The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms perebudova and hlasnist’ (Ukrainian for perestroika and glasnost), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.^[51]

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine, Great Purge, and most of Stalinism. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.

Independence in the modern era

Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine, and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce.

In some cases the abrupt changing of the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education led to the charges of Ukrainianization, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. This transition, however, lacked most of the controversies that arose during the de-russification of the other former Soviet Republics.

With time, most residents, including ethnic Russians, people of mixed origin, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, started to self-identify as Ukrainian nationals, even those who remained Russophone. The Russian language, however, still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio and TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and, to a lesser degree, central regions. The state-controlled broadcast media have become exclusively Ukrainian. There are few obstacles to the usage of Russian in commerce and it is still occasionally used in government affairs.

Late 20th-century Russian politicians like Alexander Lebed and Mikhail Yuryev still claimed that Ukrainian is a Russian dialect.^[52]

In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country’s population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease).^[53] For many Ukrainians (of various ethnic origins), the term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native, including those who often speak Russian.^[54]

According to the official 2001 census data, 92.3% of Kyiv region population responded «Ukrainian» to the native language (ridna mova) census question, compared with 88.4% in 1989, and 7.2% responded «Russian».^[54] The part of other languages, specified like mother tongue was 0.5%.^[54] On the other hand, when the question «What language do you use in everyday life?» was asked in the sociological survey, the Kyivans’ answers were distributed as follows: «mostly Russian»: 52%, «both Russian and Ukrainian in equal measure»: 32%, «mostly Ukrainian»: 14%, «exclusively Ukrainian»: 4.3%.^{[citation needed]}

Ethnic minorities, such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their lingua franca. But there are tendencies within these minority groups to use Ukrainian. The Jewish writer Olexander Beyderman from the mainly Russian-speaking city of Odessa is now writing most of his dramas in Ukrainian. The emotional relationship regarding Ukrainian is changing in southern and eastern areas.

Opposition to expansion of Ukrainian-language teaching is a matter of contention in eastern regions closer to Russia – in May 2008, the Donetsk city council prohibited the creation of any new Ukrainian schools in the city in which 80% of them are Russian-language schools.^[55]

In 2019, the law «On supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language» was approved by the Ukrainian parliament, formalizing rules governing the usage of Ukrainian and introducing penalties for violations.^[56] For its enforcement the office of Language ombudsman was introduced.

Literature and literary language

The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into two stages: during the 12th to 18th centuries what in Ukraine is referred to as «Old Ukrainian», but elsewhere, and in contemporary sources, is known as the Ruthenian language, and from the end of the 18th century to the present what in Ukraine is known as «Modern Ukrainian», but elsewhere is known as just Ukrainian.

Influential literary figures in the development of modern Ukrainian literature include the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka. The earliest literary work in the Ukrainian language was recorded in 1798 when Ivan Kotlyarevsky, a playwright from Poltava in southeastern Ukraine, published his epic poem, Eneyida, a burlesque in Ukrainian, based on Virgil’s Aeneid. His book was published in vernacular Ukrainian in a satirical way to avoid being censored, and is the earliest known Ukrainian published book to survive through Imperial and, later, Soviet policies on the Ukrainian language.

Kotlyarevsky’s work and that of another early writer using the Ukrainian vernacular language, Petro Artemovsky, used the southeastern dialect spoken in the Poltava, Kharkiv and southern Kyiven regions of the Russian Empire. This dialect would serve as the basis of the Ukrainian literary language when it was developed by Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish in the mid 19th century. In order to raise its status from that of a dialect to that of a language, various elements from folklore and traditional styles were added to it.^[57]

The Ukrainian literary language developed further when the Russian state banned the use of the Ukrainian language, prompting many of its writers to move to the western Ukrainian region of Galicia which was under more liberal Austrian rule; after the 1860s the majority of Ukrainian literary works were published in Austrian Galicia. During this period Galician influences were adopted in the Ukrainian literary language, particularly with respect to vocabulary involving law, government, technology, science, and administration.^[57]

Current usage

The use of the Ukrainian language is increasing after a long period of decline. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine in 2001 (77.8% of the total population at the time), the Ukrainian language is prevalent mainly in western and central Ukraine. In Kyiv, both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Russian-speaking.^[58]

The shift is believed to be caused mainly by an influx of migrants from western regions of Ukraine but also by some Kyivans opting to use the language they speak at home more widely in public settings. Public signs and announcements in Kyiv are displayed in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian is the prevalent language in most large and some small cities. According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, 87.8% of people living in Ukraine were fluent in Ukrainian.^[58]

In August 2022, a survey in Ukraine by Rating Group found that 85% said they speak Ukrainian or Ukrainian and Russian at home, 51% only Ukrainian, an increase from 61% and 44% in February 2014.^[59][60] In the same survey, 76% considered Ukrainian their native language (ridna mova), up from 57% in July 2012, including 30% of Russian-speakers.^[59][60]

Popular culture

Music

Ukrainian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Ukrainian language. The most popular Ukrainian rock bands, such as Okean Elzy, Vopli Vidopliassova, BoomBox perform regularly in tours across Europe, Israel, North America and especially Russia. In countries with significant Ukrainian populations, bands singing in the Ukrainian language sometimes reach top places on the charts, such as Enej (a band from Poland). Other notable Ukrainian-language bands are The Ukrainians from the United Kingdom, Klooch from Canada, Ukrainian Village Band from the United States, and the Kuban Cossack Choir from the Kuban region in Russia.

Cinema

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: 17 November 2013 (April 2017)

The 2010s saw a revival of Ukrainian cinema.^[61] The top Ukrainian-language films (by IMDb rating) are:^{[62][better source needed]}

Name	Year	Rating	Link
Іван Сила [uk]	2013	8.6	[1]
Тіні незабутих предків [uk]	2013	8.5	[2]
Звичайна справа [uk]	2012	8.1	[3]
Тіні забутих предків	1965	7.9	[4]
Ломбард	2013	7.9	[5]
Деліріум	2013	7.8	[6]
Фучжоу [uk]	1993	7.7	[7]

Argots

Oleksa Horbach’s 1951 study of argots analyzed historical primary sources (argots of professionals, thugs, prisoners, homeless, school children, etc.) paying special attention to etymological features of argots, word formation and borrowing patterns depending on the source-language (Church Slavonic, Russian, Czech, Polish, Romani, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, German).^[63]

Dialects

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist^[64][65]

• Northern (Polissian) dialects:^[66]
  • (3) Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in the northern part of Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kyiv Oblast as well as in the adjacent areas of Russia, which include the southwestern part of the Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in some places in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts.^[67] No linguistic border can be defined. The vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this dialect.^[68]
  • (2) Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kyiv Oblast, in the northern part of Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast.^[69]
  • (1) West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the northwestern part of the Rivne Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus uses Belarusian grammar and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.^[70]
• Southeastern dialects:^[71]
  • (4) Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in the central part of Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kyiv Oblast. In addition, the dialects spoken in Cherkasy, Poltava, and Kyiv regions are considered to be close to «standard» Ukrainian.
  • (5) Slobodan is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of Donetsk, as well as in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia.^[72] This dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, with progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus, there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both grammar sets can be applied.^[68]
  • A (6) Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the main language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.^[73]
  • A Kuban dialect related to or based on the Steppe dialect is often referred to as Balachka and is spoken by the Kuban Cossacks in the Kuban region in Russia by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late 18th century. It was formed from a gradual mixture of Russian into Ukrainian. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary along with some Russian grammar.^[74] There are three main variants, which have been grouped together according to location.^[75]
• Southwestern dialects:^[76]
  • (13) Boyko is spoken by the Boyko people on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
  • (12) Hutsul is spoken by the Hutsul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, and in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts.
  • Lemko is spoken by the Lemko people, whose homeland rests outside the borders of Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains, and in the southeast of modern Poland, along the northern sides of the Carpathians.
  • (8) Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in the northern part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast, and the Mykolaiv Oblast.^[77]
  • (7) Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and Ternopil. It is also used in Chełm in Poland.
  • (11) Pokuttia (Bukovinian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct vocabulary borrowed from Romanian.
  • (9) Upper Dniestrian (Kresy) is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this dialect can be found here.^[78]
  • (10) Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the San river valley.
• The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be also a dialect of Ukrainian:
  • Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.
  • Pannonian or Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
  • Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.

Neighbouring countries

All the countries neighbouring Ukraine (except for Hungary) historically have regions with a sizable Ukrainian population and therefore Ukrainian language speakers. Ukrainian is an official minority language in Belarus, Romania, and Moldova.

Ukrainian diaspora

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large émigrée population, particularly in Canada (see Canadian Ukrainian), the United States, and several countries of South America like Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia, which used to be part of Austro-Hungary before World War I, and belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The language spoken by most of them is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the 20th century. Compared with modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside Ukraine reflects less influence of Russian, but often contains many loanwords from the local language.

Most of the countries where it is spoken are ex-USSR, where many Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. Broken up by country (to the nearest thousand):^[1]

1. Russia 1,129,838 (according to the 2010 census);^[79]
2. Canada 200,525^[80] (67,665 spoken at home^[81] in 2001, 148,000 spoken as «mother tongue» in 2001)^[82]

Ukrainian is one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria.^[83]

Ukrainian is widely spoken within the 400,000-strong (in 1994) Ukrainian community in Brazil.^[84]

Language structure

Cyrillic letters in this article are romanized using scientific transliteration.

Grammar

Ukrainian is a fusional, nominative–accusative, satellite-framed language. It exhibits T–V distinction, and is null-subject. The canonical word order of Ukrainian is SVO.^[85] Other word orders are common due to the free word order enabled by Ukrainian’s inflectional system.

Nouns have one of 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; nouns decline for:

• 7 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative, vocative;
• 2 numbers: singular, plural.

Adjectives agree with nouns in gender, case, and number.

Verbs conjugate for:

• 4 tenses: past, pluperfect, present, future;
• 2 voices: active, mediopassive;
• 3 persons: first, second, third;
• 2 numbers: singular, plural.

Ukrainian verbs come in aspect pairs: perfective, and imperfective. Pairs are usually formed by a prepositional prefix and occasionally a root change. The past tense agrees with its subject in number and gender (but not person), having developed from the perfect participle.

The Old East Slavic and Russian o in syllables ending in a consonant, often correspond to a Ukrainian i, as in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). Thus, in the declension of nouns, the o can re-appear when it is no longer located in a closed syllable, such as rik (рік, ‘year’) (nom): rotsi (loc) (році). Similarly, some words can have і in some cases when most of the cases have o, for example слово (nominative singular), слова (nominative plural) but слiв (genitive plural).

Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Old East Slavic, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etaže ‘on the first floor’ is in the locative (prepositional) case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na peršomu poversi (на першому поверсі). -omu is the standard locative (prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The kh of Ukrainian poverkh (поверх) has mutated into s under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly mutable into c in final positions).

Phonology

The Ukrainian language has six vowels, /i/, /u/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /a/.

A number of the consonants come in three forms: hard, soft (palatalized) and long, for example, /l/, /lʲ/, and /lː/ or /n/, /nʲ/, and /nː/.

The letter ⟨г⟩ represents the voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/, often transliterated as Latin h. It is the voiced equivalent of English /h/. Russian speakers from Ukraine often use the soft Ukrainian /ɦ/ in place of Russian /ɡ/, which comes from northern dialects of Old East Slavic. The Ukrainian alphabet has the additional letter ⟨ґ⟩ for /ɡ/, which appears in a few native words such as ґринджоли gryndžoly ‘sleigh’ and ґудзик gudzyk ‘button’. However, /ɡ/ appears almost exclusively in loan words, and is usually simply written ⟨г⟩. For example, loanwords from English on public signs usually use ⟨г⟩ for both English g and h.

Another phonetic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages is the pronunciation of Cyrillic ⟨в⟩ v/w. While in standard Russian it represents /v/, in many Ukrainian dialects it denotes /w/ (following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary, it denotes the allophone [u̯], and like the off-glide in the English words «flow» and «cow», it forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel). Native Russian speakers will pronounce the Ukrainian ⟨в⟩ as [v], which is one way to tell the two groups apart. As with ⟨г⟩ above, Ukrainians use ⟨в⟩ to render both English v and w; Russians occasionally use ⟨у⟩ for w instead.

Unlike Russian and most other modern Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not have final devoicing.

Alphabet

The Ukrainian alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Є є	Ж ж	З з	И и
І і	Ї ї	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с
Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я

Ukrainian is written in a version of Cyrillic, consisting of 33 letters, representing 38 phonemes; an apostrophe is also used. Ukrainian orthography is based on the phonemic principle, with one letter generally corresponding to one phoneme, although there are a number of exceptions. The orthography also has cases where the semantic, historical, and morphological principles are applied.

The modern Ukrainian alphabet is the result of a number of proposed alphabetic reforms from the 19th and early 20th centuries, in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, in Austrian Galicia, and later in Soviet Ukraine. A unified Ukrainian alphabet (the Skrypnykivka, after Mykola Skrypnyk) was officially established at a 1927 international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv, during the period of Ukrainization in Soviet Ukraine. But the policy was reversed in the 1930s, and the Soviet Ukrainian orthography diverged from that used by the diaspora. The Ukrainian letter ge ґ was banned in the Soviet Union from 1933 until the period of Glasnost in 1990.^[86]

The letter щ represents two consonants [ʃt͡ʃ]. The combination of [j] with some of the vowels is also represented by a single letter ([ja] = я, [je] = є, [ji] or [jı̽] = ї, [ju] = ю), while [jɔ] = йо and the rare regional [jɨ] = йи are written using two letters. These iotated vowel letters and a special soft sign change a preceding consonant from hard to soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft; in other words, it functions like the yer in the Russian alphabet.

A consonant letter is doubled to indicate that the sound is doubled, or long.

The phonemes [d͡z] and [d͡ʒ] do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered with the digraphs дз and дж, respectively. [d͡z] is equivalent to English ds in pods, [d͡ʒ] is equivalent to j in jump.

As in Russian, the acute accent may be used to denote vowel stress.

Transliteration

Orthography

Spelling search,^{[clarification needed]} which began in the late 18th century with the emergence of modern literary language, led to the emergence of several spelling options. In particular, there was the spelling system of Oleksii Pavlovskyi, the spelling version of «Mermaid of the Dniester» (1837), Kulishivka (P. Kulish’s spelling system), Drahomanivka (produced in Kyiv in the 1870s by a group of cultural figures led by linguist P. Zhytetskyi, which included and M. Drahomanov), Zhelekhivka (system of Yevhen Zhelekhovskyi (1886), enshrined in the Russian Grammar by Stepan Smal-Stotskyi and Theodore Gartner 1893).

Borys Hrinchenko used some corrections in the fundamental four-volume Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (1907–1909). Most of the spelling rules (practically based on phonetics – «write as you hear») used in Hrinchenko’s dictionary are still valid. Hrinchenko’s work became an informal spelling and model for Ukrainian writers and publications from 1907 until the creation of the first official Ukrainian spelling in 1918.

On January 17, 1918, the Central Rada of Ukraine issued the «Main Rules of Ukrainian orthography», which, however, did not cover the entire scope of the language. On May 17, 1919, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences approved the «Main Rules of Ukrainian Orthography», which became the basis for all subsequent revisions and amendments.

On July 23, 1925, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR decided to organize a State Commission for the Organization of Ukrainian Spelling (State Spelling Commission). It included more than 20 academics from the USSR, who also expressed a desire to invite representatives of Western Ukraine: Stepan Smal-Stotskyi, Volodymyr Hnatiuk and Vasyl Simovych.

After almost a year of work in April 1926, the «Project of Ukrainian Spelling» was published to acquaint the general public with the new system. After several months of discussion and consideration of the project at the All-Ukrainian Spelling Conference (May 26 – June 6, 1927), the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 was adopted in accordance with the RNC resolution of September 6, 1928. It went down in history as «Kharkiv» or «Skrypnik orthography» – from the place of creation, or from the surname of the People’s Commissar of Education Mykola Skrypnyk.

In 1929, Hryhorii Holoskevych published the Ukrainian Spelling Dictionary (about 40,000 words), agreed with the full spelling produced by the State Spelling Commission and approved by the People’s Commissar for Education (September 6, 1928).^[87]

In 1933, a spelling commission headed by Andrii Khvylia branded the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 as «nationalist», immediately stopped publishing any dictionaries, and without any discussion, in a very short time (five months), created a new spelling that unified as never before the Ukrainian and Russian languages. The letter ґ was removed from the alphabet, and Ukrainian scientific terminology was revised and harmonized with Russian-Ukrainian dictionaries (the Institute of Ukrainian Scientific Language was abolished in 1930). This version of the spelling was approved by the resolution of the People’s Commissar of Education of the USSR of September 5, 1933.

Some minor changes were made in the spelling of 1946 and 1959 (published the following year). It was connected with the document «The rules of Russian spelling and punctuation», published in 1956. From 1960 until 1990, the 1960 edition was the official standard.

After the beginning of «perestroika», the issue of improving Ukrainian spelling became relevant again: the editing of the spelling code was started by the Orthographic Commission at the LMM of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The project was also discussed in the newly established Ukrainian Language Society. T. Shevchenko (headed by Dmytro Pavlychko). The new version was approved on November 14, 1989, and published in 1990. The main achievements were the restoration of the letter ґ and the accusative case (in Soviet times it was optional and was called the accusative form).

Today, despite the existence of the official spelling of the Ukrainian language, it is not the only spelling standard in use. Even in Ukraine itself, many publishers and publications use other versions of the spelling, which either tend to «skrypnykivka», or else differ from the official rules of transmission of words of foreign origin.

On May 22, 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a new version of the orthography prepared by the Ukrainian National Commission on Spelling. The new edition brought to life some features of orthography in 1928, which were part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition. At the same time, the commission was guided by the understanding that the language practice of Ukrainians in the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century has already become part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition.^[88]

Vocabulary

The Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language, in 11 volumes, contains 253,000 entries.^[89] Lexical card catalog of the Ukrainian Institute of Language Studies has 6 million cards.^[90] As mentioned at the top of the article, Ukrainian is most closely related lexically to Belarusian, and is also closer to Polish than to Russian (for example, можливість, mozhlyvist‘, «possibility», and Polish możliwość, but Russian возможность, vozmozhnostʹ).

False cognates with Russian

The standard Ukrainian language which is based on the Kyiv–Poltava dialect has a plethora of false friends with the standard Russian language which is based on the Moscow dialect. Many people intentionally do or do not use them, causing their language shift into what is known as Surzhyk where the meaning of some words mimicking Russian could be understood out of context rather than their literal meaning in Ukrainian.

False friend samples

English	Ukrainian	Russian	Surzhyk
cancel	скасовувати	отменять	відміняти
conjugate	відміняти	спрягать	спрягати
gentle	лагідний	ласковый	ласкавий
kind	ласкавий	добродушный	добродушний

Classification

Ukrainian has varying degrees of mutual intelligibility with other Slavic languages. It is closely related to other East Slavic languages with high levels of mutual intelligibility.^[8] Ukrainian is considered to be most closely related to Belarusian.^[91]

The separation of the East Slavic languages is considered to be relatively recent.^[8] In the 19th century, the question of whether the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian languages are dialects of a single language or three separate languages was actively discussed, with the debate affected by linguistic and political factors.^[8] The political situation (Ukraine and Belarus being mainly part of the Russian Empire at the time) and the historical existence of the medieval state of Kievan Rus’, which occupied large parts of these three nations, led to the creation of the common classification known later as the East Slavic languages. The underlying theory of the grouping is their descent from a common ancestor. In modern times, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are usually listed by linguists as separate languages.^[92][93][1]

The Ukrainians were predominantly peasants and petits bourgeois. In 1897, 93% of Ukrainians were classified as peasants.^[15] As a result, the Ukrainian language was mostly vernacular and few earlier literary works from the period can be found. In the cities, Ukrainian coexisted with Church Slavonic—a literary language of religion that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—and later Polish and Russian, both languages which were more often used in formal writing and communication during that time.

Differences with other Slavic languages

The Ukrainian language has the following similarities and differences with other Slavic languages:

• Like all Slavic languages with the exception of Russian, Belarusian, standard written Slovak^{[note 4]} and Slovene, the Ukrainian language has preserved the Common Slavic vocative case. When addressing one’s sister (sestra) she is referred to as sestro. In the Russian language the vocative case has been almost entirely replaced by the nominative (except for a handful of vestigial forms, e.g. Bozhe «God!» and Gospodi «Lord!»).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all Slavic languages other than Russian, Slovak and Slovene, has retained the Common Slavic second palatalization of the velars *k, *g and *x in front of the secondary vowel *ě of the dative and locative ending in the female declension, resulting in the final sequences -cě, -zě, and -sě. For example, ruka (hand) becomes ruci in Ukrainian. In Russian, the dative and locative of ruka is ruke.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, has developed the ending —mo for first-person plurals in verbs (khodymo for «we walk»).^[94] In all cases, it resulted from lengthening of the Common Slavic —mŭ.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]}
• The Ukrainian language, along with Russian and Belarusian, has changed the Common Slavic word-initial ye— into o, such as in the words ozero (lake) and odyn (one).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belarusian and southern Russian dialects, has changed the Common Slavic «g» into an «h» sound (for example, noha – leg).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with some northern Russian and Croatian dialects, has transformed the Common Slavic yě into i (for example, lis – forest).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene, has simplified the Common Slavic tl and dl into l (for example, mela – she swept»).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with the most of Slavic ones, is a stress-timed language, in which syllables may last different amounts of time, but there is perceived to be a fairly constant amount of time (on average) between consecutive stressed syllables.^[95]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all modern Slavic languages other than Bulgarian and Macedonian, does not use articles.
• Other Slavic o in closed syllables, i.e., syllables ending in a consonant, in many cases corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). This also includes place names such as Lviv (Львів in Ukrainian), Lwów in Polish, and Львов (Lvov) in Russian.

Unlike all other Slavic languages, Ukrainian has a synthetic future (also termed inflectional future) tense which developed through the erosion and cliticization of the verb «to have» (or possibly «to take»): pysat-ymu (infinitive-future-1st sg.) I will write.^[96] Although the inflectional future (based on the verb ‘to have’) is characteristic of Romance languages, Ukrainian linguist A. Danylenko argues that Ukrainian differs from Romance in the choice of auxiliary, which should be interpreted as ‘to take’ and not ‘to have.’ He states that Late Common Slavic (LCS) had three verbs with the same Proto-Indo-European root *h₁em-:

• a determined imperfective LCS *jęti: *jĭmǫ ‘to take’ (later superseded by numerous prefixed perfectives)
• an indetermined imperfective LCS *jĭmati: jemljǫ ‘to take’ (which would not take any prefixes)
• an imperfective LCS *jĭměti: *jĭmamĭ ‘to hold, own, have’

The three verbs became conflated in East Slavic due to morphological overlap, in particular of *iměti «to have» and *jati «to take» as exemplified in the Middle Ukrainian homonymic imut’ from both iměti (< *jĭměti) and jati (< *jęti). Analogous grammaticalization of the type take («to take», «to seize») > future is found in Chinese and Hungarian.^[97]

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

• Dialects of Ukrainian Language / Narzecza Języka Ukraińskiego by Wł. Kuraszkiewicz Archived 14 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine (in Polish)
• Hammond’s Racial map of Europe, 1919 «National Alumni» 1920, vol.7, anesi.com
• Ethnographic map of Europe 1914, cla.calpoly.edu (archived 3 March 2008)
• Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Ukrainian language
• The official Ukrainian Orthography (2012), published by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• 101languages.net – Ukrainian 101

Ukrainian
українська мова
Pronunciation	[ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ]
Native to	Ukraine
Region	Eastern Europe
Ethnicity	Ukrainians
Native speakers	27 million (2016)[1] L2: 5.8 million (2016)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ukrainian
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old East Slavic Ruthenian (Old Ukrainian)
Dialects	Balachka Canadian Motolian Pokuttia-Bukovina Hutsul Among others, see: Ukrainian dialects
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ukrainian alphabet) Ukrainian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine Republic of Crimea[note 1] Transnistria[note 2]
Recognised minority language in	Belarus  Bosnia and Herzegovina[2]  Croatia[2]  Czech Republic[3]  Hungary[4]  Moldova[5][6][7]  Poland[2]  Romania[2]  Serbia[2]  Slovakia[2]
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, Potebnya Institute of Language Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uk
ISO 639-2	ukr
ISO 639-3	ukr
Glottolog	ukra1253  Ukrainian
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ed < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eda to 53-AAA-edq)
The Ukrainian-speaking world:   regions where Ukrainian is the language of the majority   regions where Ukrainian is the language of a significant minority
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва, ukrainska mova, IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ]) is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the native language of the Ukrainians.

Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of the Cyrillic script. The standard Ukrainian language is regulated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU; particularly by its Institute for the Ukrainian Language), the Ukrainian language-information fund,^{[citation needed]} and Potebnia Institute of Linguistics. Comparisons are often drawn to Russian, another East Slavic language, but there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian.^[8][9]

Ukrainian is a descendent of Old East Slavic, a language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rus’. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the language developed into Ruthenian, where it became an official language,^[10] before a process of Polonization began in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the 18th century, Ruthenian diverged into regional variants and the modern Ukrainian language developed in the territory of present-day Ukraine.^[11][12][13] In the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian language was later banned as a subject from schools and as a language of instruction as a result of Russification.^[14] However, through folk songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors, the language maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine.^[15][16]

Linguistic development

Theories

Specifically Ukrainian developments that led to a gradual change of the Old East Slavic vowel system into the system found in modern Ukrainian began approximately in the 12th/13th century (that is, still at the time of the Kievan Rus’) with a lengthening and raising of the Old East Slavic mid vowels e and o when followed by a consonant and a weak yer vowel that would eventually disappear completely, for example Old East Slavic котъ /kɔtə/ > Ukrainian кіт /kit/ ‘cat’ (via transitional stages such as /koˑtə̆/, /kuˑt(ə̆)/, /kyˑt/ or similar) or Old East Slavic печь /pʲɛtʃʲə/ > Ukrainian піч /pitʃ/ ‘oven’ (via transitional stages such as /pʲeˑtʃʲə̆/, /pʲiˑtʃʲ/ or similar).^[17] This raising and other phonological developments of the time, such as the merger of the Old East Slavic vowel phonemes и /i/ and ы /ɨ/ into the specifically Ukrainian phoneme /ɪ ~ e/, spelled with и (in the 13th/14th centuries), and the fricativisation of the Old East Slavic consonant г /g/, probably first to /ɣ/ (in the 13th century), with the result /ɦ/ in Modern Ukrainian, never happened in Russian, and only the fricativisation of Old East Slavic г /g/ occurred in Belarusian, where the result is /ɣ/.

The first theory of the origin of the Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov. This theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus’. According to Lomonosov, the differences that subsequently developed between Great Russian and Ukrainian (which he referred to as Little Russian) could be explained by the influence of the Polish and Slovak languages on Ukrainian and the influence of Uralic languages on Russian from the 13th to the 17th centuries.^{[18][full citation needed]}

Another point of view was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by other linguists of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. But unlike Lomonosov’s hypothesis, this theory does not view «Polonization» or any other external influence as the main driving force that led to the formation of three different languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) from the common Old East Slavic language. The supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed.

Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old East Slavic to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kievan Rus’ were redrawn in the 14th century.

Some researchers, while admitting the differences between the dialects spoken by East Slavic tribes in the 10th and 11th centuries, still consider them as «regional manifestations of a common language».^{[note 3]}

In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Aleksey Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times.^[20] According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century.

Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak stated that the Old Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus’ during the 11th–12th century, but
started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus’, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way.^[21]

Some Ukrainian features^[which?] were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented.^[22]

Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky denies the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past.^[23] Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today’s Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also supported by George Shevelov’s phonological studies.^[24]

Origins and developments during medieval times

External video
The Ukrainian language in the graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv National Sanctuary «Sophia of Kyiv». YouTube

As a result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of the Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea, lasting into the early Middle Ages, the appearance of the voiced fricative γ/г (romanized «h»), in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects is explained by the assumption that it initially emerged in Scythian and related eastern Iranian dialects, from earlier common Proto-Indo-European *g and *gʰ.^[25][26][27]

During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh (roof), rura (pipe), rynok (market), kushnir (furrier), and majster (master or craftsman).^[28]

Developments under Poland and Lithuania

In the 13th century, eastern parts of Rus (including Moscow) came under Tatar rule until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy, whereas the south-western areas (including Kyiv) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the following four centuries, the languages of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of the Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century.^[29] By the 16th century, a peculiar official language formed: a mixture of the liturgical standardised language of Old Church Slavonic, Ruthenian and Polish. The influence of the latter gradually increased relative to the former two, as the nobility and rural large-landowning class, known as the szlachta, was largely Polish-speaking. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics.^[30]

Polish rule and education also involved significant exposure to the Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać) and from Latin (via Polish) raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal).^[28]

Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into the Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco).^[28]

Due to heavy borrowings from Polish, German, Czech and Latin, early modern vernacular Ukrainian (prosta mova, «simple speech») had more lexical similarity with West Slavic languages than with Russian or Church Slavonic.^[31] By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages had become so significant that there was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav, between Bohdan Khmelnytsky, head of the Zaporozhian Host, and the Russian state.^[32]

By the 18th century, Ruthenian had diverged into regional variants, developing into the modern Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian languages.^[11][12][13]

Chronology

The accepted chronology of Ukrainian divides the language into Old, Middle, and Modern Ukrainian.^[33] George Shevelov explains that much of this is based on the character of contemporary written sources, ultimately reflecting socio-historical developments, and he further subdivides the MU period with Early and Late phases.^{[34][35][36][37]}

• Proto-Ukrainian (abbreviated PU, Ukrainian: protoukrajinsʼkyj period, until the mid-11th century), with no extant written sources by speakers in Ukraine. Corresponding to aspects of Old East Slavic.
• Old Ukrainian (OU, davnʼoukrajinsʼkyj period or davnʼoukrajinsʼka mova, mid-11th to 14th c., conventional end date 1387), elements of phonology are deduced from written texts mainly in Church Slavic. Part of broader Old East Slavic.
• Middle Ukrainian (serednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period or staroukrajinsʼka mova, 15th to 18th c.), historically called Ruthenian.
  • Early Middle Ukrainian (EMU, rannʼoserednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, 15th to mid-16th c., 1387–1575), analysis focuses on distinguishing Ukrainian and Belarusian texts.
  • Middle Ukrainian (MU, serednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, mid-16th to early 18th c., 1575–1720), represented by several vernacular language varieties as well as a version of Church Slavic.
  • Late Middle Ukrainian (LMU, piznoserednʼoukrajinsʼkyj period, rest of the 18th c., 1720–1818), found in many mixed Ukrainian–Russian and Russian–Ukrainian texts.
• Modern Ukrainian (MoU, from the very end of the 18th c., sučasnyj period or sučasna ukrajinsʼka mova, from 1818), the vernacular recognized first in literature, and subsequently all other written genres.

Ukraine annually marks the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language on November 9, the Eastern Orthodox feast day of Nestor the Chronicler.

History of the spoken language

Rus and Kingdom of Ruthenia

During the Khazar period, the territory of Ukraine was settled by Iranian (post-Scythian), Turkic (post-Hunnic, proto-Bulgarian), and Uralic (proto-Hungarian) tribes and Slavic tribes. Later, the Varangian ruler Oleg of Novgorod would seize Kyiv and establish the political entity of Kievan Rus’.

The era of Kyivan Rus is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as the language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Church Slavonic. Literary records from Kyivan Rus testify to substantial difference between Russian and Ruthenian form of the Ukrainian language as early as Kyivan Rus time.

Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here, calling it Old Ruthenian; others term this era Old East Slavic. Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. However, according to Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak, Novgorod people did not call themselves Rus until the 14th century, calling Rus only Kyiv, Pereiaslav and Chernihiv principalities^[21] (the Kyivan Rus state existed till 1240). At the same time as evidenced by the contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes of Kingdom of Ruthenia and Kyiv called themselves «People of Rus» – Ruthenians, and Galicia–Volhynia was called the Kingdom of Ruthenia.

Also according to Andrey Zaliznyak, the Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kyivan Rus during the 11th–12th century, but
started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kyivan Rus, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way.^[21]

Under Lithuania/Poland, Muscovy/Russia and Austro-Hungary

After the fall of Kingdom of Ruthenia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old East Slavic became the language of the chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by the Polish nobility.^[38]

Many Ukrainian nobles were forced to learn the Polish language and convert to Catholicism during that period in order to maintain their lofty aristocratic position.^[39] Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church. Most of the educational system was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish.

The Polish language has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish.^[40] As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the predecessor of the modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), founded by the Moldavian Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila, was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of the Orthodox church spoke Ruthenian.

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire and closed down later in the 19th century. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian.

During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia. The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv applied an old word for the Cossack motherland, Ukrajina, as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins’ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits.

However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools.^[14] In 1811 by the Order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. The academy had been open since 1632 and was the first university in Eastern Europe.^[41]

In 1847 the Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk. The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that «there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language».^[42]

A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II’s secret Ems Ukaz, which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores.^[43] A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia.^[44]

For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovina, where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents.^[45] The suppression by Russia hampered the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ukrainians were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the Ukrainian People’s Republic, shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved.^[16]

Speakers in the Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of the Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census’s terminology, the Russian language (Русскій) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ‘Little Russian’), what is known as Russian today (Великорусскій, ‘Great Russian’), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, ‘White Russian’).

The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language («по родному языку») in 1897 in Russian Empire governorates (guberniyas) that had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.^[46]

	Total population	Ukrainian speakers	Russian speakers	Polish speakers
Entire Russian Empire	125,640,021	22,380,551	55,667,469	7,931,307
Urban	16,828,395	1,256,387	8,825,733	1,455,527
Rural	108,811,626	21,124,164	46,841,736	6,475,780
Regions
«European Russia» incl. Ukraine & Belarus	93,442,864	20,414,866	48,558,721	1,109,934
Vistulan guberniyas	9,402,253	335,337	267,160	6,755,503
Caucasus	9,289,364	1,305,463	1,829,793	25,117
Siberia	5,758,822	223,274	4,423,803	29,177
Central Asia	7,746,718	101,611	587,992	11,576
Subdivisions
Bessarabia	1,935,412	379,698	155,774	11,696
Volyn	2,989,482	2,095,579	104,889	184,161
Voronezh	2,531,253	915,883	1,602,948	1,778
Don Host Province	2,564,238	719,655	1,712,898	3,316
Yekaterinoslav	2,113,674	1,456,369	364,974	12,365
Kyiv	3,559,229	2,819,145	209,427	68,791
Kursk	2,371,012	527,778	1,832,498	2,862
Podolia	3,018,299	2,442,819	98,984	69,156
Poltava	2,778,151	2,583,133	72,941	3,891
Taurida	1,447,790	611,121	404,463	10,112
Kharkiv	2,492,316	2,009,411	440,936	5,910
Kherson	2,733,612	1,462,039	575,375	30,894
City of Odessa	403,815	37,925	198,233	17,395
Chernihiv	2,297,854	1,526,072	495,963	3,302
Lublin	1,160,662	196,476	47,912	729,529
Sedletsk	772,146	107,785	19,613	510,621
Kuban Province	1,918,881	908,818	816,734	2,719
Stavropol	873,301	319,817	482,495	961
Brest-Litovsk district	218,432	140,561	17,759	8,515

Although in the rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odessa (then part of the Russian Empire), at the time the largest city in the territory of current Ukraine, only 5.6% of the population said Ukrainian was their native language.^[47]

Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kyiv, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.^[47]

Soviet era

During the seven-decade-long Soviet era, the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR.^[48] However, practice was often a different story:^[48] Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to de facto banishment.

Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language was the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions.^[49] Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR, and so on. However, Russian was used in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, «a language of inter-ethnic communication», was coined to denote its status.

Soviet language policy in Ukraine may be divided into the following policy periods:

• Ukrainianization and tolerance (1921–1932)
• Persecution and Russification (1933–1957)
• Khrushchev thaw (1958–1962)
• The Shelest period: limited progress (1963–1972)
• The Shcherbytsky period: gradual suppression (1973–1989)
• Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika (1990–1991)

Ukrainianization

Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire was broken up. In different parts of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a renewed sense of national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years the Ukrainian language gained some usage in government affairs. Initially, this trend continued under the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union, which in a political struggle to retain its grip over the territory had to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire. While trying to ascertain and consolidate its power, the Bolshevik government was by far more concerned about many political oppositions connected to the pre-revolutionary order than about the national movements inside the former empire, where it could always find allies.

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into a policy called korenizatsiya. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization by lifting a ban on the Ukrainian language.^{[citation needed]} That led to the introduction of an impressive education program which allowed Ukrainian-taught classes and raised the literacy of the Ukrainophone population. This policy was led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk and was directed to approximate the language to Russian.^{[citation needed]}

Newly generated academic efforts from the period of independence were co-opted by the Bolshevik government. The party and government apparatus was mostly Russian-speaking but were encouraged to learn the Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly literate ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities, which became rapidly largely Ukrainianized – in both population and in education.

The policy even reached those regions of southern Russian SFSR where the ethnic Ukrainian population was significant, particularly the areas by the Don River and especially Kuban in the North Caucasus. Ukrainian language teachers, just graduated from expanded institutions of higher education in Soviet Ukraine, were dispatched to these regions to staff newly opened Ukrainian schools or to teach Ukrainian as a second language in Russian schools. A string of local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of Ukrainian studies were opened in colleges. Overall, these policies were implemented in thirty-five raions (administrative districts) in southern Russia.

Persecution and russification

Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early 1933, with the termination of the policy of Ukrainianization. In December 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by V. Molotov and Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the Ukrainianization policies.^{[citation needed]} The telegram condemned Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded to «immediately halt Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized newspapers, books and publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the switching of schools and instruction into Russian».^{[citation needed]}

Western and most contemporary Ukrainian historians emphasize that the cultural repression was applied earlier and more fiercely in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union,^{[citation needed]} and were therefore anti-Ukrainian; others assert that Stalin’s goal was the generic crushing of any dissent, rather than targeting the Ukrainians in particular.

Stalinist policies shifted to define Russian as the language of (inter-ethnic) communication. Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in print, education, radio and later television programs), it lost its primary place in advanced learning and republic-wide media. Ukrainian was demoted to a language of secondary importance, often associated with the rise in Ukrainian self-awareness and nationalism and often branded «politically incorrect».^{[citation needed]} The new Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936, however, stipulated that teaching in schools should be conducted in native languages.

Major repression started in 1929–30, when a large group of Ukrainian intelligentsia was arrested and most were executed. In Ukrainian history, this group is often referred to as «Executed Renaissance» (Ukrainian: розстріляне відродження). «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism» was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine.^[50] The terror peaked in 1933, four to five years before the Soviet-wide «Great Purge», which, for Ukraine, was a second blow. The vast majority of leading scholars and cultural leaders of Ukraine were liquidated, as were the «Ukrainianized» and «Ukrainianizing» portions of the Communist party.

Soviet Ukraine’s autonomy was completely destroyed by the late 1930s.^{[citation needed]} In its place, the glorification of Russia as the first nation to throw off the capitalist yoke had begun,^{[citation needed]} accompanied by the migration of Russian workers into parts of Ukraine which were undergoing industrialization and mandatory instruction of classic Russian language and literature. Ideologists warned of over-glorifying Ukraine’s Cossack past,^{[citation needed]} and supported the closing of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literary publications.^{[citation needed]} The systematic assault upon Ukrainian identity in culture and education, combined with effects of an artificial famine (Holodomor) upon the peasantry—the backbone of the nation—dealt Ukrainian language and identity a crippling blow.^{[citation needed]}

This sequence of policy change was repeated in Western Ukraine when it was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine.^{[citation needed]} In 1939, and again in the late 1940s, a policy of Ukrainianization was implemented. By the early 1950s, Ukrainian was persecuted and a campaign of Russification began.^{[citation needed]}

Khrushchev thaw

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages at the local and republic level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era, as well as transfer of Crimea under Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained).

Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the «oppression» or «persecution», but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available.

While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, Ukrainian was supposed to be learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in Russian and, as a result, students had a greater command of Russian than Ukrainian on graduation. Additionally, in some areas of the republic, the attitude towards teaching and learning of Ukrainian in schools was relaxed and it was, sometimes, considered a subject of secondary importance and even a waiver from studying it was sometimes given under various, ever expanding, circumstances.^{[citation needed]}

The complete suppression of all expressions of separatism or Ukrainian nationalism also contributed to lessening interest in Ukrainian. Some people who persistently used Ukrainian on a daily basis were often perceived as though they were expressing sympathy towards, or even being members of, the political opposition.^{[citation needed]} This, combined with advantages given by Russian fluency and usage, made Russian the primary language of choice for many Ukrainians, while Ukrainian was more of a hobby. In any event, the mild liberalization in Ukraine and elsewhere was stifled by new suppression of freedoms at the end of the Khrushchev era (1963) when a policy of gradually creeping suppression of Ukrainian was re-instituted.^{[citation needed]}

The next part of the Soviet Ukrainian language policy divides into two eras: first, the Shelest period (early 1960s to early 1970s), which was relatively liberal towards the development of the Ukrainian language. The second era, the policy of Shcherbytsky (early 1970s to early 1990s), was one of gradual suppression of the Ukrainian language.

Shelest period

The Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, Petro Shelest, pursued a policy of defending Ukraine’s interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

Shcherbytsky period

The new party boss from 1972 to 1989, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification was lessened only slightly after 1985.

Gorbachev and perebudova

The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms perebudova and hlasnist’ (Ukrainian for perestroika and glasnost), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.^[51]

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine, Great Purge, and most of Stalinism. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.

Independence in the modern era

Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine, and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce.

In some cases the abrupt changing of the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education led to the charges of Ukrainianization, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. This transition, however, lacked most of the controversies that arose during the de-russification of the other former Soviet Republics.

With time, most residents, including ethnic Russians, people of mixed origin, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, started to self-identify as Ukrainian nationals, even those who remained Russophone. The Russian language, however, still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio and TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and, to a lesser degree, central regions. The state-controlled broadcast media have become exclusively Ukrainian. There are few obstacles to the usage of Russian in commerce and it is still occasionally used in government affairs.

Late 20th-century Russian politicians like Alexander Lebed and Mikhail Yuryev still claimed that Ukrainian is a Russian dialect.^[52]

In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country’s population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease).^[53] For many Ukrainians (of various ethnic origins), the term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native, including those who often speak Russian.^[54]

According to the official 2001 census data, 92.3% of Kyiv region population responded «Ukrainian» to the native language (ridna mova) census question, compared with 88.4% in 1989, and 7.2% responded «Russian».^[54] The part of other languages, specified like mother tongue was 0.5%.^[54] On the other hand, when the question «What language do you use in everyday life?» was asked in the sociological survey, the Kyivans’ answers were distributed as follows: «mostly Russian»: 52%, «both Russian and Ukrainian in equal measure»: 32%, «mostly Ukrainian»: 14%, «exclusively Ukrainian»: 4.3%.^{[citation needed]}

Ethnic minorities, such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their lingua franca. But there are tendencies within these minority groups to use Ukrainian. The Jewish writer Olexander Beyderman from the mainly Russian-speaking city of Odessa is now writing most of his dramas in Ukrainian. The emotional relationship regarding Ukrainian is changing in southern and eastern areas.

Opposition to expansion of Ukrainian-language teaching is a matter of contention in eastern regions closer to Russia – in May 2008, the Donetsk city council prohibited the creation of any new Ukrainian schools in the city in which 80% of them are Russian-language schools.^[55]

In 2019, the law «On supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language» was approved by the Ukrainian parliament, formalizing rules governing the usage of Ukrainian and introducing penalties for violations.^[56] For its enforcement the office of Language ombudsman was introduced.

Literature and literary language

The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into two stages: during the 12th to 18th centuries what in Ukraine is referred to as «Old Ukrainian», but elsewhere, and in contemporary sources, is known as the Ruthenian language, and from the end of the 18th century to the present what in Ukraine is known as «Modern Ukrainian», but elsewhere is known as just Ukrainian.

Influential literary figures in the development of modern Ukrainian literature include the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka. The earliest literary work in the Ukrainian language was recorded in 1798 when Ivan Kotlyarevsky, a playwright from Poltava in southeastern Ukraine, published his epic poem, Eneyida, a burlesque in Ukrainian, based on Virgil’s Aeneid. His book was published in vernacular Ukrainian in a satirical way to avoid being censored, and is the earliest known Ukrainian published book to survive through Imperial and, later, Soviet policies on the Ukrainian language.

Kotlyarevsky’s work and that of another early writer using the Ukrainian vernacular language, Petro Artemovsky, used the southeastern dialect spoken in the Poltava, Kharkiv and southern Kyiven regions of the Russian Empire. This dialect would serve as the basis of the Ukrainian literary language when it was developed by Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish in the mid 19th century. In order to raise its status from that of a dialect to that of a language, various elements from folklore and traditional styles were added to it.^[57]

The Ukrainian literary language developed further when the Russian state banned the use of the Ukrainian language, prompting many of its writers to move to the western Ukrainian region of Galicia which was under more liberal Austrian rule; after the 1860s the majority of Ukrainian literary works were published in Austrian Galicia. During this period Galician influences were adopted in the Ukrainian literary language, particularly with respect to vocabulary involving law, government, technology, science, and administration.^[57]

Current usage

The use of the Ukrainian language is increasing after a long period of decline. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine in 2001 (77.8% of the total population at the time), the Ukrainian language is prevalent mainly in western and central Ukraine. In Kyiv, both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Russian-speaking.^[58]

The shift is believed to be caused mainly by an influx of migrants from western regions of Ukraine but also by some Kyivans opting to use the language they speak at home more widely in public settings. Public signs and announcements in Kyiv are displayed in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian is the prevalent language in most large and some small cities. According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, 87.8% of people living in Ukraine were fluent in Ukrainian.^[58]

In August 2022, a survey in Ukraine by Rating Group found that 85% said they speak Ukrainian or Ukrainian and Russian at home, 51% only Ukrainian, an increase from 61% and 44% in February 2014.^[59][60] In the same survey, 76% considered Ukrainian their native language (ridna mova), up from 57% in July 2012, including 30% of Russian-speakers.^[59][60]

Popular culture

Music

Ukrainian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Ukrainian language. The most popular Ukrainian rock bands, such as Okean Elzy, Vopli Vidopliassova, BoomBox perform regularly in tours across Europe, Israel, North America and especially Russia. In countries with significant Ukrainian populations, bands singing in the Ukrainian language sometimes reach top places on the charts, such as Enej (a band from Poland). Other notable Ukrainian-language bands are The Ukrainians from the United Kingdom, Klooch from Canada, Ukrainian Village Band from the United States, and the Kuban Cossack Choir from the Kuban region in Russia.

Cinema

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: 17 November 2013 (April 2017)

The 2010s saw a revival of Ukrainian cinema.^[61] The top Ukrainian-language films (by IMDb rating) are:^{[62][better source needed]}

Name	Year	Rating	Link
Іван Сила [uk]	2013	8.6	[1]
Тіні незабутих предків [uk]	2013	8.5	[2]
Звичайна справа [uk]	2012	8.1	[3]
Тіні забутих предків	1965	7.9	[4]
Ломбард	2013	7.9	[5]
Деліріум	2013	7.8	[6]
Фучжоу [uk]	1993	7.7	[7]

Argots

Oleksa Horbach’s 1951 study of argots analyzed historical primary sources (argots of professionals, thugs, prisoners, homeless, school children, etc.) paying special attention to etymological features of argots, word formation and borrowing patterns depending on the source-language (Church Slavonic, Russian, Czech, Polish, Romani, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, German).^[63]

Dialects

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist^[64][65]

• Northern (Polissian) dialects:^[66]
  • (3) Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in the northern part of Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kyiv Oblast as well as in the adjacent areas of Russia, which include the southwestern part of the Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in some places in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts.^[67] No linguistic border can be defined. The vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this dialect.^[68]
  • (2) Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kyiv Oblast, in the northern part of Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast.^[69]
  • (1) West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the northwestern part of the Rivne Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus uses Belarusian grammar and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.^[70]
• Southeastern dialects:^[71]
  • (4) Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in the central part of Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kyiv Oblast. In addition, the dialects spoken in Cherkasy, Poltava, and Kyiv regions are considered to be close to «standard» Ukrainian.
  • (5) Slobodan is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of Donetsk, as well as in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia.^[72] This dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, with progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus, there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both grammar sets can be applied.^[68]
  • A (6) Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the main language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.^[73]
  • A Kuban dialect related to or based on the Steppe dialect is often referred to as Balachka and is spoken by the Kuban Cossacks in the Kuban region in Russia by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late 18th century. It was formed from a gradual mixture of Russian into Ukrainian. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary along with some Russian grammar.^[74] There are three main variants, which have been grouped together according to location.^[75]
• Southwestern dialects:^[76]
  • (13) Boyko is spoken by the Boyko people on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
  • (12) Hutsul is spoken by the Hutsul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, and in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts.
  • Lemko is spoken by the Lemko people, whose homeland rests outside the borders of Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains, and in the southeast of modern Poland, along the northern sides of the Carpathians.
  • (8) Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in the northern part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast, and the Mykolaiv Oblast.^[77]
  • (7) Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and Ternopil. It is also used in Chełm in Poland.
  • (11) Pokuttia (Bukovinian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct vocabulary borrowed from Romanian.
  • (9) Upper Dniestrian (Kresy) is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this dialect can be found here.^[78]
  • (10) Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the San river valley.
• The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be also a dialect of Ukrainian:
  • Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.
  • Pannonian or Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
  • Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.

Neighbouring countries

All the countries neighbouring Ukraine (except for Hungary) historically have regions with a sizable Ukrainian population and therefore Ukrainian language speakers. Ukrainian is an official minority language in Belarus, Romania, and Moldova.

Ukrainian diaspora

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large émigrée population, particularly in Canada (see Canadian Ukrainian), the United States, and several countries of South America like Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia, which used to be part of Austro-Hungary before World War I, and belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The language spoken by most of them is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the 20th century. Compared with modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside Ukraine reflects less influence of Russian, but often contains many loanwords from the local language.

Most of the countries where it is spoken are ex-USSR, where many Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. Broken up by country (to the nearest thousand):^[1]

1. Russia 1,129,838 (according to the 2010 census);^[79]
2. Canada 200,525^[80] (67,665 spoken at home^[81] in 2001, 148,000 spoken as «mother tongue» in 2001)^[82]

Ukrainian is one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria.^[83]

Ukrainian is widely spoken within the 400,000-strong (in 1994) Ukrainian community in Brazil.^[84]

Language structure

Cyrillic letters in this article are romanized using scientific transliteration.

Grammar

Ukrainian is a fusional, nominative–accusative, satellite-framed language. It exhibits T–V distinction, and is null-subject. The canonical word order of Ukrainian is SVO.^[85] Other word orders are common due to the free word order enabled by Ukrainian’s inflectional system.

Nouns have one of 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; nouns decline for:

• 7 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative, vocative;
• 2 numbers: singular, plural.

Adjectives agree with nouns in gender, case, and number.

Verbs conjugate for:

• 4 tenses: past, pluperfect, present, future;
• 2 voices: active, mediopassive;
• 3 persons: first, second, third;
• 2 numbers: singular, plural.

Ukrainian verbs come in aspect pairs: perfective, and imperfective. Pairs are usually formed by a prepositional prefix and occasionally a root change. The past tense agrees with its subject in number and gender (but not person), having developed from the perfect participle.

The Old East Slavic and Russian o in syllables ending in a consonant, often correspond to a Ukrainian i, as in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). Thus, in the declension of nouns, the o can re-appear when it is no longer located in a closed syllable, such as rik (рік, ‘year’) (nom): rotsi (loc) (році). Similarly, some words can have і in some cases when most of the cases have o, for example слово (nominative singular), слова (nominative plural) but слiв (genitive plural).

Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Old East Slavic, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etaže ‘on the first floor’ is in the locative (prepositional) case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na peršomu poversi (на першому поверсі). -omu is the standard locative (prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The kh of Ukrainian poverkh (поверх) has mutated into s under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly mutable into c in final positions).

Phonology

The Ukrainian language has six vowels, /i/, /u/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /a/.

A number of the consonants come in three forms: hard, soft (palatalized) and long, for example, /l/, /lʲ/, and /lː/ or /n/, /nʲ/, and /nː/.

The letter ⟨г⟩ represents the voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/, often transliterated as Latin h. It is the voiced equivalent of English /h/. Russian speakers from Ukraine often use the soft Ukrainian /ɦ/ in place of Russian /ɡ/, which comes from northern dialects of Old East Slavic. The Ukrainian alphabet has the additional letter ⟨ґ⟩ for /ɡ/, which appears in a few native words such as ґринджоли gryndžoly ‘sleigh’ and ґудзик gudzyk ‘button’. However, /ɡ/ appears almost exclusively in loan words, and is usually simply written ⟨г⟩. For example, loanwords from English on public signs usually use ⟨г⟩ for both English g and h.

Another phonetic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages is the pronunciation of Cyrillic ⟨в⟩ v/w. While in standard Russian it represents /v/, in many Ukrainian dialects it denotes /w/ (following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary, it denotes the allophone [u̯], and like the off-glide in the English words «flow» and «cow», it forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel). Native Russian speakers will pronounce the Ukrainian ⟨в⟩ as [v], which is one way to tell the two groups apart. As with ⟨г⟩ above, Ukrainians use ⟨в⟩ to render both English v and w; Russians occasionally use ⟨у⟩ for w instead.

Unlike Russian and most other modern Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not have final devoicing.

Alphabet

The Ukrainian alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Є є	Ж ж	З з	И и
І і	Ї ї	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с
Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я

Ukrainian is written in a version of Cyrillic, consisting of 33 letters, representing 38 phonemes; an apostrophe is also used. Ukrainian orthography is based on the phonemic principle, with one letter generally corresponding to one phoneme, although there are a number of exceptions. The orthography also has cases where the semantic, historical, and morphological principles are applied.

The modern Ukrainian alphabet is the result of a number of proposed alphabetic reforms from the 19th and early 20th centuries, in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, in Austrian Galicia, and later in Soviet Ukraine. A unified Ukrainian alphabet (the Skrypnykivka, after Mykola Skrypnyk) was officially established at a 1927 international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv, during the period of Ukrainization in Soviet Ukraine. But the policy was reversed in the 1930s, and the Soviet Ukrainian orthography diverged from that used by the diaspora. The Ukrainian letter ge ґ was banned in the Soviet Union from 1933 until the period of Glasnost in 1990.^[86]

The letter щ represents two consonants [ʃt͡ʃ]. The combination of [j] with some of the vowels is also represented by a single letter ([ja] = я, [je] = є, [ji] or [jı̽] = ї, [ju] = ю), while [jɔ] = йо and the rare regional [jɨ] = йи are written using two letters. These iotated vowel letters and a special soft sign change a preceding consonant from hard to soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft; in other words, it functions like the yer in the Russian alphabet.

A consonant letter is doubled to indicate that the sound is doubled, or long.

The phonemes [d͡z] and [d͡ʒ] do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered with the digraphs дз and дж, respectively. [d͡z] is equivalent to English ds in pods, [d͡ʒ] is equivalent to j in jump.

As in Russian, the acute accent may be used to denote vowel stress.

Transliteration

Orthography

Spelling search,^{[clarification needed]} which began in the late 18th century with the emergence of modern literary language, led to the emergence of several spelling options. In particular, there was the spelling system of Oleksii Pavlovskyi, the spelling version of «Mermaid of the Dniester» (1837), Kulishivka (P. Kulish’s spelling system), Drahomanivka (produced in Kyiv in the 1870s by a group of cultural figures led by linguist P. Zhytetskyi, which included and M. Drahomanov), Zhelekhivka (system of Yevhen Zhelekhovskyi (1886), enshrined in the Russian Grammar by Stepan Smal-Stotskyi and Theodore Gartner 1893).

Borys Hrinchenko used some corrections in the fundamental four-volume Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (1907–1909). Most of the spelling rules (practically based on phonetics – «write as you hear») used in Hrinchenko’s dictionary are still valid. Hrinchenko’s work became an informal spelling and model for Ukrainian writers and publications from 1907 until the creation of the first official Ukrainian spelling in 1918.

On January 17, 1918, the Central Rada of Ukraine issued the «Main Rules of Ukrainian orthography», which, however, did not cover the entire scope of the language. On May 17, 1919, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences approved the «Main Rules of Ukrainian Orthography», which became the basis for all subsequent revisions and amendments.

On July 23, 1925, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR decided to organize a State Commission for the Organization of Ukrainian Spelling (State Spelling Commission). It included more than 20 academics from the USSR, who also expressed a desire to invite representatives of Western Ukraine: Stepan Smal-Stotskyi, Volodymyr Hnatiuk and Vasyl Simovych.

After almost a year of work in April 1926, the «Project of Ukrainian Spelling» was published to acquaint the general public with the new system. After several months of discussion and consideration of the project at the All-Ukrainian Spelling Conference (May 26 – June 6, 1927), the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 was adopted in accordance with the RNC resolution of September 6, 1928. It went down in history as «Kharkiv» or «Skrypnik orthography» – from the place of creation, or from the surname of the People’s Commissar of Education Mykola Skrypnyk.

In 1929, Hryhorii Holoskevych published the Ukrainian Spelling Dictionary (about 40,000 words), agreed with the full spelling produced by the State Spelling Commission and approved by the People’s Commissar for Education (September 6, 1928).^[87]

In 1933, a spelling commission headed by Andrii Khvylia branded the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 as «nationalist», immediately stopped publishing any dictionaries, and without any discussion, in a very short time (five months), created a new spelling that unified as never before the Ukrainian and Russian languages. The letter ґ was removed from the alphabet, and Ukrainian scientific terminology was revised and harmonized with Russian-Ukrainian dictionaries (the Institute of Ukrainian Scientific Language was abolished in 1930). This version of the spelling was approved by the resolution of the People’s Commissar of Education of the USSR of September 5, 1933.

Some minor changes were made in the spelling of 1946 and 1959 (published the following year). It was connected with the document «The rules of Russian spelling and punctuation», published in 1956. From 1960 until 1990, the 1960 edition was the official standard.

After the beginning of «perestroika», the issue of improving Ukrainian spelling became relevant again: the editing of the spelling code was started by the Orthographic Commission at the LMM of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The project was also discussed in the newly established Ukrainian Language Society. T. Shevchenko (headed by Dmytro Pavlychko). The new version was approved on November 14, 1989, and published in 1990. The main achievements were the restoration of the letter ґ and the accusative case (in Soviet times it was optional and was called the accusative form).

Today, despite the existence of the official spelling of the Ukrainian language, it is not the only spelling standard in use. Even in Ukraine itself, many publishers and publications use other versions of the spelling, which either tend to «skrypnykivka», or else differ from the official rules of transmission of words of foreign origin.

On May 22, 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a new version of the orthography prepared by the Ukrainian National Commission on Spelling. The new edition brought to life some features of orthography in 1928, which were part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition. At the same time, the commission was guided by the understanding that the language practice of Ukrainians in the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century has already become part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition.^[88]

Vocabulary

The Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language, in 11 volumes, contains 253,000 entries.^[89] Lexical card catalog of the Ukrainian Institute of Language Studies has 6 million cards.^[90] As mentioned at the top of the article, Ukrainian is most closely related lexically to Belarusian, and is also closer to Polish than to Russian (for example, можливість, mozhlyvist‘, «possibility», and Polish możliwość, but Russian возможность, vozmozhnostʹ).

False cognates with Russian

The standard Ukrainian language which is based on the Kyiv–Poltava dialect has a plethora of false friends with the standard Russian language which is based on the Moscow dialect. Many people intentionally do or do not use them, causing their language shift into what is known as Surzhyk where the meaning of some words mimicking Russian could be understood out of context rather than their literal meaning in Ukrainian.

False friend samples

English	Ukrainian	Russian	Surzhyk
cancel	скасовувати	отменять	відміняти
conjugate	відміняти	спрягать	спрягати
gentle	лагідний	ласковый	ласкавий
kind	ласкавий	добродушный	добродушний

Classification

Ukrainian has varying degrees of mutual intelligibility with other Slavic languages. It is closely related to other East Slavic languages with high levels of mutual intelligibility.^[8] Ukrainian is considered to be most closely related to Belarusian.^[91]

The separation of the East Slavic languages is considered to be relatively recent.^[8] In the 19th century, the question of whether the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian languages are dialects of a single language or three separate languages was actively discussed, with the debate affected by linguistic and political factors.^[8] The political situation (Ukraine and Belarus being mainly part of the Russian Empire at the time) and the historical existence of the medieval state of Kievan Rus’, which occupied large parts of these three nations, led to the creation of the common classification known later as the East Slavic languages. The underlying theory of the grouping is their descent from a common ancestor. In modern times, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are usually listed by linguists as separate languages.^[92][93][1]

The Ukrainians were predominantly peasants and petits bourgeois. In 1897, 93% of Ukrainians were classified as peasants.^[15] As a result, the Ukrainian language was mostly vernacular and few earlier literary works from the period can be found. In the cities, Ukrainian coexisted with Church Slavonic—a literary language of religion that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—and later Polish and Russian, both languages which were more often used in formal writing and communication during that time.

Differences with other Slavic languages

The Ukrainian language has the following similarities and differences with other Slavic languages:

• Like all Slavic languages with the exception of Russian, Belarusian, standard written Slovak^{[note 4]} and Slovene, the Ukrainian language has preserved the Common Slavic vocative case. When addressing one’s sister (sestra) she is referred to as sestro. In the Russian language the vocative case has been almost entirely replaced by the nominative (except for a handful of vestigial forms, e.g. Bozhe «God!» and Gospodi «Lord!»).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all Slavic languages other than Russian, Slovak and Slovene, has retained the Common Slavic second palatalization of the velars *k, *g and *x in front of the secondary vowel *ě of the dative and locative ending in the female declension, resulting in the final sequences -cě, -zě, and -sě. For example, ruka (hand) becomes ruci in Ukrainian. In Russian, the dative and locative of ruka is ruke.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, has developed the ending —mo for first-person plurals in verbs (khodymo for «we walk»).^[94] In all cases, it resulted from lengthening of the Common Slavic —mŭ.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]}
• The Ukrainian language, along with Russian and Belarusian, has changed the Common Slavic word-initial ye— into o, such as in the words ozero (lake) and odyn (one).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belarusian and southern Russian dialects, has changed the Common Slavic «g» into an «h» sound (for example, noha – leg).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with some northern Russian and Croatian dialects, has transformed the Common Slavic yě into i (for example, lis – forest).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene, has simplified the Common Slavic tl and dl into l (for example, mela – she swept»).^[94]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with the most of Slavic ones, is a stress-timed language, in which syllables may last different amounts of time, but there is perceived to be a fairly constant amount of time (on average) between consecutive stressed syllables.^[95]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all modern Slavic languages other than Bulgarian and Macedonian, does not use articles.
• Other Slavic o in closed syllables, i.e., syllables ending in a consonant, in many cases corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). This also includes place names such as Lviv (Львів in Ukrainian), Lwów in Polish, and Львов (Lvov) in Russian.

Unlike all other Slavic languages, Ukrainian has a synthetic future (also termed inflectional future) tense which developed through the erosion and cliticization of the verb «to have» (or possibly «to take»): pysat-ymu (infinitive-future-1st sg.) I will write.^[96] Although the inflectional future (based on the verb ‘to have’) is characteristic of Romance languages, Ukrainian linguist A. Danylenko argues that Ukrainian differs from Romance in the choice of auxiliary, which should be interpreted as ‘to take’ and not ‘to have.’ He states that Late Common Slavic (LCS) had three verbs with the same Proto-Indo-European root *h₁em-:

• a determined imperfective LCS *jęti: *jĭmǫ ‘to take’ (later superseded by numerous prefixed perfectives)
• an indetermined imperfective LCS *jĭmati: jemljǫ ‘to take’ (which would not take any prefixes)
• an imperfective LCS *jĭměti: *jĭmamĭ ‘to hold, own, have’

The three verbs became conflated in East Slavic due to morphological overlap, in particular of *iměti «to have» and *jati «to take» as exemplified in the Middle Ukrainian homonymic imut’ from both iměti (< *jĭměti) and jati (< *jęti). Analogous grammaticalization of the type take («to take», «to seize») > future is found in Chinese and Hungarian.^[97]

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

• Dialects of Ukrainian Language / Narzecza Języka Ukraińskiego by Wł. Kuraszkiewicz Archived 14 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine (in Polish)
• Hammond’s Racial map of Europe, 1919 «National Alumni» 1920, vol.7, anesi.com
• Ethnographic map of Europe 1914, cla.calpoly.edu (archived 3 March 2008)
• Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Ukrainian language
• The official Ukrainian Orthography (2012), published by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• 101languages.net – Ukrainian 101

Украинский язык (рас. укр. українська мова) — официальный язык Украины. В отличие от большинства языков, является не столько средством коммуникации, сколько генератором бесконечного срача, в том числе на самом высоком уровне.

До 1917 года официально именовался малорусским наречием русского языка. Было ещё белорусское наречие, и великорусское наречие — ныне это обычный русский язык.

Очень много усилий для популяризации украинского языка приложили коммунисты в период с 1920 по 1935 год. Украинизация в те времена была суровей, чем в нынешней независимой Украине. Литературная норма менялась в сторону большего отличия от русского. За примерами далеко ходить не надо: на банкноте 100 гривен присутствуют строки Тараса Шевченко со словами «время» и «минута», отсутствующими в нынешней литературной норме.

Начиная с 1930-х годов, на советской Украине провозглашалось равенство украинского и русского языков. Яростная украинизация прекратилась до 1991 года, но вялотекущая украинизация никогда не прекращалась.

Распространённость: преимущественно западная часть Украины. Отличается обилием диалектов, сильно отличающихся от литературной нормы, и тем, что почти никто не говорит в варианте литературной нормы — говорят только чиновники, телеведущие, учителя, да и то лишь перед камерой/на работе. Восточные диалекты отличаются от литературной нормы большей близостью к русскому и известны под общим определением суржик. (С сегодняшних позиций выглядит, что великий украинский поэт Тарас Шевченко и все прочие известные украинские литераторы прошлого писали именно на суржике). Западные диалекты отличаются повышенным процентом польских и немецких слов, отсутствующих в литературной версии. В Закарпатье есть диалекты с вкраплением венгерских слов.

Достоверной статистики по количеству говорящих на украинском языке в повседневной жизни нет. По более-менее правдоподобным прикидкам, это максимум 40 процентов населения Украины, если учитывать диалекты, которые отличаются от русского не только парой слов типа «шо». (Кстати, такое слово отсутствует в литературном украинском). Процент украиноязычных не является напрямую связанным с близостью российской границы: в ближайшей к России Сумской области их много (хоть это и суржик), а в дальнем конце Одесской области на границе с Румынией — около ноля.

Проще говоря, украинский язык представляет собой нечто среднее между русским языком и польским языком. Но с явным перевесом в сторону русского. С ним общая письменность, в основном общая система склонения/спряжения и большинство слов. Русскоязычному человеку, если он не совсем идиот, украинский язык почти полностью понятен даже без изучения, а при хотя бы минимальном изучении за считанные часы будет понятен не хуже, чем русский. А с польским языком всё сложнее во много раз.

Письменность[править]

Алфавит кириллический, с несколькими буквами, отсутствующим в русском: Є (как «е» в русском), Ґ (как «нормальное» «г», аналогичное русскому, встречается очень редко и не все смогут правильно произнести), і (как «и» в русском), ї (как «йи» в русском). Буква «е» читается как «э» в русском, буква «и» — как «ы» в русском. «Г» произносится всем известным фрикативным образом, примерно как «гх», эта особенность сохраняется и у многих русскоязычных жителей Украины, а также соседних российских областей.

Вместо твёрдого знака («ъ») используется апостроф «’». Вместо буквы «ё» — либо «йо», либо «ьo».

Особенности[править]

Первая бросающаяся в глаза особенность украинского языка — дикое обилие буквы «і». Это буква очень часто встречается там, где на её месте в русском — буква «о»: кiт (кот), кiшка (кошка), кiнь (конь). Но не обязательно: есть также «народ», «рот». Также эта буква — чуть менее чем всегда на месте буквы «ять» в старой орфографии русского языка: «бiлий», «блiдний», «бiс» и так далее.

Очень странная на взгляд владеющих только русским особенность — замена звуков при склонении слов. «Кiт», но «два кота», «Львiв», но «до Львова». (Хотя и в русском есть подобное: «звезда» — «звёзды»).

Все буквы в каноничном украинском языке произносятся только так, как они написаны, и никак иначе! Нет таких несусветных дикостей русского языка (с точки зрения правильного украинца), когда пишется «корова», а произносится «кырова», пишется «молоко», а произносится «малако», пишется «сегодня», а произносится «сиводне». Нечёткое произношение в русском языке стало причиной издевательского стиля письма украинских националистов на русском языке, типа «расийский ваенный карабль»

Если есть сочетание «ця», то оно произносится именно как «ця», а не как «ца». С этим связано известное проверочное слово для выявления российских диверсантов «паляниця»: считается, что россиянин не знает, как произносить его правильно, и обязательно скажет «палянИцА» или, в лучшем случае, «паляныцА».

Полноформатно сохранился звательный падеж (кличний відмінок), который в русском остался лишь в одном слове («Бог» — «Боже»). В украинском почти любое существительное можно употребить в звательном падеже: «друг» — «друже», «пан» (господин) — «пане», «Америка» — «Америко», «батько» — «батьку», «Андрій» — «Андрію».

Сторонники украинского языка считают, что он благозвучнее русского благодаря чёткому произношению, обилию исконно славянских слов и большему разнообразию терминов. Типичным примером последнего приводят тот факт, что есть слова «мастило» (техническое масло), «олiя» (растительное масло), «масло» (масло из молока), тогда как в русском для всего этого лишь одно слово. Но на самом деле больше обратных примеров: «мова» переводится и как речь, и как язык, «рiчка» — и как река, и как речка, «куля» — как шар и как пуля, «певний» — как уверенный и как определённый, «жiнка» — как женщина и жена. Неславянских слов (обычно немецкого происхождения) в украинском, возможно, даже больше, чем в русском: «шлях» (путь), «дах» (крыша), «папiр» (бумага).

Противники украинского языка недовольны также насаждением неблагозвучных географических названий и даже личных имён. Например, такие названия, как Харкiв или Київ коренному жителю этих городов могут казаться просто издевательством. (Намного красивее выглядело бы Києв, но это возникает только при склонении: до Києва). Коверкаются и личные имена людей, причём в ряде случаев — до неузнаваемости: вместо Николай — Микола, вместо Дмитрий — Дмитро с ударением на «о». При этом, как правило, мнение самих людей не спрашивают, выдавая им документы с другим именем.

«Русский» в украинском языке — это «росiйський». «Русский» как национальность — «росiянин» (россиянин в значении «гражданин России любой национальности» — то же самое). «Руський» — это связанный с Русью, а не с Россией. Одно время слова «руський» и «український» рассматривались как синонимы, а Украина называлась Русь-Україна.

После 24 февраля 2022 года неофициальной нормой стало написание слова «Росiя» с маленькой буквы. Если написать это слово с заглавной буквы (особенно, не в начале предложения), могут заподозрить в пророссийских настроениях и причинить проблемы. Интересно, что даже в 1942 году в отношении слова «Германия» такое не практиковалось.

Некоторые украинские слова[править]

Вместо традиционного русского «здравствуйте» — Добрий день/Доброго дня, также «Доброго ранку» (утро)/«Доброго вечора». «Спасибо» — «Дякую». «Да» — «так», «нет» — «нi», «нет» (не имеется) — нема.

Слова с отличным от русского значением:
родина (укр.) — означает не родина, а семья (также сім’я). «Родина» = «батькiвщина» (отечество).

город (укр., ударение на второй слог) — огород. «Город» = «мiсто».

шар (укр.) — не шар, а слой (также прошарок). «Шар» = «куля».

гідність (укр.) — не годность, а достоинство. «Годность» = «придатність».

неділя (укр.) — не неделя, а воскресенье. «Неделя» = «тиждень».

вродливий (укр.) — не уродливый, а красивый. «Уродливый» — «потворний».

світ (укр.) — не свет, а мир в значении «планета» (хотя и в русском есть такое значение, от него «кругосветный»). «Свет» = «свiтло».

час (укр.) — не час, а время. «Час» = «година».

питати (укр.) — не пытать, а спрашивать. «Пытать» = «катувати».

гарбуз (укр.) — не арбуз, а тыква. «Арбуз» = «кавун».

орати (укр.) — не орать, а пахать. «Орать» = «кричати».

мати рацію (укр.) — не иметь портативную радиостанцию, а быть правым

безпечний (укр.) — не беспечный, а безопасный. «Беспечный» = «безтурботний» (беззаботный), «необережний» (неосторожный)

мешкати (укр.) — не мешкать, а жить, проживать (также жити, проживати). «Мешкать» (медлить с чем-либо) — «гасати».

трус (укр.) — не трус, а обыск (малоизвестная форма, стандартно «обшук»). «Трус» — «боягуз».

другий (укр.) — не другой, а второй. «Другой» = «iнший».

брак (укр.) — не семейный союз (это шлюб) и не некачественное изделие (это вада), а нехватка чего-либо.

разом (укр.) — вместе, а не однажды (одного разу), как с большей вероятностью предположит великорус.

луна (укр.) — не луна, а эхо (также ехо)

місяць (укр.) — не только месяц (года), но также луна

лист (укр.) — не только лист, но также письмо

лютий (укр.) — не только прилагательное «лютый», но также февраль

лаяти (укр.) — не лаять, а ругать. «Лаять» — «гавкати».

мить (укр.) — не мыть, а момент, мгновение. Глагол «мыть» = мити.

лічити (укр.) — не лечить, а считать, подсчитывать (также рахувати). «Лечить» = «лікувати».

річ (укр.) (мн. число речі) — «вещь», а не «речь». «Речь» — «мова».

Кiт (укр.) — кот, кит (укр.) — кит. Кiшка (укр.) — кошка, кишка (укр.) — кишка. Не забываем, что «и» в украинском произносится как «ы».

Цэ Європа
Про нас	Україна (історія) • Українець • Степан Бандера (Бандерівець) • Козаки • Помаранчеві • Свідомість • Суржик • Хохол • Нацизм на Украине • Геополитическая проститутка • Оксанки • Чем украинцы отличаются от хохлов
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После того как мы разобрали историческую мистификацию, стоит разобрать особенности «украинской мовы». Такой разбор даст немало до смешного красноречивых деталей и аргументов, подтверждающих тезисы, изложенные в первой части.

Итак, в 14–16 веках, во время польского владычества, юго-западные российские земли попали под мощное культурное, политическое и хозяйственное влияние Польского королевства. Начался процесс скрещивания местного славянорусского и польского языков. Один из основополагающих законов языкознания гласит, что при скрещивании двух языков никогда не возникает некий средний язык — всегда, в конечном счете, побеждает один из них. В этот период «мова» начинает все больше приближаться по своей лексике к польскому языку. И лишь возвращение Малороссии в лоно Русского государства прервало процесс скрещивания буквально на полпути, когда русский язык южной Руси уже в сильнейшей степени ополячился, но еще не успел превратиться в польский. Самое подходящее название для этого языка – русско-польский диалект. Собственно, и назывался этот диалект не «мова», а «руська мова». Такова была цена, которую пришлось заплатить русским в Малороссии за продолжительное пребывание под польским господством. Не будь этого господства, для возникновения русско-польского диалекта не было бы оснований. Тем не менее, возникнув при неблагоприятных обстоятельствах, этот диалект употреблялся населением, по своей национальности являвшимся русским.

В середине 16-го века предпринимается попытка создать письменную «руську мову», отличную от церковнославянской и польской. На эту «руську мову» переводятся книги церковно-учительные и религиозные, в частности Пересопницкое Евангелие 1555–1561 г.

Вот две выдержки из этого Евангелия: «…для лепшего выразумения люду христианского посполитого» и следующее место: «В начале было Слово. И слово было от Бога, и Бог был то Слово. То было напочатку у Бога; и все речи через Него ся стали. А без Него ништо не могло бытии, еже и бысть. В том живот был. А живот был свет человеком. И свет во тьме светится, и тьма его не обыймет». Из первого фрагмента видно, что все слова цитаты: «лепший, выразумение, посполитый» – польские. А второй отрывок – чистейший русский с отдельными вкраплениями слов из польской лексики: напочатку, ся стали, обыймет. Отсюда видно, что во второй половине 16 столетия ополячивание славянорусского языка еще не зашло слишком далеко – «руська мова» и русский язык отличались незначительно.

После воссоединения южной и северной Руси в 1654 году, когда влияние польского языка прекратилось, начался обратный процесс постепенного вытеснения всевозможных полонизмов под общим воздействием общерусского литературного языка.

Трехсотлетнее польское господство над южной Русью не изменило ни национальности, ни языка ее населения, и, несмотря на огромную засоренность полонизмами, он к середине 17 в. остается вполне русским. Те особенности, которые стали отличать «мову» от русского языка, свидетельствовали не о превращении ее в некий самостоятельный язык, а только лишь об образовании нового диалекта русского языка.

В середине 19-го века на территории Прикарпатской Руси, находившейся в то время под властью Австрии, развернулась настоящая «азбучная война». Австрийская администрация и поляки хотели навязать русскому языку латинский алфавит. Этот радикальный вариант не прошел, но все же австрийским полякам, в союзе с «украинофилами», удалось изменить правила правописания и ввести фонетическое написание.

Борьба велaсь вокруг русского литературного языка. Так называемая «старорусская», или «святоюрская», партия стремилась приблизить галицко-русское наречие на основе церковнославянского языка к русскому литературному языку, а украинофильская хотела сблизить народный язык с польским.

Крупный галицко-русский историк Дионисий Иванович Зубрицкий (1777 — 1862) был одним из первых, выразивших протест против попыток ополячившихся «протоукраинцев» придать местным наречиям статус литературного языка. В своей «Истории древнего галичско-русского княжества» он писал, что «есть мрачные исступленники, или скорее низкие невежды, в лени доселе проживающие, пренебрегавшие всякую науку собственного языка, употреблявшие чуждое наречие, прислушивавшиеся только простонародному разговору своих слуг и работников и желавшие теперь, чтобы мы писали свою Историю на областном наречии Галичской черни. Странное и смешное требование!.. Где же то пишутся истории на наречии простого земледельца?»

Поляки неутомимо работали над созданием в Прикарпатской Руси «антимосковской Руси», и в этом украинофильские деятели сыграли наиглавнейшую роль. Поляки стали насильственно внедрять в русские школы так называемую «кулишивку», используя фонетическое правописание (т.е. как слышится, так и пишется) как инструмент этнического раскола. Вектор на раскол единства русской нации был столь агрессивным и неприкрытым, что даже сам изобретатель фонетического правописания П. Кулиш возмущался этим и даже хотел отказаться от своего изобретения.

Хорошо известно его письмо из Варшавы от 16 октября 1866 года, посланное Я. Ф. Головацкому во Львов, где он писал следующее: «Вам известно, что правописание, прозванное у вас в Галиции «кулишивкою», изобретено мною в то время, когда все в России были заняты распространением грамотности в простом народе. С целью облегчить науку грамоты для людей, которым некогда долго учиться, я придумал упрощенное правописание. Но из него теперь делают политическое знамя. Полякам приятно, что не все русские пишут одинаково по-русски; они в последнее время особенно принялись хвалить мою выдумку: они основывают на ней свои вздорные планы и потому готовы льстить даже такому своему противнику, как я… Теперь берет меня охота написать новое заявление в том же роде по поводу превозносимой ими «кулишивки». Видя это знамя в неприятельских руках, я первый на него ударю и отрекусь от своего правописания во имя русского единства».

В 1878 году начался беспощадный поход против русской культуры в Галиции. Были арестованы редакторы всех шести русских газет во Львове и тысячи крестьян и чиновников по всей Галиции. Русский историк Андрей Дикий пишет: «Русский литературный язык в Буковине употреблялся даже в официальных случаях, наравне с языком немецким и румынским. Лучшим доказательством этого служат мраморные доски на знании Городской Думы (Ратуши) Черновиц, водруженные в ознаменование 25-летия (в 1873 году) и 40-летия (в 1888 году) царствования Австрийского императора Франца Иосифа II. Надписи на них сделаны на трех языках: немецком, румынском и литературном русском. Но уже на третьей доске (водруженной в 1898 году в память 50-летия царствования) надпись на литературном русском языке заменена надписью на «украинском» языке – фонетическим правописанием.

Фонетическое правописание, чуждое русскому языку, было насильственно введено в 1892 году в школах Буковины несмотря на то, что при проведении среди всех учителей анкетирования по этому вопросу только два учителя во всей Буковине высказались за фонетическое правописание, в то время как все остальные категорически и обоснованно против этого возражали.

Любопытный документ, характеризующий методы внедрения этих желательных Австрии настроений попал в руки русских властей, когда в 1914 году Буковина была занята русскими войсками. В австрийских архивах была найдена собственноручная подписка-обязательство «профессора» (преподавателя) «русского» языка Смаль-Стоцкого, в которой он обязывается, если ему будет предоставлено место, преподавать «русский» язык и историю в духе их отдельности и полной отчужденности от общерусской истории, культуры и языка. Смаль-Стоцкий не был исключением. Все учителя в Буковине, начиная с конца 19 века, если хотели удержаться на службе или получить таковую, должны были быть и активными пропагандистами политики Австрии, направленной на отчуждение земель Западной Руси от общерусской культуры и от России.

С 1991 г. «мова» начала развиваться уже совершенно «самостийно и нэзалэжно» под высочайшим патронажем столь же «самостийной и нэзалежной дэржавы». Вот что пишет А. Железный в своей брошюре «Происхождение русско-украинского двуязычия в Украине» (Киев, 1998 г.): «Буквально ежедневно украинские средства массовой информации вместо привычных, укоренившихся слов преподносят нам новые, якобы исконно украинские: «спортовець» вместо спортсмен, «полициянт» вместо полiцейский, «агенцiя» вместо агентство, «наклад» вместо тираж, «уболiвати» вместо спортивного болiти, «розвой» вместо розвиток – всего и не перечислить! Разумеется, все эти «украинские» слова взяты непосредственно из польского языка: sportowjec, policiant, agencia, naklad, uboliwac, rozwoj… Есть, правда, отдельные случаи, когда и хочется убрать какое-нибудь уж больно «по-москальски» звучащее слово, но и соответствующее польское не подходит. Вот два характерных примера. Для замены дерусификаторами «неправильного» слова аэропорт польское слово явно не походит, т.к. звучит точно так же: aeroport. Пришлось выдумывать совершенно новое, небывалое слово «лэтовыще». Или вот для украинской эстрады ранее общепринятое обозначение вокально-инструментального ансамбля словом «группа» (по-украински «группа») для дерусификаторов оказалось неприемлемым. Но и польское аналогичное слово звучит слишком уж «по-москальски» – grupa. И вновь пришлось обходиться собственными ресурсами: применить скотоводческий термин «гурт» (стадо). Пусть, мол, новый термин и ассоциируется со стадом баранов, лишь бы он не был похож на русский!»

При этом с чисто холопским зазнайством утверждается, что сегодня украинский язык – «один из наиболее богатых и наиболее развитых языков мира». «Тогда почему же уже в наши дни затеяна колоссальная работа по формированию «украинской» научной, технической, медицинской и прочей терминологии? В чем же тогда «богатство» и «развитость» нашего украинского языка?» – спрашивает А. Железный и приводит пример, раскрывающий истинную подоплеку всей этой пустопорожней болтовни о богатстве и развитости «мовы».

«Вот передо мной лежит статья некоего Вячеслава Панфилова «Украинская терминология должна иметь собственное лицо» («Киевский вестник» за 03.04.93). Автору этой статьи почему-то не нравится, что многие украинские электротехнические термины совпадают с русскими: виток, гайка, генератор, катушка, коммутатор, реостат, статор, штепсель… Вместо этих «москальских» терминов он требует принять такие истинно украинские: звiй, мутра, витворець, цiвка, перелучник, опiрниця, стояк, притичка… Что это за слова, откуда они взялись? Все очень просто: открываем польский словарь и читаем: zwoj, mutra, wytwornica, cewka, przelucznick, opornik, stojan, wtyczka. Вот вам и совершенствование технической терминологии: ее «собственное лицо» имеет давно знакомые польские черты!»

Профессор Киевского университета св. Владимира, автор капитального исследования «Лекции по славянскому языкознанию» Т. Д. Флоринский писал: «Малорусский язык есть не более как одно из наречий русского языка… составляет одно целое с другими русскими наречиями… Факт целости и единства русских наречий в смысле принадлежности их к одной диалектической группе считается в современной науке истиной, не требующей доказательств». Отсюда закономерный вывод: жители Малороссии «в этнографическом отношении представляют не самостоятельную славянскую особь (в противоположность, например, чехам, полякам, болгарам или сербохорватам), а лишь разновидность той обширной славянской особи, которая именуется русским народом. В состав ее входят наряду с малороссами великороссы и белорусы. В частных сторонах и явлениях своей жизни, в языке, быте, народном характере и исторической судьбе малороссы представляют немало своеобразных особенностей, но при всем этом они всегда были и остаются частью одного целого – русского народа».

А вот что пишет профессор Ляпунов Б. М.: «В настоящее время русский живой язык делится на наречия: великорусское, белорусское и малорусское. Причем названия эти простому русскому народу неизвестны и употребляются только образованными людьми».

Работы процитированных выше авторов относятся к рубежу 19–20 века и однозначно говорят о том, что никакого «украинского языка» на территории южной России не существовало.

Украинская филология, утверждающая, что «украинский» язык имеет древние корни, не является наукой, а всего лишь наукообразной пропагандой дешевых и примитивных мифов, фантастичность которых столь беспредельна, что нередко смахивает на шизофренический бред. Чтобы убедиться в этом, достаточно только перечислить ее последние «открытия»:

«Украинский язык – один из древнейших языков мира… Есть все основания полагать, что уже в начале нашего летоисчисления он был межплеменным языком» (Украинский язык для начинающих. Киев, 1993 г.). «У нас есть основания считать, что Овидий (!) писал стихи на древнем украинском языке» (Гнаткевич Э. От Геродота до Фотия. «Вечерний Киев», 26 января 1993 г.). «Украинский язык – допотопный, язык Ноя (!), самый древний язык в мире, от которого произошли кавказско-яфетические, прахамитские и прасемитские группы языков» (Чепурко Б. Украинцы. «Основа» № 3. Киев, 1993 г.). «Древний украинский язык – санскрит (!) – стал праматерью всех индоевропейских «языков» (Плачинда С. Словарь древнеукраинской мифологии. Киев,1993 г.). «В основе санскрита лежит какой-то загадочный язык «сансар», занесенный на нашу планету с Венеры (!). Не об украинском ли языке речь?» (Кратко-Кутынский А. Феномен Украины. «Вечерний Киев»,1993 г.).

Все эти высказывания отнюдь не из собрания первоапрельских шуток. Они принадлежат солидным академическим мужам, кандидатам и докторам филологических наук. Украинских, конечно, наук.

Навязывание Малороссии в качестве «родного языка» укрмовы продиктовано политикой, ибо она («мова») – явление не культуры, а антикультуры, плод усилий различных антирусских сил, видевших в ней эффективное средство денационализации Русского населения юго-западной Руси. Реалии сегодняшней «самостийной Украины» со всей очевидностью демонстрируют эту ее русофобскую функцию.

Сегодняшний Киев, как и века назад, по-прежнему сохраняет облик обычного русского города: на улицах, в метро, магазинных очередях, праздничных шествиях и многолюдных митингах все так же доминирует живая русская речь. Редкие вкрапления в нее «мовы» режут ухо, резко диссонируя с общим языковым фоном города, и воспринимаются как нечто чужеродное, занесенное сюда Бог весть из каких дальних краев.

Картина, однако, разительно меняется, стоит только переступить порог любого официального учреждения: здесь полностью царит украинский новояз. Если вы обратитесь к чиновнику по-русски, он с вами даже разговаривать не станет, прикинувшись глухим или по горло занятым. Причина этой игры «в молчанку» банально проста: вы сталкиваетесь лицом к лицу с фасадом новой власти. Украинской власти. Ведь сегодня Киев – столица «самостийной и нэзалэжной Украины», и его нынешние хозяева с маниакальной настойчивостью стараются подчеркнуть этот судьбоносный для их существования факт. Поэтому все уличные надписи, тексты реклам, объявлений, вывески магазинов и названия остановок в Киеве, как и в других городах Малороссии, выполнены исключительно на «мове». А в качестве поясняющего перевода к ней дублируются… на английском языке! Любая официальная документация дается также исключительно на укрмове. Только на ней ведутся дискуссии в Верховной Раде, хотя вне ее стен подавляющее большинство депутатов привычно переходит на родной, русский язык. Лишь по-украински, с плохо скрытым акцентом, общаются с народом президент, члены правительства, главы официальных ведомств, представители средств массовой информации.

Слушая их косноязычную, ломаную речь, воочию наблюдая то тягостное напряжение, с каким все эти «дэржавни диячи» вымучивают из себя общение на искусственно сконструированном местечковом новоязе, всякий раз задумываешься над этим странным и трудно объяснимом парадоксом: почему все исторические попытки создания самостийниками «нэзалэжной дэржавы», в сущности, всегда сводились к одному: насильственному внедрению «мовы» и этим зачастую ограничивались?

Сергей Родин в книге «Отрекаюсь от русского имени» пишет: «Всякий раз, вникая в доводы адептов украиномовского движения, силящихся объяснить мне смысл происходящего, я не мог избавиться от ощущения, что являюсь свидетелем массового, поголовного психоза, особого рода социального безумия, в которое вовлекаются все новые и новые жертвы. Безумия, вышедшего из-под контроля и несущего в себе чудовищный потенциал разрушения культуры и общества… В этом государстве с чисто параноидальной навязчивостью раз за разом ставится и решается одна-единственная проблема: как сделать никому не нужную «украинську мову» массовой и желанной, какими средствами принудить пятьдесят миллионов взрослых мужчин, женщин и их детей забыть родной русский язык и перейти на искусственно созданный суржик… В Верховной Раде бесконечно обсуждаются языковые законопроекты, один идиотичнее другого. Последний из них, например, предусматривает за «неупотребление украинского языка» административные наказания и штрафы. Из правительственных сфер следуют не менее грозные циркуляры, столь же идиотские, сколь и невыполнимые. Постановлением кабинета министров Украины № 1004 от 21 июня 2000 года категорически запрещено употребление русского языка органами власти и местного самоуправления даже в тех регионах, где русские официально признаны большинством населения. Это же постановление в директивном порядке обязывает изучать укрмову не только госслужащих, но и предпринимателей, работников сферы обслуживания, инженерно-технических работников и даже работников национально-культурных обществ. И не только изучать, но и в обязательном порядке пользоваться ею в быту! Особенно же впечатляет статья 31 этого постановления: об уголовной ответственности за нарушение литературных норм «дэржавной мовы».

Всякий хоть сколько-нибудь знакомый с процессом разработки украинского новояза понимает, насколько смехотворно применительно к нему звучит само требование соблюдения каких-либо «норм». Искусственно мутированный из разговорного малорусского наречия, он на протяжении последних ста лет подвергался столь несуразным переделкам и нововведениям с целью максимального удаления его от русского языка, что сегодня даже самый изощренный специалист-украиномовник не в состоянии определить: что является нормативной формой, а что – грубым отклонением от нее.

Кого и за что сажать в тюрьму? Бывшего президента Кучму, выступления которого изобилуют ошибками, характерными для детишек младших классов? А может быть, украинских министров, допускающих в предложении из пяти слов не менее десяти отступлений от лексических «норм» современного варианта «мовы»? И главное, кто и как будет решать вопрос о привлечении к уголовной ответственности провинившихся? Языковая полиция? Министерство правды? « Тройки по украинизации»? Или иные учреждения в таком же роде? Абсурд и нелепица! Полное сумасшествие! «Палата № 6»! Посмеяться бы, да не очень весело. Речь ведь идет не о бреде психически больного субъекта, а о государственной политике, уже сегодня калечащей судьбы миллионов людей, растаптывающей их человеческое достоинство, деформирующей их сознание ложью, ненавистью, ощущением этнической и моральной ущербности. И смысл ее отнюдь не в защите и поддержке «ридной мовы», а в намеренном и зловредном искоренении в Малороссии всяких следов ее русскости: будь то язык, книжка, безобидный водевиль или надпись на придорожном указателе. Все, абсолютно все подвергается тотальному уничтожению.

Продающаяся на Украине печатная продукция на русском языке официально признана в качестве «информационной агрессии восточного государства». В соответствии с этой установкой еще в 1996 г. Министерством информации были выработаны рекомендации для правительства, в которых предлагалось уменьшить тарифы на распространение печатных периодических изданий на государственном языке (укрмове) в 100 раз, а на негосударственном языке (т.е. русском) – увеличить (!) в 100 раз. При этом вещание и печатные издания на русском языке были признаны «явлением, которое по своим негативным последствиям представляет для национальной безопасности страны угрозу не меньшую, чем пропаганда насилия, разврата, а также разные формы антиукраинской пропаганды». В законе, принятом Верховной Радой в августе 2000 года, издания на русском языке приравнены к изданиям «рекламного и эротического (!) характера» и на этом основании обложены дополнительными поборами. Председатель Государственного комитета по информационной политике, телевидению и радио Иван Драч суть подобной дискриминации объяснил просто: «Каждая русская книжка должна платить акциз – одну гривну на украинскую культуру. Каждая русская газета – десять копеек на украинскую прессу!»

Во Львове решением горсовета запрещены даже песни на русском языке. Финансируемые городским бюджетом специальные «отряды украинизации» проводят рейды и облавы в кафе, ресторанах, магазинах с целью выявления нарушителей этого драконовского постановления. Заведения, уличенные в нарушении запрета, подвергаются не только денежным штрафам, но нередко и погромам специально науськиваемой на это толпой уличного сброда. Запрещены также русские спектакли и концерты.

Таким образом, можно сделать следующие выводы:

«Украинский язык» или «мова» – искусственно сконструированная из южнорусского наречия русского языка химера, внедряемая насильственными методами на протяжении более чем 100 лет всеми режимами, под которыми находился и находится ныне русский народ (русский этнос) на территории нынешней Украины (польским, австрийским, большевистским и теперь – «самостийным»), в целях «превращения» русских в «украинцев» – новую «нацию», отторжения тем самым исконно русских земель от России, ослабления русского этноса и создания на границе с Россией самого русофобского государства в мире.

Украинский язык
Самоназвание:	Українська мова
Страны:	Украина, Россия, Польша, Канада, Белоруссия, Словакия, США
Регионы:	Восточная Европа
Официальный статус:	Украина  Приднестровье(Непризнаное)
Общее число носителей:	более 40 млн
Рейтинг:	26
Классификация
Категория:	Языки Евразии
Индоевропейская семья Славянская группа Восточнославянская подгруппа
Письменность:	кириллица (украинский алфавит)
Языковые коды
ISO 639-1:	uk
ISO 639-2:	ukr
ISO 639-3:	ukr
См. также: Проект:Лингвистика

Украи́нский язы́к (укр. украї́нська мо́ва) — государственный язык Украины, национальный язык украинцев, относится к славянским языкам (восточнославянской группы), входящим в индоевропейскую семью языков. Письменность на основе кириллицы (гражданский шрифт).

Распространённость

Общая численность украиноязычного населения, по оценкам, около 39,4 млн человек (1993) ^[1].

На Украине

• На территории Украины в 1993 году было около 31 млн говорящих по-украински, к 2001 году (согласно переписи населения) их число увеличилось до 32,7 млн человек — 67,5 % населения Украины ^[2].
• Территориально наиболее распространён украинский язык в Тернопольской области (98,3 %), наименее — в Севастополе (6,8 %).
• Украинский язык наиболее распространён среди украинцев (85,2 %) и поляков (71,0 %), наименее — среди крымских татар (0,1 %) и венгров (3,4 %). Среди русских — 3,9 %.

В других государствах

Также по-украински говорят в России, Польше (до 150 тыс. чел.), Канаде, Словакии (около 100 тыс. чел.), Белоруссии, Аргентине, Бразилии, Австралии, Приднестровье (около 70 тыс. чел.)^[3].

Диалекты

Главные диалекты:

• северо-западные (полесские), испытывали влияние белорусского языка;
• юго-западные (галицкие, закарпатские, буковинские), испытали влияние польского и словацкого языков;
• юго-восточные (приднепровские), были положены в основу литературного языка.
• северо-восточные (слобожанщина), испытывали влияние русского языка

На северо-востоке говоры испытывают влияние как белорусского, так и русского языка. Иногда эти говоры объединяют с северо-западными (как северное наречие или североукраинские диалекты). Северные говоры отличаются от литературного языка в основном фонетикой (в произношении, ударении), юго-западные фонетически ближе к литературному, чем северные. Кроме этого, сильно отличаются от литературного говоры Закарпатья, которые некоторые филологи^[кто?] выделяют в отдельный русинский язык.

На востоке и юге Украины, в центральных областях, многие украинцы говорят на смеси украинского и русского языка (на так называемом суржике), который совмещает в основном украинскую грамматику и фонетику со смешанной русско-украинской лексикой.

Современный украинский литературный язык — это смесь элементов трёх главных диалектов, с преобладанием влияния полтавских говоров, то есть юго-восточной группы диалектов, и в меньшей мере — юго-западной группы. Существует мнение о существовании двух вариантов литературного языка: западного и восточного. Западный вариант литературного можно проследить в текстах И. Я. Франко, В. С. Стефаника, О. Ю. Кобылянской и др., восточный же, основанный на киево-полтаво-слобожанских наречиях представлен в творчестве И. П. Котляревского («Энеида»), Т. Г. Шевченко, Леси Украинки и др.

Говоры северного наречия отличаются целым рядом пережиточных элементов. Главнейшие из них таковы:

• наличие дифтонгов |уо| (с вариантами |уи|, |уі| и др.), |іе| в закрытых слогах под ударением вместо |і|, возникшего из старых |о| и |е|: |куостка|, |куонь|, |піеч|, но |костки́|, |о́сень|; южноукр. и в литературном языке — |кістка|, |кінь|, |піч|, |кістки|, |о́сінь|;
• наличие дифтонга |іе| под ударением вместо |і|, возникшего из |ѣ|: |діед|, |ліес|, |стіенка|, но |дедо́к|, |лесо́к|, |стена́|; южноукр. и в литературном языке — |дід|, |ліс|, |стінка|, |дідо́к|, |лісо́к|, |стіна́|;
• окончание -є вместо -я после долгого (на письме удвоенного) согласного: |життє|, |весіллє|, |зіллє| южноукр.; в большинстве говоров и в литературном языке — |життя|, |весілля|, |зілля|;
• окончание -и вместо -і в именительном падеже мн. ч. имен прилагательных: |добри|, |здорови|, |гарни|; в южноукраинском и в литературном языке — |добрі|, |здорові|, |гарні|.

Из отличительных же особенностей южных наречий следует отметить:

• смешение в выговоре безударных |е| и |и|: |се/ило|, |ве/ишневий|, |зе/илений|; и в литературном языке заметны такие же переходы, хотя правописание следует тут принципу этимологическому — |село|, |вишневий|, |зелений|;
• окончание -ю в 1-м лице и -е в 3-м лице глаголов настоящего времени: |ходю́|, |носю́|, |хо́де|, |но́се|, рядом с |хо́джу|, |но́шу|, |хо́дить|, |но́сить|, как и в литературном языке.

Западная подгруппа южноукраинского наречия имеет значительно меньшее распространение, чем восточная, и по сравнению с последней отличается в основном:

• твердым выговором звука |р|: |бура|, |гира|, |радно|, вместо |буря|, |гиря|, |рядно|;
• окончанием -є вместо -я и отсутствием долготы согласного (в правописании — двойного согласного) в словах типа |життя|, |весілля|, |зілля|, выговаривающихся вследствие этого как |житє|, |весілє|, |зілє|;
• падежными окончаниями имен существительных: |батькови|, |ковальови|, |коньом|, |земльою|, |на поли|, вместо |батькові|, |ковалеві|, |конем|, |землею|, |на полі|;
• окончанием -ий (в некоторых говорах) в именах прилагательных мягкого склонения, имеющих обычно окончание -ій: |синий|, |третий| вместо |синій|, |третій|.

Письменность

Украинский алфавит (редакция 1990 года):

Аа Бб Вв Гг Ґґ Дд Ее Єє Жж Зз Ии Іі Її Йй Кк Лл Мм Нн Оо Пп Рр Сс Тт Уу Фф Хх Цц Чч Шш Щщ Ьь Юю Яя

Кроме того, в качестве разделительного знака (аналога русского |ъ|) используется апостроф: |з‘їзд| (съезд); часто апостроф соответствует и русскому разделительному |ь| — если по правилам украинской фонологии смягчение невозможно: |сім‘я| (семья).

История письменности и орфографические системы

В XVIII—XIX вв. существовали и конкурировали несколько систем украинского правописания (до 50-ти разной степени распространённости, включая и чисто индивидуальные ^[6]) с разным составом алфавита и основанные на разных принципах. Их можно разделить на три основные группы:

• (полу)фонетические системы на основе русского алфавита («ярыжка»):
  • правописание Котляревского (1798: переходное от этимологического к фонетическому);
  • правописание грамматики Павловского (1818: звук [i] независимо от происхождения передаётся через і, [je], [‘е] через ѣ, [jo], [‘о] через іô, [g] через кг; нет и);
  • правописание словаря Белецкого-Носенко (1840-е);
  • официальный вариант украинского правописания 1876—1905 гг. в Российской империи.
• этимологические системы:
  • система Максимовича — «максимовичевка» (1827);
  • закарпатское правописание (вплоть до 1940-х).
• фонетические системы на основе измененного алфавита:
  • правописание «Русалки Днестровой» (1837: и, i, ѣ, є, џ, ў; нет ы, ъ);
  • система Кулиша — «кулишовка» (1850-е: и, i, ё, є, разделительный ъ; g или ґ; нет ы);
  • система Драгоманова — «драгомановка» (1870-е: и, i, j; нет ѣ, ю, я, щ, ы, ъ);
  • система Желеховского — «желеховка» (1886; состав алфавита тождествен нынешнему);
  • нынешнее украинское правописание (словарь Гринченко (1907—1909), официальные своды орфографии 1921, 1928, 1933, 1946, 1960, 1990 гг.).:
    • в 1928—1933-е гг. официально существовало так называемое «харьковское правописание» (по названию тогдашней столицы Украины), именовавшееся также «скрыпниковским». С конца 1930-х гг. начинается планомерное сближение украинского правописания с русским и одновременное вытеснение польских заимствований; новое правописание, вошедшее в оборот ещё до войны, закрепляется реформой 1946 г. В то же время, «харьковское правописание», более близкое к нормам галицкой речи, продолжает использовать украинская диаспора за рубежом вплоть до настоящего времени.

Фонетика

В современном украинском литературном языке насчитывается 38 фонем, из них 6 гласных и 32 согласных. Гласные делятся на переднерядные (/і/, /и/, /е/) и заднерядные (/а/, /о/, /у/). Согласные делятся по месту образования на:

• губные: /б/, /п/, /в/, /м/, /ф/;
• переднеязычные: /д/, /т/, /з/, /с/, /дз/, /ц/, /р/, /л/, /н/, /з’/, /с’/, /дз’/, /ц’/, /р’/, /д’/, /т’/);
• постальвеолярные: /ж/, /ш/, /дж/, /ч/;
• среднеязычные: /й/, /л’/, /н’/;
• заднеязычные: /ґ/, /х/, /к/;
• надгортанные (или фарингальные): /г/.

Гласные

	Передний ряд	Задний ряд
Верхний подъём	i ɪ	u
Средний подъём	ɛ	ɔ
Нижний подъём		ɑ

Согласные

Место артикуляции →	Губные	Язычные	Велярные	Глоттальные
Способ артикуляции ↓	Губно-губные	Губно-зубные	Переднеязычные	Постальвеолярные	Среднеязычные	Велярные	Глоттальные
Носовые	/м/		/н/		/н’/
Взрывные	/п/ /б/		/т/ /д/ /т’/ /д’/			/к/ /ґ/
Аффрикаты			/ц/ /дз/ /ц’/ /дз’/	/ч/ /дж/
Фрикативные		/ф/	/с/ /з/ /с’/ /з’/	/ш/ /ж/		/х/	/г/
Дрожащие			/р/ /р’/
Аппроксиманты		/в/	/л/		/л’/ /й/

Произношение букв близко к русскому, со следующими основными отличиями:

• безударные гласные произносятся так же чётко, как ударные (о не превращается в а и т. п.);
• звонкие согласные на конце слова и перед глухими не оглушаются;
• буква г фонематически составляет звонкую пару букве |х|; произноситься при этом может по-разному ([ɣ], [ɦ], [ʡ], [ʢ]); в соответствие украинской |г| обычно ставят европейскую |h| (Hamlet, host). В отличие от русского, но как и в других славянских языках, падежное окончание «-ого» (напр. «кого») не произносится со звуком [в].
• буква ґ обозначает «твёрдое |г|» (такое, как в русском); используется в немногих словах, в основном иностранного происхождения: |ґрунт|, |бумеранґ|, |аґрус| (крыжовник, итал. agresto), |ґанок| (крыльцо, нем. Gang), |ґвалт| (нем. Gewalt) и т. п., а также в иностранных именах и названиях на месте латинской |g|: |Вінніпеґ|, |Гайдеґґер| (Heidegger) и проч.;
• буква е произносится близко к русскому |э|;
• буква же є соответствует русскому |е|, то есть означает йотированный или смягчающий звук;
• буква и произносится близко к русскому безударному |ы| или средне между |и| и |ы|;
• буква і произносится близко к русскому |и|;
• буква ї произносится как |йи| (после согласных не встречается);
• вместо отсутствующей буквы ё пишут йо: |йорзати| (ёрзать), |пайок| (паёк), |зйомка| (съёмка) или ьо после согласных: |льон|, |(дати) дьору|; заметьте, что в |ьо| мягкий знак не является разделительным, то есть эти слова произносится примерно как русские |лён|, |(дать) дёру|.
• Гласные произносятся более четко, особенно стоит обратить внимание на букву о, которая всегда произносится как [о], как в ударной, так и безударной позиции.

Более тонкие отличия в произношении таковы:

• в обозначает не лабиодентальный звук [v] (который образуется смыканием нижней губы с верхними зубами), а билабиальный [ʋ] (образуется смыканием губ);
• ч обозначает не мягкую, а твёрдую аффрикату;
• щ обозначает сочетание двух звуков, |ш| + |ч|, также твердых;
• согласные, обозначаемые буквами б, п, в, ф, г, х, ґ, к, ж, ш, а также м — всегда твердые;
• ц же часто бывают мягким: |перець| (перец), |паляниця| (вид хлеба);
• сочетаниями дж и дз часто обозначаются соответствующие аффрикаты, слитно произносящиеся звонкие аналоги звуков |ч| и |ц|: |джерело| (жерло, источник), |дзвін| (звон, колокол); но на стыке морфем те же буквосочетания произносятся раздельно: |піджарити| (поджарить), |підземний| (подземный).

Кроме указанных фонетических особенностей литературного украинского языка, важными характерными фонетическими чертами его являются:

• переходы основных |о| и |е| в |і|: |ніс| (из |носъ|), |піч| (из |печь|); эти переходы связаны, как известно, с исчезновением в последующем слоге так называемых редуцированных |ъ|, |ь|, причём основные |о| и |е| сохраняются в формах, имеющих в дальнейшем слоге неисчезавший гласный звук: |ніс| — |носа|, |піч| — |печи|; такого чередования |о|, |е| — |і| обычно не бывает в так называемых полногласных формах: |молот|, |перед|, |серед|;
• на месте старого |ѣ| в литературном украинском языке употребляется |і|: |хліб|, |діло|, |тінь|;
• перед гласными в начале слов иногда появляются протетические звуки |в| и |г|: |вулиця| (улица), |вузол| (узел), |вухо| (ухо), |гострий| (острый).

Морфология

В морфологии следует отметить такие особенности:

• окончание -у в родительном падеже единственного числа более распространено, чем в русском языке: |дому|, |класу|; в дательном падеже единственного числа рядом с -у/-ю употребляется окончание -ові/-еві: |робітнику| и |робітникові|, |товаришу| и |товаришеві|; сохраняются старые чередования задненёбных |г|, |к|, |х| с |ж|, |ч|, |ш| и с |з|, |ц|, |с|: |вовк| — |вовчий|, |нога| — |на нозі|, |муха| — |мусі|, |річка| — |річці|;
• в глаголах в 3-м лице ед. числа обычно окончание -ть отпадает: |несе|, |везе|; прошедшее время имеет формы на -в, -ла, -ло: |читав|, |читала|, |читало|; в будущем времени несов. вида параллельно с аналитической конструкцией «|буду| + инфинитив» употребляются слитные образования из инфинитива и личных форм старого глагола |яти| (|иму|, |имешь| и т. д.): ходитиму (|ходити| + |иму|); с оттенком долженствования употребляются также аналитические формы с |маю|: |що маю робити|;
• наличие существительных мужского рода с окончанием -о для обозначения живых существ (дядько, Гаврило, Сірко);

Существительные и прилагательные изменяются по семи падежам:

• именительный (новий пан)
• родительный (нового пана)
• дательный (новому пану/панові)
• винительный (пана)
• творительный (новим паном)
• местный (соответствует русскому предложному) (на новім/новому пані)
• звательный (новий пане!)

В украинском языке четыре времени глаголов:

• настоящее: читає (существует только для глаголов несовершенного вида)
• прошедшее: читав, читала
• давнопрошедшее: читав був, читала була
• будущее:
  • для глаголов несовершенного вида образуется двумя способами:
    • составное с формами глаголы бути: буде читати
    • слитное с формами глагола имати: читатиме (из читати + име)
  • для глаголов совершенного вида — только простое: прочитає

Как и в русском языке, в настоящем и будущем времени глаголы изменяются по лицам и числам, а в прошедшем (и давнопрошедшем) — только по числам, а в единственном числе по родам.

Лексика

Основу лексики составляют слова общеславянского происхождения, но есть много слов, образовавшихся в украинском языке в период его самостоятельного исторического развития.

В XVIII—XX веках слова из западноевропейских языков заимствовались через русский язык (в восточной части Украины) и или польский язык (в Галиции), либо деятели украинской культуры вводили слова западноевропейского происхождения непосредственно из этих языков (причём русский и польский языки стимулировали заимствование своим примером) ^[7].

Существует обширный пласт лексики, заимствованой из польского. Лексика украинского языка имеет много общего также с русским, белорусским, словацким языками. На уровне разговорного языка много общего с русским и белорусским, литературный язык (термины, понятия и т. п.) имеет много общего с польским и словацким. Ближе всего лексика украинского языка к белорусскому (около 75 % общей лексики), польскому, словацкому, болгарскому (около 70 %), русскому, чешскому (около 60 %).

История

Считается, что исторически украинский язык, так же как русский и белорусский, восходит к древнерусскому языку. Однако эта точка зрения имеет значительную и давнюю оппозицию как на Украине, так и в России. Сторонники другой позиции, используя исторические и лингвистические(гл. образом фонетику) материалы, показывают, что разделение наречий восточных славян тянется ещё с 10-11вв., и таким образом, точка отсчёта украинского языка отодвигается в прошлое. Как первая, так и вторая точка зрения вызывают ожесточённые споры и активно используются пропагандой, и сильно подвержены идеологической окраске.

В XI—XII вв., в период установления феодальных отношений и зарождения украинской народности, как и народностей русской и белорусской, в основу письменного языка Киевской Руси лег старославянский язык. Первоначальная литература, гл. образом рукописи церковно-богослужебного и религиозного характера, переписывалась со старославянских оригиналов, переведенных в большинстве с греческого языка и таким образом привносивших влияние византийской литературы. Переписчики тщательно старались сохранить особенности оригиналов, но часто происходили ошибки в переписке. Эти ошибки особенно важны для историка языка, потому что в них сказывалось влияние разговорного языка, родного переписчику. Благодаря этому уже в древнейших памятниках, возникших на территории Украины, проявляется проникновение особенностей языка, свойственных говорам восточнославянских племен, и в частности, образовавших украинский язык. Когда содержание памятника выходило из узких рамок культа и захватывало текущую жизнь, живые говоры сильнее вторгались письменные памятники. Таким образом, возникновение письменности светской (в виде различных актов, договоров и т. п.) открывало широкую дорогу народным элементам, не уничтожая, однако, основы литературного языка — старославянского языка. Даже такой общий для восточнославянских племен памятник, как «Слово о полку Игореве», ярко обнаруживает эту основу. Многие украинские иследователи (и некоторые российские)указывают на то, что она была написана украинцем. Уже в древнейших датированных памятниках («Изборниках» 1073 и 1076 гг.) имеются замены |ѣ| → |и|, |ы| → |и|, |в| → |у|. Чем дальше, тем больше и больше констатируется особенностей фонетического характера (в «Галицком евангелии», «Житии Саввы» и др.). С XIV же столетия благодаря изменению исторических условий существования трёх народностей увеличивается разница и в языковом отношении. Уже с XIV в., с присоединением Украины к Литве и с ростом элементов политической централизации, начинает развиваться особый тип письменного языка (так называемое койне) в разных официальных документах, юридических памятниках, — стиль, хотя и представляющий собою ту же церковнославянскую основу, но изменившуюся под влиянием украинских и белорусских говоров.

С развитием экономических связей между отдельными частями Украины и начавшимся на этой почве процессом создания национальных связей наступает новый этап в продвижении в литературу народных говоров. Правда, идея перевода книг церковных на народный язык далеко не всеми признавалась, и выдвигалась мысль о том, что народным языком можно писать только толкования к церковной литературе. Но во всяком случае продвижению народных говоров открывалось широкое поле в связи с реформатскими движениями, что отразилось в таких, например, памятниках, как «Пересопницкое евангелие», сочинения Ивана Вишенского и др. После присоединения Галиции («Руского королевства») к Польше (1349) и образования Речи Посполитой (1569) формирование украинского языка происходит под значительным влиянием польского.

С конца XVI в. появляются грамматики, они стараются нормировать «руский» литературный язык («просту мову»); особенное значение имели грамматика Мелетия Смотрицкого, вышедшая в 1619 г., и лексикографические работы рубежа XVI—XVII в. — двуязычные церковнославянско-староукраинские «Лексис» Лаврентия Зизания (1596), «Лексикон славеноросский» Памвы Берынды (1627), кодифицирующие свод украинской лексики.

Несмотря на искусственный книжный характер языка литературы XVII—XVIII вв., струя чисто народной речи пробивается все сильнее в произведениях, близких к «простым» людям, — интермедиях, разных виршах и т. п., иногда у отдельных писателей (Галятовского, Некрашевича, Конисского и др.). В конце XVIII в. в связи с присоединением Украины к России усиливается влияние русского языка (например, в сочинениях украинского философа Григория Сковороды).

На рубеже между XVIII и XIX вв., в связи с разложением феодализма и ростом капиталистических отношений в Российской империи, книжный литературный язык окончательно изживается, уступая место новому литературному языку, развивающемуся на народной языковой основе. Наиболее ярко отразился переход к новому литературному языку в произведениях известного украинского писателя И. П. Котляревского, решительно порвавшего с консервативными традициями книжного литературного языка. Котляревский широко использовал лучшие образцы украинской литературы XVIII в. (интермедии, лирические и сатирические вирши, бурлески и т. п.) и в то же время чрезвычайно выразительно запечатлел в своем творчестве отличительные особенности современной ему народной речи и фольклора, тем самым положив начало дальнейшему успешному развитию нового литературного украинского языка. Именно поэтому произведения Котляревского («Энеида», «Наталка-Полтавка») пользуются неизменной популярностью и до сих пор, несмотря на наличие в их языке значительного количества архаических элементов.

В первой половине XIX в. сформировался современный литературный украинский язык. Творцом его считается великий украинский поэт, революционный демократ Т. Г. Шевченко. Шевченко окончательно закрепил, как основу литературного украинского языка, живой разговорный язык украинского крестьянства и, вместе с тем, обогатил и усовершенствовал украинский язык.

Лучшие представители украинской литературы, классики художественного украинского слова — Марко Вовчок, Панас Мирный, Леся Украинка, Михаил Коцюбинский — не только бережно сохранили языковые традиции, установленные Шевченко, но и способствовали дальнейшему росту и развитию украинского языка, сохраняя неразрывные и глубокие связи с живым языком народных масс. Кроме того, надо особо подчеркнуть, что развитие литературного украинского языка, начиная от Шевченко, теснейшим образом было связано с развитием русского литературного языка и творчески воспринимало из последнего его лучшие элементы.

Валуевский циркуляр 1863 наложил запрет на печатание учебной и научно-популярной литературы на украинском языке под тем предлогом, что

«самый вопрос о пользе и возможности употребления в школах этого наречия не только не решён, но даже возбуждение этого вопроса принято большинством малороссиян с негодованием, часто высказывающимся в печати. Они весьма основательно доказывают, что никакого особенного малороссийского языка не было, нет и быть не может и что наречие их, употребляемое простонародьем, есть тот же русский язык, только испорченный влиянием на него Польши».

С неимоверными трудностями украинский язык преодолевал такого рода препятствия, но развиваться нормально в таких условиях, безусловно, не мог, что привело почти к полному исчезновению украинского языка изо всех областей культурной и общественно-политической жизни. В 1876 г. царское правительство запретило печатание большинства видов литературы на украинском языке (за исключением художественных произведений и исторических документов), а также ввоз любых украинских изданий из-за рубежа («Эмский указ»). Этот указ оставался в силе и применялся вплоть до революции 1905 г., которая вынудила правительство дать некоторые послабления, свёрнутые буквально через год.

На землях Западной Украины в XIX в., параллельно со становлением литературной нормы украинского языка, предпринимались попытки создать искусственный язык (пренебрежительное название — «язычие»), основанный на церковнославянской и русской грамматике с примесью украинизмов и полонизмов. На этом «язычии» издавались газеты и журналы. Ряд ярких представителей западноукраинской литературы, в том числе И. Франко (ранняя проза и поэтический сборник «Баляди і розкази»), начинали писать на «язычии». С 1887—1893 гг. «язычие», как чуждое живой языковой традиции и потому не получившее поддержки в народных массах, сменяется в ведущих москвофильских изданиях русским литературным языком.

Большую роль в развитии украинского языка конца XIX в. и начале XX в. сыграл великий украинский писатель Иван Франко. Несмотря на то, что язык литературных произведений Ивана Франко в известной степени отличается от современного украинского языка, не вполне совпадает с ним и заключает в себе много западноукраинских местных элементов, деятельность Франко, направленная на создание единых норм литературного украинского языка, несомненно принесла большую пользу.

В советский период украинский язык то претерпевал притеснения, то получал импульсы развития. Приобретение Украиной независимости дало сильный толчок развитию украинского языка, однако в данный момент ситуация такова, что в восточной и южной частях Украины для части населения (особенно городского) родным является русский.

По данным Института Гэллапа (Gallup, Inc), в социологическом исследовании, посвященном отношению к русскому языку в постсоветских государствах, 83% участников опроса с Украины выбрали русский язык для заполнения анкеты. Институт обозначил этот раздел исследования, как «Russian as the Mother Tongue» (Русский язык как родной)^[8].

Российские вузы, в которых обучают украинскому языку

• МГИМО (курсы украинского языка)
• СПбГУ (изучается филологами-славистами в качестве славянского языка по выбору)

Примечания

1. ↑ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ukr
2. ↑ http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/general/language/
3. ↑ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ukr
4. ↑ http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/general/language/
5. ↑ http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/general/language/
6. ↑ Український правопис. Київ: Наукова думка, 1993. С. 3
7. ↑ http://litopys.org.ua/djvu/etymolog_slovnyk_tom1.djvu
8. ↑ Russian Language Enjoying a Boost in Post-Soviet States

См. также

• Раздел Викисловаря на украинском языке
• Библиотека украинской литературы в Москве

Ссылки

• Большой толковый словарь украинского языка онлайн
• Український лінгвістичний портал(укр.)
• Online русско-украинский и украинско-русский переводчик
• Ещё один онлайновый русско-украинский и украинско-русский переводчик
• Русско-украинский и украинско-русский словарь
• Перекладачка (онлайновый русско-украинский и украинско-русский переводчик)
• Уроки украинского языка
• 140 лет валуевскому циркуляру
• Игровые уроки украинского языка на Интернет Полиглоте
• Материалы для освоения украинского языка на мультиязыковом проекте Ильи Франка
• Раскладка украинского языка с апострофом для стандартной клавиатуры

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Статья основана на материалах Литературной энциклопедии 1929—1939.

Славянские языки
праславянский язык † (праязык)
Восточные	вымершие и книжные: древненовгородский † • древнерусский † • западнорусский † современные: белорусский • русский • украинский
Западные	кашубский • лужицкие: (верхний • нижний) • полабский † • польский • силезский • словацкий • словинский † • чешский
Южные	старославянский † • церковнославянский • болгарский • македонский • сербохорватский: (боснийский • сербский • хорватский • черногорский) • словенский
Искусственные	словио • язычие †
Другие	литературные микроязыки | смешанные языки: балачка • суржик • трасянка | пиджины: руссенорск † • кяхтинский †
† — мёртвые, разделившиеся или изменившиеся языки.

Ukrainian
українська мова ukrayins’ka mova
Ethnicity	Ukrainians
Native speakers	30 million (2007)Template:Infobox language/ref
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ukrainian
Early form	Old East Slavic
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ukrainian alphabet) Ukrainian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine *  Transnistria
Recognised minority language in	Moldova  Hungary  Serbia  Poland  Romania  Croatia  Slovakia  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Czech Republic
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, Potebnya Institute of Language Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uk
ISO 639-2	ukr
ISO 639-3	ukr
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ed < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eda to 53-AAA-edq)
Ukrainian language and Ukrainians with their neighbors in the early 20th century.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins’ka mova, pronounced [ukrɑˈjɪɲsʲkɑ ˈmɔwɑ]) is a member of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine and the principal language of the Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script (see Ukrainian alphabet).

The Ukrainian language traces its origins to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus’. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution Ukrainian was banned from schools in the Russian Empire of which Ukraine was a part at the time.^[2] It has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine where the language was never banned^[3] in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors.^[3][4]

The standard Ukrainian language is regulated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU), particularly by its Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, and Potebnya Institute of Language Studies. Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Rusyn have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[5] Lexically, the closest to Ukrainian is Belarusian (84% of common vocabulary), followed by Polish (70%), Serbo-Croatian (68%), Slovak (66%) and Russian (62%).^[6]

Linguistic development of the Ukrainian language[]

Theories concerning the development of the Ukrainian language[]

A point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. But unlike Mikhail Lomonosov‘s hypothesis, this theory does not view Polonization or any other external influence as the main driving force that led to the formation of three different languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian from the common Old East Slavic language.

Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old Russian to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kievan Rus’ were redrawn in the 14th century. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia (Ukraine and Belarus) into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukrainian and Belarusian diverged into identifiably separate languages.

Some scholars see a divergence between the language of Galicia-Volhynia and the language of Novgorod-Suzdal by the 12th century, assuming that before the 12th century, the two languages were practically indistinguishable. This point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes (that later likely became Volhynians and Buzhans), White Croats, Tiverians and Ulichs lived on the territory of today’s Ukraine long before the 12th century. Notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented.^[7]

Some researchers, while admitting the differences between the dialects spoken by East Slavic tribes in the 10th and 11th centuries, still consider them as «regional manifestations of a common language» (see, for instance, the article by Vasyl Nimchuk).^[8] In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times.^[9] According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century.

Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past.^[10] Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today’s Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also confirmed by Yuri Shevelov‘s phonological studies^[7] and, although it is gaining a number of supporters among Ukrainian academics, it is not seriously regarded outside Ukraine.

Outside Ukraine, however, such nationalist-based theories that distance Ukrainian from East Slavic have found few followers among international scholars and most academics continue to place Ukrainian firmly within the East Slavic group, descended from Proto-East Slavic, with close ties to Belarusian and Russian.^[11]

Origins and developments during medieval times[]

As the result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea, lasting into the early Middle Ages, is explained the appearance of voiced fricative γ(h) in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects, that initially emerged in Scythian and the related eastern Iranian dialects from earlier common Proto-Indo-European g* and gh*.^[12][13][14]

Ukrainian traces its roots through the mid-14th century Ruthenian language, a chancellery language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, back to the early written evidences of 10th century Rus’. Until the end of the 18th century, the written language used in Ukraine was quite different from the spoken, which is one of the key difficulties in tracing the origin of the Ukrainian language more precisely. There is little direct data on the origin of the Ukrainian language. Scholars rely on indirect methods: analysis of typical mistakes in old manuscripts, comparison of linguistic data with historical, anthropological, archaeological ones, etc. Several theories of the origin of Ukrainian language exist.

During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh (roof), rura (pipe), rynok (market), kushnir (furrier), and majster (master or craftsman).^[15]

Developments under Poland and Lithuania[]

In the 13th century, eastern parts of Rus’ (including Moscow) came under Tatar yoke until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy, whereas the south-western areas (including Kiev) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the following four centuries, the language of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of the Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century.^[16] By the 16th century, a peculiar official language was formed: a mixture of Old Church Slavonic, Ruthenian and Polish with the influence of the last of these three gradually increasing. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics.^[17] Polish rule and education also involved significant exposure to the Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać) and from Latin raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal).^[15]

Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into the Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco).^[15]

By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages was so acute that there was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav, between Bohdan Khmelnytsky, head of the Zaporozhian Host, and the Russian state.^[18]

History of the Ukrainian spoken language’s usage[]

See also: History of Ukraine

Rus’ and Galicia-Volhynia[]

During the Khazar period, the territory of Ukraine, settled at that time by Iranian (post-Scythian), Turkic (post-Hunnic, proto-Bulgarian), and Uralic (proto-Hungarian) tribes, was progressively Slavicized by several waves of migration from the Slavic north. Finally, the Varangian ruler of Novgorod, called Oleg, seized Kiev (Kyiv) and established the political entity of Rus’. Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here; others term this era Old East Slavic or Old Ruthenian/Rus’ian. Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus’ to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. Some hold that linguistic unity over Rus’ was not present, but tribal diversity in language was.

The era of Rus’ is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as the language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Slavonic. At the same time, most legal documents throughout Rus’ were written in a purely Old East Slavic language (supposed to be based on the Kiev dialect of that epoch). Scholarly controversies over earlier development aside, literary records from Rus’ testify to substantial divergence between Russian and Ruthenian/Rusyn forms of the Ukrainian language as early as the era of Rus’. One vehicle of this divergence (or widening divergence) was the large scale appropriation of the Old Slavonic language in the northern reaches of Rus’ and of the Polish language at the territory of modern Ukraine. As evidenced by the contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes of Galich (modern Halych) and Kiev called themselves «People of Rus'» (with the exact Cyrillic spelling of the adjective from of Rus’ varying among sources), which contrasts sharply with the lack of ethnic self-appellation for the area until the mid-19th century.

One prominent example of this north-south divergence in Rus’ from around 1200, was the epic, The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Like other examples of Old Rus’ literature (for example, Byliny, the Primary Chronicle), which survived only in Northern Russia (Upper Volga belt) and was probably created there.

Under Lithuania/Poland, Muscovy/Russia, and Austro-Hungary[]

Further information: Name of Ukraine

After the fall of Galicia–Volhynia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old Slavic became the language of the chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by the Polish nobility. Many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language and adopted Catholicism during that period.^[19] Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church. Most of the educational system was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish.

The Polish language has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish.^[20] As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among many schools established in that time, the Kiev-Mogila Collegium (the predecessor of modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), founded by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla), was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish language, Orthodox spoke Rusyn language.

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire and closed down later in 19th century. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian.

During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia. The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kiev applied an old word for the Cossack motherland, Ukrajina, as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins’ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits.

However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools.^[2] In 1811 by the Order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. The Academy had been open since 1632 and was the first university in Eastern Europe. In 1847 the Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk. The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that «there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language».^[21] A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II’s secret Ems Ukaz, which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores.^[22] A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia.^[23]

For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovyna, where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents.^[24] The suppression by Russia retarded the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, the former ‘Ruthenians’ or ‘Little Russians’ were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state named Ukraine (the Ukrainian People’s Republic, shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved.^[4]

Speakers in the Russian Empire[]

In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of the Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census’s terminology, the Russian language (Русскій) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ‘Little Russian‘), what we know as Russian today (Вѣликорусскій, ‘Great Russian‘), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, ‘White Russian’).

The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language («по родному языку») in 1897, in Russian Empire governorates (guberniyas) which had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.^[25]

	Total population	Ukrainian speakers	Russian speakers	Polish speakers
Entire Russian Empire	125,640,021	22,380,551	55,667,469	7,931,307
Urban	16,828,395	1,256,387	8,825,733	1,455,527
Rural	108,811,626	21,124,164	46,841,736	6,475,780
Regions
«European Russia» incl. Ukraine & Belarus	93,442,864	20,414,866	48,558,721	1,109,934
Vistulan guberniyas	9,402,253	335,337	267,160	6,755,503
Caucasus	9,289,364	1,305,463	1,829,793	25,117
Siberia	5,758,822	223,274	4,423,803	29,177
Central Asia	7,746,718	101,611	587,992	11,576
Subdivisions
Bessarabia	1,935,412	379,698	155,774	11,696
Volyn	2,989,482	2,095,579	104,889	184,161
Voronezh	2,531,253	915,883	1,602,948	1,778
Don Host Province	2,564,238	719,655	1,712,898	3,316
Yekaterinoslav	2,113,674	1,456,369	364,974	12,365
Kyiv	3,559,229	2,819,145	209,427	68,791
Kursk	2,371,012	527,778	1,832,498	2,862
Podolia	3,018,299	2,442,819	98,984	69,156
Poltava	2,778,151	2,583,133	72,941	3,891
Taurida	1,447,790	611,121	404,463	10,112
Kharkiv	2,492,316	2,009,411	440,936	5,910
Kherson	2,733,612	1,462,039	575,375	30,894
City of Odessa	403,815	37,925	198,233	17,395
Chernigiv	2,297,854	1,526,072	495,963	3,302
Lublin	1,160,662	196,476	47,912	729,529
Sedletsk	772,146	107,785	19,613	510,621
Kuban Province	1,918,881	908,818	816,734	2,719
Stavropol	873,301	319,817	482,495	961
Brest-Litovsk district	218,432	140,561	17,759	8,515

Although in the rural regions of the Ukraine provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odessa, the largest city of Ukraine at this time, only 5.6% of the population said Ukrainian was their native language.^[26] Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kiev, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.^[26]

Soviet era[]

During the seven-decade-long Soviet era, the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR.^[27] However, practice was often a different story:^[27] Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to discouragement.

Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language is the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions.^[28] Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR, and so on. However, Russian was used in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, «a language of inter-ethnic communication» was coined to denote its status. In reality, Russian was in a privileged position in the USSR and was the state official language in everything but formal name—although formally all languages were held up as equal.

Soviet language policy in Ukraine may be divided into the following policy periods:

• Ukrainianization and tolerance (1921–1932)
• Persecution and Russification (1933–1957)
• Khrushchev thaw (1958–1962)
• The Shelest period: limited progress (1963–1972)
• The Shcherbytsky period: gradual suppression (1973–1989)
• Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika (1990–1991)

Ukrainianization and tolerance[]

Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire was broken up. In different parts of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a renewed sense of national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years the Ukrainian language gained some usage in government affairs. Initially, this trend continued under the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union, which in a political struggle to retain its grip over the territory had to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire. While trying to ascertain and consolidate its power, the Bolshevik government was by far more concerned about many political oppositions connected to the pre-revolutionary order than about the national movements inside the former empire, where it could always find allies.

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into a policy called korenizatsiya. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization by lifting a ban on the Ukrainian language. That led to the introduction of an impressive education program which allowed the Ukrainian taught classes and raised the literacy of the Ukrainophone population. This policy was led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk and was directed to approximate the language to Russian. Newly generated academic efforts from the period of independence were co-opted by the Bolshevik government. The party and government apparatus was mostly Russian-speaking but were encouraged to learn the Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly literate ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities, which became rapidly largely Ukrainianized – in both population and in education.

The policy even reached those regions of southern Russian SFSR where the ethnic Ukrainian population was significant, particularly the areas by the Don River and especially Kuban in the North Caucasus. Ukrainian language teachers, just graduated from expanded institutions of higher education in Soviet Ukraine, were dispatched to these regions to staff newly opened Ukrainian schools or to teach Ukrainian as a second language in Russian schools. A string of local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of Ukrainian studies were opened in colleges. Overall, these policies were implemented in thirty-five raions (administrative districts) in southern Russia.

Persecution and russification[]

Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early 1933, with the termination of the policy of Ukrainianization. In December 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by V. Molotov and Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the korenization policies. The telegram condemned Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded to «immediately halt Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized newspapers, books and publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the switching of schools and instruction into Russian».

The following years were characterized by massive repression and discrimination for the Ukrainophones. Western and most contemporary Ukrainian historians emphasize that the cultural repression was applied earlier and more fiercely in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union, and were therefore anti-Ukrainian; others assert that Stalin’s goal was the generic crushing of any dissent, rather than targeting the Ukrainians in particular.

Stalinist policies shifted to define Russian as the language of (inter-ethnic) communication. Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in print, education, radio and later television programs), it lost its primary place in advanced learning and republic-wide media. Ukrainian was demoted to a language of secondary importance, often associated with the rise in Ukrainian self-awareness and nationalism and often branded «politically incorrect». The new Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936 however stipulated that teaching in schools should be in native languages.

Major repression started in 1929–30, when a large group of Ukrainian intelligentsia was arrested and most were executed. In Ukrainian history, this group is often referred to as «Executed Renaissance» (Ukrainian: розстріляне відродження). «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism» was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine. The terror peaked in 1933, four to five years before the Soviet-wide «Great Purge«, which, for Ukraine, was a second blow. The vast majority of leading scholars and cultural leaders of Ukraine were liquidated, as were the «Ukrainianized» and «Ukrainianizing» portions of the Communist party. Soviet Ukraine’s autonomy was completely destroyed by the late 1930s. In its place, the glorification of Russia as the first nation to throw off the capitalist yoke had begun, accompanied by the migration of Russian workers into parts of Ukraine which were undergoing industrialization and mandatory instruction of classic Russian language and literature. Ideologists warned of over-glorifying Ukraine’s Cossack past, and supported the closing of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literary publications. The systematic assault upon Ukrainian identity in culture and education, combined with effects of an artificial famine (Holodomor) upon the peasantry—the backbone of the nation—dealt Ukrainian language and identity a crippling blow from which it would not completely recover.

This policy succession was repeated in the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine. In 1939, and again in the late 1940s, a policy of Ukrainianization was implemented. By the early 1950s, Ukrainian was persecuted and a campaign of Russification began.

Khrushchev thaw[]

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Nikita Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages on the local and republican level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained). Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the «oppression» or «persecution», but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available. While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, Ukrainian was supposed to be learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in Russian and, as a result, students had a greater command of Russian than Ukrainian on graduation. Additionally, in some areas of the republic, the attitude towards teaching and learning of Ukrainian in schools was relaxed and it was, sometimes, considered a subject of secondary importance and even a waiver from studying it was sometimes given under various, ever expanding, circumstances.

The complete suppression of all expressions of separatism or Ukrainian nationalism also contributed to lessening interest in Ukrainian. Some people who persistently used Ukrainian on a daily basis were often perceived as though they were expressing sympathy towards, or even being members of, the political opposition. This, combined with advantages given by Russian fluency and usage, made Russian the primary language of choice for many Ukrainians, while Ukrainian was more of a hobby. In any event, the mild liberalization in Ukraine and elsewhere was stifled by new suppression of freedoms at the end of the Khrushchev era (1963) when a policy of gradually creeping suppression of Ukrainian was re-instituted.

The next part of the Soviet Ukrainian language policy divides into two eras: first, the Shelest period (early 1960s to early 1970s), which was relatively liberal towards the development of the Ukrainian language. The second era, the policy of Shcherbytsky (early 1970s to early 1990s), was one of gradual suppression of the Ukrainian language.

Shelest period[]

The Communist Party leader Petro Shelest pursued a policy of defending Ukraine’s interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

Shcherbytsky period[]

The new party boss, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification was lessened only slightly after 1985.

Gorbachev and perebudova[]

The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms, Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kiev only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.^[29]

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine, Great Purge, and most of Stalinism. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.

Independence in the modern era[]

Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In some cases the abrupt changing of the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education led to the charges of Ukrainianization, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. This transition however lacked most of the controversies that arose during the de-russification of the other former Soviet Republics.

With time, most residents, including ethnic Russians, people of mixed origin, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians started to self-identify as Ukrainian nationals, even those who remained Russophone. The Russian language however still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio and TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and to a lesser degree central regions. The state-controlled broadcast media have become exclusively Ukrainian. There are few obstacles to the usage of Russian in commerce and it is still occasionally used in government affairs.

In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). It should be noted, though, that for many Ukrainians (of various ethnic descent), the term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native, including those who often speak Russian. According to the official 2001 census data^[30] approximately 75% of Kiev’s population responded «Ukrainian» to the native language (ridna mova) census question, and roughly 25% responded «Russian». On the other hand, when the question «What language do you use in everyday life?» was asked in the sociological survey, the Kievans’ answers were distributed as follows:^[31] «mostly Russian»: 52%, «both Russian and Ukrainian in equal measure»: 32%, «mostly Ukrainian»: 14%, «exclusively Ukrainian»: 4.3%.

Ethnic minorities, such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their lingua franca. But there are tendencies within these minority groups to use Ukrainian. The Jewish writer Olexander Beyderman from the mainly Russian speaking city of Odessa is now writing most of his dramas in Ukrainian. The emotional relationship regarding Ukrainian is changing in southern and eastern areas.

Opposition to expansion of Ukrainian-language teaching is a matter of contention in eastern regions closer to Russia – in May 2008, the Donetsk city council prohibited the creation of any new Ukrainian schools in the city in which 80% of them are Russian-language schools.^[32]

Literature and the Ukrainian literary language[]

Further information: Ukrainian literature

File:Ukrainian writers and poets.jpg

The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into three stages: old Ukrainian (12th to 14th centuries), middle Ukrainian (14th to 18th centuries), and modern Ukrainian (end of the 18th century to the present). Much literature was written in the periods of the old and middle Ukrainian language, including legal acts, polemical articles, science treatises and fiction of all sorts.

Influential literary figures in the development of modern Ukrainian literature include the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka. The earliest literary work in the modern Ukrainian language was recorded in 1798 when Ivan Kotlyarevsky, a playwright from Poltava in southeastern Ukraine, published his epic poem, Eneyida, a burlesque in Ukrainian, based on Virgil‘s Aeneid. His book was published in vernacular Ukrainian in a satirical way to avoid being censored, and is the earliest known Ukrainian published book to survive through Imperial and, later, Soviet policies on the Ukrainian language.

Kotlyarevsky’s work and that of another early writer using the Ukrainian vernacular language, Petro Artemovsky, used the southeastern dialect spoken in the Poltava, Kharkiv and southern Kieven regions of the Russian Empire. This dialect would serve as the basis of the Ukrainian literary language when it was developed by Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish in the mid 19th century. In order to raise its status from that of a dialect to that of a language, various elements from folklore and traditional styles were added to it.^[33]

The Ukrainian literary language developed further when the Russian state banned the use of the Ukrainian language, prompting many of its writers to move to the western Ukrainian region of Galicia which was under more liberal Austrian rule; after the 1860s the majority of Ukrainian literary works were published in Austrian Galicia. During this period Galician influences were adopted in the Ukrainian literary language, particularly with respect to vocabulary involving law, government, technology, science, and administration.^[33]

Current usage[]

The use of the Ukrainian language is increasing after a long period of decline. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine (77.8% of the total population), the Ukrainian language is prevalent only in western and central Ukraine. In Kiev, both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Russian speaking. The shift is believed to be caused, largely, by an influx of the rural population and migrants from the western regions of Ukraine but also by some Kievans’ turning to use the language they speak at home more widely in everyday matters. Public signs and announcements in Kiev are in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian is the prevalent language of the urban population. According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, 87.8% people living in Ukraine communicate in Ukrainian.^[34]

Use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine can be expected to increase, as the rural population migrates into the cities. In eastern and southern Ukraine, the rural Ukrainophones continue to prefer Russian. Interest in Ukrainian literature is growing rapidly, compensating for the periods when its development was hindered by either policies of direct suppression or lack of the state support.

Dialects[]

Main article: Ukrainian dialects

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist^[35][36]

• Northern (Polissian) dialects:^[37]
  • (3) Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in the northern part of Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kiev Oblast as well as in the adjacent areas of Russia, which include the southwestern part of the Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in some places in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts.^[38] No linguistic border can be defined. The vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this dialect.^[39]
  • (2) Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kiev Oblast, in the northern part of Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast.^[40]
  • (1) West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the northwestern part of the Rivne Oblast as well as in the adjacent districts of the Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus uses Belarusian grammar, and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.^[41]
• Southeastern dialects:^[42]
  • (4) Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in the central part of Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kiev Oblast). In addition, the dialects spoken in Cherkasy, Poltava and Kiev regions are considered to be close to «standard» Ukrainian.
  • (5) Slobodan is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of Donetsk, as well as in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia.^[43] This dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, with progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus, there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both grammar sets can be applied.^[39]
  • A (6) Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the main language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.^[44]
  • A Kuban dialect related to or based on the Steppe dialect is often referred to as Balachka and is spoken by the Kuban Cossacks in the Kuban region in Russia by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late 18th century. It was formed from gradual mixture of Russian into Ukrainian. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary along with some Russian grammar.^[45] There are 3 main variants which have been grouped together according to location.^[46]
• Southwestern dialects:^[47]
  • (13) Boyko is spoken by the Boyko people on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
  • (12) Hutsul is spoken by the Hutsul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, as well as in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts.
  • Lemko is spoken by the Lemko people, whose homeland rests outside the borders of Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains, and in the southeast of modern Poland, along the northern sides of the Carpathians.
  • (8) Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in the northern part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast and the Mykolaiv Oblast.^[48]
  • (7) Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and Ternopil. It is also used in Chełm in Poland.
  • (11) Pokuttia (Bukovynian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct vocabulary borrowed from Romanian.
  • (9) Upper Dniestrian is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this dialect can be found here.^[49]
  • (10) Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the San river valley.
• The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be also a dialect of Ukrainian:
  • Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.
  • Pannonian or Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
  • Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large émigré population, particularly in Canada (see Canadian Ukrainian), United States and several countries of South America like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia, which used to be part of Austro-Hungary before World War I, and belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The language spoken by most of them is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the 20th century. Compared with modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside Ukraine reflects less influence of Russian, but often contains many loan words from the local language.

Ukrainian diaspora[]

Most of the countries where it is spoken are ex-USSR where many Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. Broken up by country (to the nearest thousand):^[50]

1. Russia 1,129,838 (according to the 2010 census);^[51]
2. Canada 200,525^[52] (67,665 spoken at home^[53] in 2001, 148,000 spoken as «mother tongue» in 2006)^[54]

Ukrainian is one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria.^[55]

Ukrainian is widely spoken within the 400,000-strong (in 1994) Ukrainian community in Brazil.^[56]

Language structure[]

Cyrillic letters in this article are romanized using scientific transliteration.

Grammar[]

Further information: Ukrainian grammar

The canonical word order of Ukrainian is subject–verb–object (SVO).^[57]

Old East Slavic (and Russian) o in closed syllables, that is, ending in a consonant, in many cases corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as in pod->pid (під, ‘under’). Thus, in the declension of nouns, the o can re-appear as it is no longer located in a closed syllable, such as rik (рік, ‘year’) (nom): rotsi (loc) (році).

Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Old East Slavic, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etaže ‘on the first floor’ is in the locative (prepositional) case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na peršomu poversi (на першому поверсі). -omu is the standard locative (prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The kh of Ukrainian poverkh (поверх) has mutated into s under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly mutable into c in final positions). Ukrainian is the only modern East Slavic language which preserves the vocative case.

Sounds[]

Further information: Ukrainian phonology

The Ukrainian language has six vowels, /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /i/, /ɔ/, /u/, and two approximants /j/, /w/.

A number of the consonants come in three forms: hard, soft (palatalized) and long, for example, /l/, /lʲ/, and /lː/ or /n/, /nʲ/, and /nː/.

The letter г represents different consonants in Old East Slavic and Ukrainian. Ukrainian г /ɦ/, often transliterated as Latin h, is the voiced equivalent of Old East Slavic х /x/. The Russian (and Old East Slavic) letter г denotes /ɡ/. Russian-speakers from Ukraine and Southern Russia often use the soft Ukrainian г, in place of the hard Old East Slavic one. The Ukrainian alphabet has the additional letter ґ, for representing /ɡ/, which appears in some Ukrainian words such as gryndžoly (ґринджоли, ‘sleigh’) and gudzyk (ґудзик, ‘button’). However, the letter ґ appears almost exclusively in loan words, and is usually simply written г due to the relative unavailability of the letter. For example, loanwords from English on public signs usually use г for both English «g» and «h». This sound is still more rare in Ukrainian than in Czech or Slovak.

Another phonetic divergence between the two languages is the pronunciation of «v», the Cyrillic в. While in standard Russian it represents /v/, in many Ukrainian dialects it denotes /w/ (following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary, it denotes the allophone [u̯], and like the off-glide of in the English words «flow» and «cow», it forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel). Native Russian-speakers will pronounce the Ukrainian в as /v/, whereas Ukrainians will often use /w/, which is one way to tell the two groups apart. As with г above, Ukrainians use в to spell both English «v» and «w»; Russians tend to instead opt for using у for «w».

Unlike Russian and most other modern Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not have final devoicing.

Alphabet[]

Main article: Ukrainian alphabet

Template:Ukrainian alphabet

Ukrainian is written in a version of Cyrillic, consisting of 33 letters, representing 38 phonemes; an apostrophe is also used. Ukrainian orthography is based on the phonemic principle, with one letter generally corresponding to one phoneme, although there are a number of exceptions. The orthography also has cases where the semantic, historical, and morphological principles are applied.

The modern Ukrainian alphabet is the result of a number of proposed alphabetic reforms from the 19th and early 20th centuries, in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, in Austrian Galicia, and later in Soviet Ukraine. A unified Ukrainian alphabet (the Skrypnykivka, after Mykola Skrypnyk) was officially established at a 1927 international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv, during the period of Ukrainization in Soviet Ukraine. But the policy was reversed in the 1930s, and the Soviet Ukrainian orthography diverged from that used by the diaspora. The Ukrainian letter ge ґ was banned in the Soviet Union from 1933 until the period of Glasnost in 1990.^[58]

The letter щ represents two consonants [ʃt͡ʃ]. The combination of [j] with some of the vowels is also represented by a single letter ([jɑ] = я, [jɛ] = є, [ji] or [jı̽] = ї, [ju] = ю), while [jo] = йо and the rare regional [jɪ] = йи are written using two letters. These iotated vowel letters and a special soft sign change a preceding consonant from hard to soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft; in other words, it functions like the yer in the Russian alphabet.

A consonant letter is doubled to indicate that the sound is doubled, or long.

The phonemes [d͡z] and [d͡ʒ] do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered with the digraphs дз and дж, respectively. [d͡z] is pronounced close to English dz in adze, [d͡ʒ] is close to g in huge.

Transliteration[]

Main article: Romanization of Ukrainian

See also: Drahomanivka and Ukrainian Latin alphabet

Vocabulary[]

The Dictionary of Ukrainian Language in 11 volumes contains 135,000 entries. Lexical card catalog of Ukrainian Institute of Language Studies has 2.5 million cards. The same Institute is going to publish the new Dictionary of Ukrainian Language in 13 volumes.

Classification and relationship to other languages[]

The question of whether contemporary Ukrainian and Russian (as well as Belarusian and Rusyn) are dialects of a single language or separate languages is not entirely decided by linguistic factors alone because there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[5] As members of the East Slavic group of languages, they are descended from a common ancestor. Although Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are usually listed by linguists as separate languages,^[59] some linguistic references list them as dialects of a single language.^[60]

Within East Slavic, the Ukrainian language is most closely related to Belarusian.^[61]

It is accepted that before the 18th century, the precursor to the modern literary Ukrainian language was a vernacular used mostly by peasants and petits bourgeois, as no traces of earlier literary works could be found. It existed along with Church Slavonic, a literary language of religion that evolved from the Old Slavonic and which was the language usually used in writing and communication.

Differences between Ukrainian and other Slavic languages[]

The Ukrainian language has the following similarities and differences with other Slavic languages:

• Like all Slavic languages with the exception of Russian, Slovak and Slovene, the Ukrainian language has preserved the Common Slavic vocative case. When addressing one’s sister (sestra) she is referred to as sestro. In the Russian language the vocative case has been almost entirely replaced by the nominative (except for a handful of vestigial forms, e.g. Bozhe and Gospodi «Lord!»).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all Slavic languages other than Russian, Slovak and Slovene has retained the Common Slavic dative & locative endings -ce, -ze, and -se in the female declension. For example, «hand» (ruka) becomes ruci. In Russian, dative and locative of (ruka) would be ruke.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, has developed the ending —mo for first-person plurals in verbs (khodymo for «we walk»).^[62] In all cases, it came from lengthening the Common Slavic —mŭ.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian and Belarusian, has changed the Common Slavic word beginning ye— into o, such as in the words ozero (lake) and odyn (one).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belarusian and southern Russian dialects has changed the Common Slavic «g» into an «h» sound (for example, noha – leg).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with some northern Russian and Croatian dialects, has transformed the Common Slavic yě into i (for example, lis – forest).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene and Serbian has simplified the Common Slavic tl and dl into l (for example, mela – she swept»).^[62]

See also[]

• Linguistic discrimination
• Russification of Ukraine
• Surzhyk
• Swadesh list of Slavic languages
• Vergonha
• Chronology of Ukrainian language bans

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to Ukrainian language at Wikimedia Commons
• Dialects of Ukrainian Language / Narzecza Języka Ukraińskiego by Wł. Kuraszkiewicz (Polish)
• Hammond’s Racial map of Europe, 1919 (English) «National Alumni» 1920, vol.7, anesi.com
• Ethnographic map of Europe 1914 (English), cla.calpoly.edu
• Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Ukrainian language
• Resources for the Study of the Ukrainian Language
• The official Ukrainian Orthography (2012), published by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Template:Ukrainian language
Template:Slavic languages

Ukrainian
українська мова ukrayins’ka mova
Ethnicity	Ukrainians
Native speakers	30 million (2007)Template:Infobox language/ref
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ukrainian
Early form	Old East Slavic
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ukrainian alphabet) Ukrainian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine *  Transnistria
Recognised minority language in	Moldova  Hungary  Serbia  Poland  Romania  Croatia  Slovakia  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Czech Republic
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, Potebnya Institute of Language Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uk
ISO 639-2	ukr
ISO 639-3	ukr
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ed < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eda to 53-AAA-edq)
Ukrainian language and Ukrainians with their neighbors in the early 20th century.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins’ka mova, pronounced [ukrɑˈjɪɲsʲkɑ ˈmɔwɑ]) is a member of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine and the principal language of the Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script (see Ukrainian alphabet).

The Ukrainian language traces its origins to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus’. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution Ukrainian was banned from schools in the Russian Empire of which Ukraine was a part at the time.^[2] It has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine where the language was never banned^[3] in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors.^[3][4]

The standard Ukrainian language is regulated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU), particularly by its Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, and Potebnya Institute of Language Studies. Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and Rusyn have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[5] Lexically, the closest to Ukrainian is Belarusian (84% of common vocabulary), followed by Polish (70%), Serbo-Croatian (68%), Slovak (66%) and Russian (62%).^[6]

Linguistic development of the Ukrainian language[]

Theories concerning the development of the Ukrainian language[]

A point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. But unlike Mikhail Lomonosov‘s hypothesis, this theory does not view Polonization or any other external influence as the main driving force that led to the formation of three different languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian from the common Old East Slavic language.

Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old Russian to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kievan Rus’ were redrawn in the 14th century. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia (Ukraine and Belarus) into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukrainian and Belarusian diverged into identifiably separate languages.

Some scholars see a divergence between the language of Galicia-Volhynia and the language of Novgorod-Suzdal by the 12th century, assuming that before the 12th century, the two languages were practically indistinguishable. This point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes (that later likely became Volhynians and Buzhans), White Croats, Tiverians and Ulichs lived on the territory of today’s Ukraine long before the 12th century. Notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented.^[7]

Some researchers, while admitting the differences between the dialects spoken by East Slavic tribes in the 10th and 11th centuries, still consider them as «regional manifestations of a common language» (see, for instance, the article by Vasyl Nimchuk).^[8] In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times.^[9] According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century.

Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past.^[10] Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today’s Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also confirmed by Yuri Shevelov‘s phonological studies^[7] and, although it is gaining a number of supporters among Ukrainian academics, it is not seriously regarded outside Ukraine.

Outside Ukraine, however, such nationalist-based theories that distance Ukrainian from East Slavic have found few followers among international scholars and most academics continue to place Ukrainian firmly within the East Slavic group, descended from Proto-East Slavic, with close ties to Belarusian and Russian.^[11]

Origins and developments during medieval times[]

As the result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea, lasting into the early Middle Ages, is explained the appearance of voiced fricative γ(h) in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects, that initially emerged in Scythian and the related eastern Iranian dialects from earlier common Proto-Indo-European g* and gh*.^[12][13][14]

Ukrainian traces its roots through the mid-14th century Ruthenian language, a chancellery language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, back to the early written evidences of 10th century Rus’. Until the end of the 18th century, the written language used in Ukraine was quite different from the spoken, which is one of the key difficulties in tracing the origin of the Ukrainian language more precisely. There is little direct data on the origin of the Ukrainian language. Scholars rely on indirect methods: analysis of typical mistakes in old manuscripts, comparison of linguistic data with historical, anthropological, archaeological ones, etc. Several theories of the origin of Ukrainian language exist.

During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh (roof), rura (pipe), rynok (market), kushnir (furrier), and majster (master or craftsman).^[15]

Developments under Poland and Lithuania[]

In the 13th century, eastern parts of Rus’ (including Moscow) came under Tatar yoke until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy, whereas the south-western areas (including Kiev) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the following four centuries, the language of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of the Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century.^[16] By the 16th century, a peculiar official language was formed: a mixture of Old Church Slavonic, Ruthenian and Polish with the influence of the last of these three gradually increasing. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics.^[17] Polish rule and education also involved significant exposure to the Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać) and from Latin raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal).^[15]

Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into the Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco).^[15]

By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages was so acute that there was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav, between Bohdan Khmelnytsky, head of the Zaporozhian Host, and the Russian state.^[18]

History of the Ukrainian spoken language’s usage[]

See also: History of Ukraine

Rus’ and Galicia-Volhynia[]

During the Khazar period, the territory of Ukraine, settled at that time by Iranian (post-Scythian), Turkic (post-Hunnic, proto-Bulgarian), and Uralic (proto-Hungarian) tribes, was progressively Slavicized by several waves of migration from the Slavic north. Finally, the Varangian ruler of Novgorod, called Oleg, seized Kiev (Kyiv) and established the political entity of Rus’. Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here; others term this era Old East Slavic or Old Ruthenian/Rus’ian. Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus’ to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. Some hold that linguistic unity over Rus’ was not present, but tribal diversity in language was.

The era of Rus’ is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as the language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Slavonic. At the same time, most legal documents throughout Rus’ were written in a purely Old East Slavic language (supposed to be based on the Kiev dialect of that epoch). Scholarly controversies over earlier development aside, literary records from Rus’ testify to substantial divergence between Russian and Ruthenian/Rusyn forms of the Ukrainian language as early as the era of Rus’. One vehicle of this divergence (or widening divergence) was the large scale appropriation of the Old Slavonic language in the northern reaches of Rus’ and of the Polish language at the territory of modern Ukraine. As evidenced by the contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes of Galich (modern Halych) and Kiev called themselves «People of Rus'» (with the exact Cyrillic spelling of the adjective from of Rus’ varying among sources), which contrasts sharply with the lack of ethnic self-appellation for the area until the mid-19th century.

One prominent example of this north-south divergence in Rus’ from around 1200, was the epic, The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Like other examples of Old Rus’ literature (for example, Byliny, the Primary Chronicle), which survived only in Northern Russia (Upper Volga belt) and was probably created there.

Under Lithuania/Poland, Muscovy/Russia, and Austro-Hungary[]

Further information: Name of Ukraine

After the fall of Galicia–Volhynia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old Slavic became the language of the chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by the Polish nobility. Many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language and adopted Catholicism during that period.^[19] Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church. Most of the educational system was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish.

The Polish language has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish.^[20] As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among many schools established in that time, the Kiev-Mogila Collegium (the predecessor of modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), founded by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla), was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish language, Orthodox spoke Rusyn language.

After the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire and closed down later in 19th century. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian.

During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia. The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kiev applied an old word for the Cossack motherland, Ukrajina, as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins’ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits.

However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools.^[2] In 1811 by the Order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. The Academy had been open since 1632 and was the first university in Eastern Europe. In 1847 the Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk. The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that «there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language».^[21] A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II’s secret Ems Ukaz, which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores.^[22] A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia.^[23]

For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovyna, where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents.^[24] The suppression by Russia retarded the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, the former ‘Ruthenians’ or ‘Little Russians’ were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state named Ukraine (the Ukrainian People’s Republic, shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved.^[4]

Speakers in the Russian Empire[]

In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of the Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census’s terminology, the Russian language (Русскій) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ‘Little Russian‘), what we know as Russian today (Вѣликорусскій, ‘Great Russian‘), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, ‘White Russian’).

The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language («по родному языку») in 1897, in Russian Empire governorates (guberniyas) which had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.^[25]

	Total population	Ukrainian speakers	Russian speakers	Polish speakers
Entire Russian Empire	125,640,021	22,380,551	55,667,469	7,931,307
Urban	16,828,395	1,256,387	8,825,733	1,455,527
Rural	108,811,626	21,124,164	46,841,736	6,475,780
Regions
«European Russia» incl. Ukraine & Belarus	93,442,864	20,414,866	48,558,721	1,109,934
Vistulan guberniyas	9,402,253	335,337	267,160	6,755,503
Caucasus	9,289,364	1,305,463	1,829,793	25,117
Siberia	5,758,822	223,274	4,423,803	29,177
Central Asia	7,746,718	101,611	587,992	11,576
Subdivisions
Bessarabia	1,935,412	379,698	155,774	11,696
Volyn	2,989,482	2,095,579	104,889	184,161
Voronezh	2,531,253	915,883	1,602,948	1,778
Don Host Province	2,564,238	719,655	1,712,898	3,316
Yekaterinoslav	2,113,674	1,456,369	364,974	12,365
Kyiv	3,559,229	2,819,145	209,427	68,791
Kursk	2,371,012	527,778	1,832,498	2,862
Podolia	3,018,299	2,442,819	98,984	69,156
Poltava	2,778,151	2,583,133	72,941	3,891
Taurida	1,447,790	611,121	404,463	10,112
Kharkiv	2,492,316	2,009,411	440,936	5,910
Kherson	2,733,612	1,462,039	575,375	30,894
City of Odessa	403,815	37,925	198,233	17,395
Chernigiv	2,297,854	1,526,072	495,963	3,302
Lublin	1,160,662	196,476	47,912	729,529
Sedletsk	772,146	107,785	19,613	510,621
Kuban Province	1,918,881	908,818	816,734	2,719
Stavropol	873,301	319,817	482,495	961
Brest-Litovsk district	218,432	140,561	17,759	8,515

Although in the rural regions of the Ukraine provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odessa, the largest city of Ukraine at this time, only 5.6% of the population said Ukrainian was their native language.^[26] Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kiev, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.^[26]

Soviet era[]

During the seven-decade-long Soviet era, the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR.^[27] However, practice was often a different story:^[27] Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to discouragement.

Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language is the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions.^[28] Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR, and so on. However, Russian was used in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, «a language of inter-ethnic communication» was coined to denote its status. In reality, Russian was in a privileged position in the USSR and was the state official language in everything but formal name—although formally all languages were held up as equal.

Soviet language policy in Ukraine may be divided into the following policy periods:

• Ukrainianization and tolerance (1921–1932)
• Persecution and Russification (1933–1957)
• Khrushchev thaw (1958–1962)
• The Shelest period: limited progress (1963–1972)
• The Shcherbytsky period: gradual suppression (1973–1989)
• Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika (1990–1991)

Ukrainianization and tolerance[]

Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire was broken up. In different parts of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a renewed sense of national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years the Ukrainian language gained some usage in government affairs. Initially, this trend continued under the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union, which in a political struggle to retain its grip over the territory had to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire. While trying to ascertain and consolidate its power, the Bolshevik government was by far more concerned about many political oppositions connected to the pre-revolutionary order than about the national movements inside the former empire, where it could always find allies.

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into a policy called korenizatsiya. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization by lifting a ban on the Ukrainian language. That led to the introduction of an impressive education program which allowed the Ukrainian taught classes and raised the literacy of the Ukrainophone population. This policy was led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk and was directed to approximate the language to Russian. Newly generated academic efforts from the period of independence were co-opted by the Bolshevik government. The party and government apparatus was mostly Russian-speaking but were encouraged to learn the Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly literate ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities, which became rapidly largely Ukrainianized – in both population and in education.

The policy even reached those regions of southern Russian SFSR where the ethnic Ukrainian population was significant, particularly the areas by the Don River and especially Kuban in the North Caucasus. Ukrainian language teachers, just graduated from expanded institutions of higher education in Soviet Ukraine, were dispatched to these regions to staff newly opened Ukrainian schools or to teach Ukrainian as a second language in Russian schools. A string of local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of Ukrainian studies were opened in colleges. Overall, these policies were implemented in thirty-five raions (administrative districts) in southern Russia.

Persecution and russification[]

Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early 1933, with the termination of the policy of Ukrainianization. In December 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by V. Molotov and Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the korenization policies. The telegram condemned Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded to «immediately halt Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized newspapers, books and publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the switching of schools and instruction into Russian».

The following years were characterized by massive repression and discrimination for the Ukrainophones. Western and most contemporary Ukrainian historians emphasize that the cultural repression was applied earlier and more fiercely in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union, and were therefore anti-Ukrainian; others assert that Stalin’s goal was the generic crushing of any dissent, rather than targeting the Ukrainians in particular.

Stalinist policies shifted to define Russian as the language of (inter-ethnic) communication. Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in print, education, radio and later television programs), it lost its primary place in advanced learning and republic-wide media. Ukrainian was demoted to a language of secondary importance, often associated with the rise in Ukrainian self-awareness and nationalism and often branded «politically incorrect». The new Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936 however stipulated that teaching in schools should be in native languages.

Major repression started in 1929–30, when a large group of Ukrainian intelligentsia was arrested and most were executed. In Ukrainian history, this group is often referred to as «Executed Renaissance» (Ukrainian: розстріляне відродження). «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism» was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine. The terror peaked in 1933, four to five years before the Soviet-wide «Great Purge«, which, for Ukraine, was a second blow. The vast majority of leading scholars and cultural leaders of Ukraine were liquidated, as were the «Ukrainianized» and «Ukrainianizing» portions of the Communist party. Soviet Ukraine’s autonomy was completely destroyed by the late 1930s. In its place, the glorification of Russia as the first nation to throw off the capitalist yoke had begun, accompanied by the migration of Russian workers into parts of Ukraine which were undergoing industrialization and mandatory instruction of classic Russian language and literature. Ideologists warned of over-glorifying Ukraine’s Cossack past, and supported the closing of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literary publications. The systematic assault upon Ukrainian identity in culture and education, combined with effects of an artificial famine (Holodomor) upon the peasantry—the backbone of the nation—dealt Ukrainian language and identity a crippling blow from which it would not completely recover.

This policy succession was repeated in the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine. In 1939, and again in the late 1940s, a policy of Ukrainianization was implemented. By the early 1950s, Ukrainian was persecuted and a campaign of Russification began.

Khrushchev thaw[]

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Nikita Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages on the local and republican level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained). Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the «oppression» or «persecution», but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available. While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, Ukrainian was supposed to be learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in Russian and, as a result, students had a greater command of Russian than Ukrainian on graduation. Additionally, in some areas of the republic, the attitude towards teaching and learning of Ukrainian in schools was relaxed and it was, sometimes, considered a subject of secondary importance and even a waiver from studying it was sometimes given under various, ever expanding, circumstances.

The complete suppression of all expressions of separatism or Ukrainian nationalism also contributed to lessening interest in Ukrainian. Some people who persistently used Ukrainian on a daily basis were often perceived as though they were expressing sympathy towards, or even being members of, the political opposition. This, combined with advantages given by Russian fluency and usage, made Russian the primary language of choice for many Ukrainians, while Ukrainian was more of a hobby. In any event, the mild liberalization in Ukraine and elsewhere was stifled by new suppression of freedoms at the end of the Khrushchev era (1963) when a policy of gradually creeping suppression of Ukrainian was re-instituted.

The next part of the Soviet Ukrainian language policy divides into two eras: first, the Shelest period (early 1960s to early 1970s), which was relatively liberal towards the development of the Ukrainian language. The second era, the policy of Shcherbytsky (early 1970s to early 1990s), was one of gradual suppression of the Ukrainian language.

Shelest period[]

The Communist Party leader Petro Shelest pursued a policy of defending Ukraine’s interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

Shcherbytsky period[]

The new party boss, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification was lessened only slightly after 1985.

Gorbachev and perebudova[]

The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms, Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kiev only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.^[29]

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine, Great Purge, and most of Stalinism. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.

Independence in the modern era[]

Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In some cases the abrupt changing of the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education led to the charges of Ukrainianization, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. This transition however lacked most of the controversies that arose during the de-russification of the other former Soviet Republics.

With time, most residents, including ethnic Russians, people of mixed origin, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians started to self-identify as Ukrainian nationals, even those who remained Russophone. The Russian language however still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio and TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and to a lesser degree central regions. The state-controlled broadcast media have become exclusively Ukrainian. There are few obstacles to the usage of Russian in commerce and it is still occasionally used in government affairs.

In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). It should be noted, though, that for many Ukrainians (of various ethnic descent), the term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native, including those who often speak Russian. According to the official 2001 census data^[30] approximately 75% of Kiev’s population responded «Ukrainian» to the native language (ridna mova) census question, and roughly 25% responded «Russian». On the other hand, when the question «What language do you use in everyday life?» was asked in the sociological survey, the Kievans’ answers were distributed as follows:^[31] «mostly Russian»: 52%, «both Russian and Ukrainian in equal measure»: 32%, «mostly Ukrainian»: 14%, «exclusively Ukrainian»: 4.3%.

Ethnic minorities, such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their lingua franca. But there are tendencies within these minority groups to use Ukrainian. The Jewish writer Olexander Beyderman from the mainly Russian speaking city of Odessa is now writing most of his dramas in Ukrainian. The emotional relationship regarding Ukrainian is changing in southern and eastern areas.

Opposition to expansion of Ukrainian-language teaching is a matter of contention in eastern regions closer to Russia – in May 2008, the Donetsk city council prohibited the creation of any new Ukrainian schools in the city in which 80% of them are Russian-language schools.^[32]

Literature and the Ukrainian literary language[]

Further information: Ukrainian literature

File:Ukrainian writers and poets.jpg

The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into three stages: old Ukrainian (12th to 14th centuries), middle Ukrainian (14th to 18th centuries), and modern Ukrainian (end of the 18th century to the present). Much literature was written in the periods of the old and middle Ukrainian language, including legal acts, polemical articles, science treatises and fiction of all sorts.

Influential literary figures in the development of modern Ukrainian literature include the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka. The earliest literary work in the modern Ukrainian language was recorded in 1798 when Ivan Kotlyarevsky, a playwright from Poltava in southeastern Ukraine, published his epic poem, Eneyida, a burlesque in Ukrainian, based on Virgil‘s Aeneid. His book was published in vernacular Ukrainian in a satirical way to avoid being censored, and is the earliest known Ukrainian published book to survive through Imperial and, later, Soviet policies on the Ukrainian language.

Kotlyarevsky’s work and that of another early writer using the Ukrainian vernacular language, Petro Artemovsky, used the southeastern dialect spoken in the Poltava, Kharkiv and southern Kieven regions of the Russian Empire. This dialect would serve as the basis of the Ukrainian literary language when it was developed by Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish in the mid 19th century. In order to raise its status from that of a dialect to that of a language, various elements from folklore and traditional styles were added to it.^[33]

The Ukrainian literary language developed further when the Russian state banned the use of the Ukrainian language, prompting many of its writers to move to the western Ukrainian region of Galicia which was under more liberal Austrian rule; after the 1860s the majority of Ukrainian literary works were published in Austrian Galicia. During this period Galician influences were adopted in the Ukrainian literary language, particularly with respect to vocabulary involving law, government, technology, science, and administration.^[33]

Current usage[]

The use of the Ukrainian language is increasing after a long period of decline. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine (77.8% of the total population), the Ukrainian language is prevalent only in western and central Ukraine. In Kiev, both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Russian speaking. The shift is believed to be caused, largely, by an influx of the rural population and migrants from the western regions of Ukraine but also by some Kievans’ turning to use the language they speak at home more widely in everyday matters. Public signs and announcements in Kiev are in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian is the prevalent language of the urban population. According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, 87.8% people living in Ukraine communicate in Ukrainian.^[34]

Use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine can be expected to increase, as the rural population migrates into the cities. In eastern and southern Ukraine, the rural Ukrainophones continue to prefer Russian. Interest in Ukrainian literature is growing rapidly, compensating for the periods when its development was hindered by either policies of direct suppression or lack of the state support.

Dialects[]

Main article: Ukrainian dialects

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist^[35][36]

• Northern (Polissian) dialects:^[37]
  • (3) Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in the northern part of Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kiev Oblast as well as in the adjacent areas of Russia, which include the southwestern part of the Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in some places in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts.^[38] No linguistic border can be defined. The vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this dialect.^[39]
  • (2) Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kiev Oblast, in the northern part of Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast.^[40]
  • (1) West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the northwestern part of the Rivne Oblast as well as in the adjacent districts of the Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus uses Belarusian grammar, and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.^[41]
• Southeastern dialects:^[42]
  • (4) Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in the central part of Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kiev Oblast). In addition, the dialects spoken in Cherkasy, Poltava and Kiev regions are considered to be close to «standard» Ukrainian.
  • (5) Slobodan is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of Donetsk, as well as in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia.^[43] This dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, with progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus, there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both grammar sets can be applied.^[39]
  • A (6) Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the main language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.^[44]
  • A Kuban dialect related to or based on the Steppe dialect is often referred to as Balachka and is spoken by the Kuban Cossacks in the Kuban region in Russia by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late 18th century. It was formed from gradual mixture of Russian into Ukrainian. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary along with some Russian grammar.^[45] There are 3 main variants which have been grouped together according to location.^[46]
• Southwestern dialects:^[47]
  • (13) Boyko is spoken by the Boyko people on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
  • (12) Hutsul is spoken by the Hutsul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, as well as in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts.
  • Lemko is spoken by the Lemko people, whose homeland rests outside the borders of Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains, and in the southeast of modern Poland, along the northern sides of the Carpathians.
  • (8) Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in the northern part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast and the Mykolaiv Oblast.^[48]
  • (7) Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and Ternopil. It is also used in Chełm in Poland.
  • (11) Pokuttia (Bukovynian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct vocabulary borrowed from Romanian.
  • (9) Upper Dniestrian is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this dialect can be found here.^[49]
  • (10) Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the San river valley.
• The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be also a dialect of Ukrainian:
  • Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.
  • Pannonian or Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
  • Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large émigré population, particularly in Canada (see Canadian Ukrainian), United States and several countries of South America like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia, which used to be part of Austro-Hungary before World War I, and belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The language spoken by most of them is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the 20th century. Compared with modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside Ukraine reflects less influence of Russian, but often contains many loan words from the local language.

Ukrainian diaspora[]

Most of the countries where it is spoken are ex-USSR where many Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. Broken up by country (to the nearest thousand):^[50]

1. Russia 1,129,838 (according to the 2010 census);^[51]
2. Canada 200,525^[52] (67,665 spoken at home^[53] in 2001, 148,000 spoken as «mother tongue» in 2006)^[54]

Ukrainian is one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria.^[55]

Ukrainian is widely spoken within the 400,000-strong (in 1994) Ukrainian community in Brazil.^[56]

Language structure[]

Cyrillic letters in this article are romanized using scientific transliteration.

Grammar[]

Further information: Ukrainian grammar

The canonical word order of Ukrainian is subject–verb–object (SVO).^[57]

Old East Slavic (and Russian) o in closed syllables, that is, ending in a consonant, in many cases corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as in pod->pid (під, ‘under’). Thus, in the declension of nouns, the o can re-appear as it is no longer located in a closed syllable, such as rik (рік, ‘year’) (nom): rotsi (loc) (році).

Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Old East Slavic, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etaže ‘on the first floor’ is in the locative (prepositional) case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na peršomu poversi (на першому поверсі). -omu is the standard locative (prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The kh of Ukrainian poverkh (поверх) has mutated into s under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly mutable into c in final positions). Ukrainian is the only modern East Slavic language which preserves the vocative case.

Sounds[]

Further information: Ukrainian phonology

The Ukrainian language has six vowels, /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /i/, /ɔ/, /u/, and two approximants /j/, /w/.

A number of the consonants come in three forms: hard, soft (palatalized) and long, for example, /l/, /lʲ/, and /lː/ or /n/, /nʲ/, and /nː/.

The letter г represents different consonants in Old East Slavic and Ukrainian. Ukrainian г /ɦ/, often transliterated as Latin h, is the voiced equivalent of Old East Slavic х /x/. The Russian (and Old East Slavic) letter г denotes /ɡ/. Russian-speakers from Ukraine and Southern Russia often use the soft Ukrainian г, in place of the hard Old East Slavic one. The Ukrainian alphabet has the additional letter ґ, for representing /ɡ/, which appears in some Ukrainian words such as gryndžoly (ґринджоли, ‘sleigh’) and gudzyk (ґудзик, ‘button’). However, the letter ґ appears almost exclusively in loan words, and is usually simply written г due to the relative unavailability of the letter. For example, loanwords from English on public signs usually use г for both English «g» and «h». This sound is still more rare in Ukrainian than in Czech or Slovak.

Another phonetic divergence between the two languages is the pronunciation of «v», the Cyrillic в. While in standard Russian it represents /v/, in many Ukrainian dialects it denotes /w/ (following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary, it denotes the allophone [u̯], and like the off-glide of in the English words «flow» and «cow», it forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel). Native Russian-speakers will pronounce the Ukrainian в as /v/, whereas Ukrainians will often use /w/, which is one way to tell the two groups apart. As with г above, Ukrainians use в to spell both English «v» and «w»; Russians tend to instead opt for using у for «w».

Unlike Russian and most other modern Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not have final devoicing.

Alphabet[]

Main article: Ukrainian alphabet

Template:Ukrainian alphabet

Ukrainian is written in a version of Cyrillic, consisting of 33 letters, representing 38 phonemes; an apostrophe is also used. Ukrainian orthography is based on the phonemic principle, with one letter generally corresponding to one phoneme, although there are a number of exceptions. The orthography also has cases where the semantic, historical, and morphological principles are applied.

The modern Ukrainian alphabet is the result of a number of proposed alphabetic reforms from the 19th and early 20th centuries, in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, in Austrian Galicia, and later in Soviet Ukraine. A unified Ukrainian alphabet (the Skrypnykivka, after Mykola Skrypnyk) was officially established at a 1927 international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv, during the period of Ukrainization in Soviet Ukraine. But the policy was reversed in the 1930s, and the Soviet Ukrainian orthography diverged from that used by the diaspora. The Ukrainian letter ge ґ was banned in the Soviet Union from 1933 until the period of Glasnost in 1990.^[58]

The letter щ represents two consonants [ʃt͡ʃ]. The combination of [j] with some of the vowels is also represented by a single letter ([jɑ] = я, [jɛ] = є, [ji] or [jı̽] = ї, [ju] = ю), while [jo] = йо and the rare regional [jɪ] = йи are written using two letters. These iotated vowel letters and a special soft sign change a preceding consonant from hard to soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft; in other words, it functions like the yer in the Russian alphabet.

A consonant letter is doubled to indicate that the sound is doubled, or long.

The phonemes [d͡z] and [d͡ʒ] do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered with the digraphs дз and дж, respectively. [d͡z] is pronounced close to English dz in adze, [d͡ʒ] is close to g in huge.

Transliteration[]

Main article: Romanization of Ukrainian

See also: Drahomanivka and Ukrainian Latin alphabet

Vocabulary[]

The Dictionary of Ukrainian Language in 11 volumes contains 135,000 entries. Lexical card catalog of Ukrainian Institute of Language Studies has 2.5 million cards. The same Institute is going to publish the new Dictionary of Ukrainian Language in 13 volumes.

Classification and relationship to other languages[]

The question of whether contemporary Ukrainian and Russian (as well as Belarusian and Rusyn) are dialects of a single language or separate languages is not entirely decided by linguistic factors alone because there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[5] As members of the East Slavic group of languages, they are descended from a common ancestor. Although Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are usually listed by linguists as separate languages,^[59] some linguistic references list them as dialects of a single language.^[60]

Within East Slavic, the Ukrainian language is most closely related to Belarusian.^[61]

It is accepted that before the 18th century, the precursor to the modern literary Ukrainian language was a vernacular used mostly by peasants and petits bourgeois, as no traces of earlier literary works could be found. It existed along with Church Slavonic, a literary language of religion that evolved from the Old Slavonic and which was the language usually used in writing and communication.

Differences between Ukrainian and other Slavic languages[]

The Ukrainian language has the following similarities and differences with other Slavic languages:

• Like all Slavic languages with the exception of Russian, Slovak and Slovene, the Ukrainian language has preserved the Common Slavic vocative case. When addressing one’s sister (sestra) she is referred to as sestro. In the Russian language the vocative case has been almost entirely replaced by the nominative (except for a handful of vestigial forms, e.g. Bozhe and Gospodi «Lord!»).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with all Slavic languages other than Russian, Slovak and Slovene has retained the Common Slavic dative & locative endings -ce, -ze, and -se in the female declension. For example, «hand» (ruka) becomes ruci. In Russian, dative and locative of (ruka) would be ruke.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, has developed the ending —mo for first-person plurals in verbs (khodymo for «we walk»).^[62] In all cases, it came from lengthening the Common Slavic —mŭ.
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian and Belarusian, has changed the Common Slavic word beginning ye— into o, such as in the words ozero (lake) and odyn (one).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belarusian and southern Russian dialects has changed the Common Slavic «g» into an «h» sound (for example, noha – leg).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with some northern Russian and Croatian dialects, has transformed the Common Slavic yě into i (for example, lis – forest).^[62]
• The Ukrainian language, in common with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene and Serbian has simplified the Common Slavic tl and dl into l (for example, mela – she swept»).^[62]

See also[]

• Linguistic discrimination
• Russification of Ukraine
• Surzhyk
• Swadesh list of Slavic languages
• Vergonha
• Chronology of Ukrainian language bans

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to Ukrainian language at Wikimedia Commons
• Dialects of Ukrainian Language / Narzecza Języka Ukraińskiego by Wł. Kuraszkiewicz (Polish)
• Hammond’s Racial map of Europe, 1919 (English) «National Alumni» 1920, vol.7, anesi.com
• Ethnographic map of Europe 1914 (English), cla.calpoly.edu
• Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Ukrainian language
• Resources for the Study of the Ukrainian Language
• The official Ukrainian Orthography (2012), published by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Template:Ukrainian language
Template:Slavic languages