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Ukrainian Language Facts:

History

Historically, the closest language to Ukrainian is Belarusian. Some historians find their common ancestor in the Old Ruthenian language of Rus', the common ancestor of both the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, which began to diverge from each other markedly by the 1600s. Polish influences on both languages, especially Ukrainian were noteworthy during this time. As the Ukrainian language developed further some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in 16th and first half of 17th century, when Ukraine was part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Ukrainian was also the official language of Ukrainian provinces of Crown of Polish Kingdom. Among many schools found in that time, Kijovian Academy was the most important. The substance of Ukrainian culture didn't stand the anarchy of Khmelnytsky Uprising and following wars. Kijovian Academy was taken over by Russia and most of Ukrainian nobles and schools switched to Polish. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces of Poland was changed to Polish as well, while Russian part of Ukraine used widely Russian.

After partitions of Poland, Ukrainian language was banned from printing by Alexander II of Russia, in Ems Ukaz, that retarded the development of the Ukrainian language. At the same time, in Galicia, Ukrainian langauge was widely used in the education and in official documents.

History of Ukrainian Literature

The twelfth-century document The Lay of Ihor's Campaign an early classic example of the Old Ruthenian/Ukrainian language, was discovered in a Russian library in the nineteenth century. The political climate of denial of the separate existence of the Ukrainian nation/language led to some consternation among the intelligentsia of the Tsarist Empire when this document became known. The document was recognizably non-Russian, and bore traces of Polish influence. Some historical chronicles from the state of Halych-Volynia (see Halych, Volhynia) are written in subsequent centuries.

A significant part of early Ukrainian culture is bylinas.

Later influential literary figures in the development of Ukrainian literature included the philosopher Skovoroda, Kostamarov, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka.

Comparative grammar

Russian o often corresponds to Ukrainian i, as in pod/pid "under". This also happens when Ukrainian words are declined, such as rik (nom):rotsi (loc) "year". Also, the letter "Г" renders different consonants in Russian and Ukrainian, see language notes in Cyrillic alphabet. Ukrainian "Г" is the sounded match for Cyrillic "Х" (and therefore it is transliterated as Latin "H"), while the Russian one is the sounded match for "К". East Slavic "non-mainland" Russian speakers "contaminate" the Russian speech with what is called "soft Ukrainian 'Г'".

Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Russian, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etazhe "on the first floor" is in the prepositional case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na pershomy poversi, which to the Russian ear is a mishmash. -omy is the standard locative (=prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The x of Ukrainian poverx has mutated under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly unstable in final positions).

Current usage

The Ukrainian language is currently emerging from a long period of disuse and persecution. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including roughly 38-39 million in Ukraine (three-quarters of the total population), only in western Ukraine is the Ukrainian language commonly spoken. In Kyiv and central Ukraine Russian is the language of nearly all city-dwellers, although there is a shift towards Ukrainian; in eastern Ukraine, Russian is dominant and a Russified Ukrainian spoken in some circles, while in the Crimea Ukrainian is almost absent. Use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine can be expected to increase, as the rural population of Ukraine (still overwhelmingly Ukrainophone) migrates to Ukrainian cities and the Ukrainian language enters into wider use in central Ukraine.

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large emigre population, particularly in Canada. The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia that used to be part of Austria-Hungary before World War I and between the World Wars belonged to Poland. Their vocabulary reflects somewhat less russification than the modern language of independent Ukraine -- for "store/shop" they might prefer kramnytsya to mahazyn (cf. Russ. magazin, orig. French), whereas in Ukraine mahazyn is much more common and kramnytsya somewhat self-conscious.

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