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When did the Ukrainian language emerge? How the Ukrainian language was created

Inventor of the Little Russian dialect Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky (August 29 (September 9), 1769, Poltava - October 29 (November 10), 1838, Poltava).

The Ukrainian language was created in 1794 on the basis of some features of the southern Russian dialects, which still exist today in Rostov and Voronezh regions and at the same time absolutely mutually intelligible with the Russian language spoken in Central Russia. It was created by deliberately distorting common Slavic phonetics, in which instead of common Slavic “o” and “ѣ” they became for comic effect using the sound “i”, “hv” instead of “f”, as well as by clogging the language with heterodox borrowings and deliberately invented neologisms.

In the first case, this was expressed in the fact that, for example, a horse, which sounds like a horse in Serbian, Bulgarian, and even Lusatian, began to be called kin in Ukrainian. The cat began to be called kit, and so that the cat would not be confused with a whale, kit began to be pronounced as kyt.

According to the second principle, the stool became a sore throat, a runny nose became an undead creature, and an umbrella became a rosette. Then Soviet Ukrainian philologists replaced the rosette with a parasol (from the French parasol), the stool was returned Russian name, because the nosebleed did not sound quite decent, and the runny nose remained undead. But during the years of independence, common Slavic and international words began to be replaced with artificially created ones, stylized as common lexemes. As a result, the midwife became a navel cutter, the elevator became a lift, the mirror became a chandelier, the percentage became a hundred percent, and the gearbox became a screen of hookups.

As for the declension and conjugation systems, the latter were simply borrowed from the Church Slavonic language, which until the mid-18th century served as a common literary language for all Orthodox Slavs and even among the Vlachs, who later renamed themselves Romanians.

Initially, the scope of application of the future language was limited to everyday satirical works that ridiculed the illiterate chatter of marginal social strata. The first to synthesize the so-called Little Russian language was the Poltava nobleman Ivan Kotlyarevsky. In 1794, Kotlyarevsky, for the sake of humor, created a kind of padonkaff language, in which he wrote a playful adaptation of the “Aeneid” by the greatest Old Roman poet Publius Virgil Maron.

Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid” in those days was perceived as macaroni poetry - a kind of comic poetry created according to the principle formulated by the then French-Latin proverb “Qui nescit motos, forgere debet eos” - whoever does not know words must create them. This is exactly how the words of the Little Russian dialect were created.

The creation of artificial languages, as practice has shown, is accessible not only to philologists. So, in 2005, Tomsk entrepreneur Yaroslav Zolotarev created the so-called Siberian language, “which has been around since the times of Velikovo-Novgorod and has reached our days in the dialects of the Siberian people.” On October 1, 2006, an entire Wikipedia section was even created in this pseudo-language, which numbered more than five thousand pages and was deleted on November 5, 2007. In terms of content, the project was a mouthpiece for politically active non-lovers of “This Country.” As a result, every second SibWiki article was a non-illusory masterpiece of Russophobic trolling. For example: “After the Bolshevik coup, the Bolsheviks made Central Siberia, and then completely pushed Siberia to Russia.” All this was accompanied by poems by the first poet of the Siberian dialect, Zolotarev, with the telling titles “Moskalsk bastard” and “Moskalski vydki.” Using administrator rights, Zolotarev rolled back any edits as written “in a foreign language.”

If this activity had not been shut down in its infancy, then by now we would have had a movement of Siberian separatists instilling in Siberians that they are a separate people, that they should not feed Muscovites (non-Siberian Russians were called that way in this language), but should trade oil on their own and gas, for which it is necessary to establish an independent Siberian state under American patronage.

The idea of creating, based on the language invented by Kotlyarevsky, a separate national language was first picked up by the Poles, the former owners of the Ukrainian lands: A year after the appearance of Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid,” Jan Potocki called for calling the lands of Volynsha and Podolia, which had recently become part of Russia, the word “Ukraine,” and the people inhabiting them to be called not Russians, but Ukrainians. Another Pole, Count Tadeusz Czatsky, deprived of his estates after the second partition of Poland, became the inventor of the term “Ukr” in his essay “O nazwiku Ukrajnj i poczatku kozakow”. It was Chatsky who produced him from some unknown horde of “ancient Ukrainians” who allegedly came out from beyond the Volga in the 7th century.

At the same time, the Polish intelligentsia began to make attempts to codify the language invented by Kotlyarevsky. Thus, in 1818, in St. Petersburg, Alexei Pavlovsky published “The Grammar of the Little Russian dialect,” but in Ukraine itself this book was received with hostility. Pavlovsky was scolded for introducing Polish words, called a Lyakh, and in “Additions to the Grammar of the Little Russian dialect,” published in 1822, he specifically wrote: “I swear to you that I am your fellow countryman.” Pavlovsky’s main innovation was that he proposed writing “i” instead of “ѣ” in order to aggravate the differences between the South Russian and Central Russian dialects that had begun to blur.

But the biggest step in the propaganda of the so-called Ukrainian language became a major hoax associated with the artificially created image of Taras Shevchenko, who, being illiterate, actually wrote nothing, and all his works were the fruit of the mystifying work of first Evgeniy Grebenka, and then Panteleimon Kulish.

The Austrian authorities were considering Russian population Galicia as a natural counterweight to the Poles. However, at the same time, they were afraid that the Russians would sooner or later want to join Russia. Therefore, the idea of Ukrainianism could not be more convenient for them - an artificially created people could be opposed to both the Poles and the Russians.

The first who began to introduce the newly invented dialect into the minds of Galicians was the Greek Catholic canon Ivan Mogilnitsky. Together with Metropolitan Levitsky, Mogilnitsky in 1816, with the support of the Austrian government, began to create primary schools with the "local language" in Eastern Galicia. True, Mogilnitsky slyly called the “local language” he promoted Russian. The Austrian government's assistance to Mogilnitsky was justified by the main theoretician of Ukrainianism, Grushevsky, who also lived on Austrian grants: “The Austrian government, in view of the deep enslavement of the Ukrainian population by the Polish gentry, sought ways to raise the latter socially and culturally.” A distinctive feature of the Galician-Russian revival is its complete loyalty and extreme servility towards the government, and the first work in the “local language” was a poem by Markiyan Shashkevich in honor of Emperor Franz, on the occasion of his name day.

On December 8, 1868, in Lviv, under the auspices of the Austrian authorities, the All-Ukrainian Partnership “Prosvita” named after Taras Shevchenko was created.

To have an idea of what the real Little Russian dialect was like in the 19th century, you can read an excerpt from the Ukrainian text of that time: “Reading the euphonious text of the Word, it is not difficult to notice its poetic size; For this purpose, I tried not only to correct the text of the same in the internal part, but also in the external form, if possible, to restore the original poetic structure of the Word.”

The society set out to promote the Ukrainian language among the Russian population of Chervona Rus. In 1886, a member of the society, Yevgeny Zhelekhovsky, invented Ukrainian writing without the “ъ”, “е” and “ѣ”. In 1922, this Zhelikhovka script became the basis for the Radian Ukrainian alphabet.

Through the efforts of society, in the Russian gymnasiums of Lvov and Przemysl, teaching was transferred to the Ukrainian language, invented by Kotlyarsky for the sake of humor, and the ideas of Ukrainian identity began to be instilled in the students of these gymnasiums. The graduates of these gymnasiums began to train public school teachers who brought Ukrainianness to the masses. The result was not long in coming - before the collapse of Austria-Hungary, they managed to raise several generations of Ukrainian-speaking population.

This process took place before the eyes of Galician Jews, and the experience of Austria-Hungary was successfully used by them: a similar process of artificially introducing an artificial language was carried out by the Zionists in Palestine. There, the bulk of the population was forced to speak Hebrew, a language invented by Luzhkov’s Jew Lazar Perelman (better known as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Hebrew: אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֶּן־יְהוּדָה). In 1885, Hebrew was recognized as the only language of instruction for certain subjects at the Bible and Works School in Jerusalem. In 1904, the Hilfsverein Mutual Aid Union of German Jews was founded. Jerusalem's first teacher's seminary for Hebrew teachers. Hebrewization of first and last names was widely practiced. All Moses became Moshe, Solomon became Shlomo. Hebrew was not just intensively promoted. The propaganda was reinforced by the fact that from 1923 to 1936, the so-called language defense units of Gdut Meginei Khasafa (גדוד מגיני השפה) were snooping around British-mandated Palestine, beating the faces of everyone who spoke not Hebrew, but Yiddish. Particularly persistent muzzles were beaten to death. Borrowing words is not allowed in Hebrew. Even the computer in it is not קאמפיוטער, but מחשב, the umbrella is not שירעם (from the German der Schirm), but מטריה, and the midwife is not אַבסטאַטרישאַן, but מְיַלֶד ֶת – almost like a Ukrainian navel cutter.

P.S. from Mastodon. Someone “P.S.V. commentator”, a Ukrainian fascist, a Kontovite, was offended by me because yesterday I published in Comte a humoresque “A hare went out for a walk...”, in which N. Khrushchev, in his desire to get rid of the difficulties of Russian grammar by eliminating it, is compared with one of the inventors of the Ukrainian language P. Kulesh (he created the illiterate “Kuleshovka” as one of the original written versions of Ukromova). I was rightfully offended. The creation of ukromov is a serious collective work that ended in success. Svidomo should be proud of this kind of work.

Ukrainian language was created in 1794 on the basis of some features of the southern Russian dialects, which still exist today in the Rostov and Voronezh regions and at the same time are absolutely mutually intelligible with the Russian language, existing in Central Russia. It was created by deliberately distorting common Slavic phonetics, in which instead of the common Slavic “o” and “ѣ” they began to use the sound “i” and “hv” instead of “f” for a comic effect, as well as by clogging the language with heterodox borrowings and deliberately invented neologisms.

According to the second principle, the stool became a sore throat, a runny nose became an undead creature, and an umbrella became a cracker. Later, Soviet Ukrainian philologists replaced the rozchipirka with a parasol (from the French parasol), the Russian name was returned to the stool, since the stool did not sound quite decent, and the runny nose remained undead. But during the years of independence, common Slavic and international words began to be replaced with artificially created ones, stylized as common lexemes. As a result, the midwife became a navel cutter, the elevator became a lifter, the mirror became a chandelier, the percentage became a hundred percent, and the gearbox became a screen of hookups.

Initially, the scope of application of the future language was limited to everyday satirical works that ridiculed the illiterate chatter of marginal social strata. The first who synthesized the so-called Little Russian language was the Poltava nobleman Ivan Kotlyarevsky in 1794, created a kind of language padonkaff, on which he wrote a playful adaptation of the Aeneid by the greatest Old Roman poet Publius Virgil Maro.

Kotlarevsky’s “Aeneid” in those days was perceived as macaroni poetry - a kind of comic poetry created according to the principle formulated by the then French-Latin proverb “Qui nescit motos, forgere debet eos” - whoever does not know words must create them. This is exactly how the words of the Little Russian dialect were created.

The creation of artificial languages, as practice has shown, is accessible not only to philologists. So, in 2005, Tomsk entrepreneur Yaroslav Zolotarev created the so-called Siberian language, “which has been around since the times of Velikovo-Novgorod and has reached our days in the dialects of the Siberian people.” On October 1, 2006, an entire Wikipedia section was even created in this pseudo-language, which numbered more than five thousand pages and was deleted on November 5, 2007. In terms of content, the project was a mouthpiece for politically active non-lovers of “This Country.” As a result, every second SibWiki article was a non-illusory masterpiece of Russophobic trolling. For example: "After the Bolshevik coup, the Bolsheviks created Centrosiberia, and then completely pushed Siberia to Russia" To that All were accompanied by poems by the first poet of the Siberian dialect, Zolotarev, with the telling titles “Moskalsk bastard” and “Moskalski vydki”. Using administrator rights, Zolotarev rolled back any edits as written “in a foreign language.”

The idea of creating a separate national language based on the language invented by Kotlyarevsky was first taken up by the Poles - the former owners of Ukrainian lands: A year after the appearance of Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid”, Jan Potocki called for calling the lands of Volynsha and Podolia, which had recently become part of Russia, the word “Ukraine”, and the people inhabiting them should be called not Russians, but Ukrainians. Another Pole, Count Tadeusz Czatsky, deprived of his estates after the second partition of Poland, became the inventor of the term “Ukr” in his essay “O nazwiku Ukrajnj i poczatku kozakow”. It was Chatsky who produced him from some unknown horde of “ancient Ukrainians” who allegedly came out from beyond the Volga in the 7th century. But the biggest step in the propaganda of the so-called Ukrainian language was a major hoax associated with the artificially created image of Taras Shevchenko, who, being illiterate, actually wrote nothing, and all his works were the fruit of the mystifying work of first Evgeniy Grebenka, and then Panteleimon Kulish .

The Austrian authorities viewed the Russian population of Galicia as a natural counterweight to the Poles. However, at the same time, they were afraid that the Russians would sooner or later want to join Russia. Therefore, the idea of Ukrainianism could not be more convenient for them - an artificially created people could be opposed to both the Poles and the Russians. On December 8, 1868, in Lviv, under the auspices of the Austrian authorities, the All-Ukrainian Partnership “Prosvita” named after Taras Shevchenko was created.

To have an idea of what the real Little Russian dialect was like in the 19th century, you can read an excerpt from the then Ukrainian text: “ Reading the euphonious text of the Word, it is not difficult to ѣ titi poetic rose ѣ rb him; For this purpose, I tried not only to correct the text of the same internally, but also externally ѣ great shape ѣ , if possible, restore the original poetic composition of the Word».

The society set out to promote the Ukrainian language among the Russian population of Chervona Rus. In 1886, a member of the society, Yevgeny Zhelekhovsky, invented Ukrainian writing without “ъ”, “е” and "ѣ". In 1922, this Zhelikhovka script became the basis for the Radian Ukrainian alphabet.

Just for fun

The Ukrainian language was created in 1794 on the basis of some features of the southern Russian dialects, which still exist today in the Rostov and Voronezh regions and at the same time are absolutely mutually intelligible with the Russian language, existing in Central Russia. It was created through a deliberate distortion of common Slavic phonetics, in which instead of the common Slavic “o” and “ѣ” they began to use the sound “i” and “hv” instead of “f” for a comic effect, as well as by clogging the language with heterodox borrowings and deliberately invented neologisms.

According to the second principle the stool became a sore throat, the runny nose became an undead creature, and the umbrella became a cracker. Later, Soviet Ukrainian philologists replaced the rozchipirka with a parasol (from the French parasol), the Russian name was returned to the stool, since the stool did not sound quite decent, and the runny nose remained undead. But during the years of independence, common Slavic and international words began to be replaced with artificially created ones, stylized as common lexemes. As a result, the midwife became a navel cutter, the elevator became a lift, the mirror became a chandelier, the percentage became a hundred percent, and the gearbox became a screen of hookups.

Initially, the scope of application of the future language was limited to everyday satirical works that ridiculed the illiterate chatter of marginal social strata.

Inventor of the Little Russian dialect Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky

The first to synthesize the so-called Little Russian language, was a Poltava nobleman Ivan Kotlyarevsky. In 1794, Kotlyarevsky, for the sake of humor, created a kind of padonkaff language, in which he wrote a humorous adaptation of “ Aeneids"by the greatest Old Roman poet Publius Virgil Maro.

Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid” in those days was perceived as macaroon poetry - a kind of comic poetry created according to the principle formulated by the then French-Latin proverb “ Qui nescit motos, forgere debet eos" - those who do not know words must create them. This is exactly how the words of the Little Russian dialect were created.

Inventor of the “Siberian language” Yaroslav Anatolyevich Zolotarev

The creation of artificial languages, as practice has shown, is accessible not only to philologists. So, in 2005, a Tomsk entrepreneur created the so-called Siberian language, “which has been around since the times of Velikovo Novgorod and reached our days in the dialects of the Siberian people”.

On October 1, 2006, an entire Wikipedia section was even created in this pseudo-language, which numbered more than five thousand pages and was deleted on November 5, 2007. In terms of content, the project was a mouthpiece for politically active non-lovers of “This Country.” As a result, every second SibWiki article was a non-illusory masterpiece of Russophobic trolling. For example: “After the Bolshevik coup, the Bolsheviks created Centrosiberia, and then completely pushed Siberia to Russia”. All this was accompanied by poems by the first poet of the Siberian dialect, Zolotarev, with telling titles. "Moskal bastard" And “Moskalski vy..dki”. Using administrator rights, Zolotarev rolled back any edits as written “in a foreign language.”

“Ukrov” was invented by Tadeusz Czatsky

The idea of creating a separate national language based on the language invented by Kotlyarevsky was first taken up by the Poles - the former masters of Ukrainian lands: A year after the appearance of Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid” Jan Potocki called for calling the lands of Volynsha and Podolia, which recently became part of Russia, the word “Ukraine”, and calling the people inhabiting them not Russians, but Ukrainians. Another Pole, Count Tadeusz Czatski, deprived of estates after the second partition of Poland, in his essay “O nazwiku Ukrajnj i poczatku kozakow” became the inventor of the term " Ukr" It was Chatsky who produced him from some unknown horde of “ancient Ukrainians” who allegedly came out from beyond the Volga in the 7th century.

At the same time, the Polish intelligentsia began to make attempts to codify the language invented by Kotlyarevsky. So, in 1818 in St. Petersburg Alexey Pavlovsky“Grammar of the Little Russian dialect” was published, but in Ukraine itself this book was received with hostility. Pavlovsky was scolded for introducing Polish words, called a Lyakh, and in “Additions to the Grammar of the Little Russian dialect”, published in 1822, he specifically wrote: “I promise you that I am your fellow countryman”. Pavlovsky’s main innovation was that he proposed writing “i” instead of “ѣ” in order to aggravate the differences between the South Russian and Central Russian dialects that had begun to blur.

But the biggest step in the propaganda of the so-called Ukrainian language was a major hoax associated with the artificially created image of Taras Shevchenko, who, being illiterate, actually wrote nothing, and all his works were the fruit of mystifying work at first Evgenia Grebenki, and then Panteleimon Kulish.

The first who began to introduce the newly invented dialect into the minds of Galicians was the Greek Catholic canon Ivan Mogilnitsky. Together with Metropolitan Levitsky, Mogilnitsky in 1816, with the support of the Austrian government, began to create primary schools with the “local language” in Eastern Galicia. True, Mogilnitsky slyly called the “local language” he promoted Russian.

Help from the Austrian government to Mogilnitsky, the main theoretician of Ukrainianism Grushevsky, which also existed on Austrian grants, was justified as follows:

“The Austrian government, in view of the deep enslavement of the Ukrainian population by the Polish gentry, sought ways to raise the latter in social and cultural terms.”

A distinctive feature of the Galician-Russian revival is its complete loyalty and extreme servility towards the government, and the first work in the “local language” was a poem Markiyan Shashkevich in honor of Emperor Franz, on the occasion of his name day.

On December 8, 1868, in Lviv, under the auspices of the Austrian authorities, it was created All-Ukrainian Partnership "Prosvita" named after Taras Shevchenko.

To have an idea of what the real Little Russian dialect was like in the 19th century, you can read an excerpt from the then Ukrainian text:

“Reading the euphonious text of the Word, it is not difficult to notice its poetic size; For this purpose, I tried not only to correct the text of the same in the internal part, but also in the external form, if possible, to restore the original poetic structure of the Word.”

Jews went further than ukrov

The society set out to promote the Ukrainian language among the Russian population of Chervona Rus. In 1886, a member of the society Evgeniy Zhelekhovsky invented Ukrainian writing without “ъ”, “е” and “ѣ”. In 1922, this Zhelikhovka script became the basis for the Radian Ukrainian alphabet.

In 1885, Hebrew was recognized as the only language of instruction for certain subjects at the Bible and Works School in Jerusalem. In 1904, the Hilfsverein Mutual Aid Union of German Jews was founded. Jerusalem's first teacher's seminary for Hebrew teachers. Hebrewization of first and last names was widely practiced. All Moses became Moshe, Solomon became Shlomo. Hebrew was not just intensively promoted. The propaganda was reinforced by the fact that from 1923 to 1936, the so-called language defense units of Gdut Meginei Khasafa (גדוד מגיני השפה) were snooping around British-mandated Palestine, beating the faces of everyone who spoke not Hebrew, but Yiddish. Particularly persistent muzzles were beaten to death. Borrowing words is not allowed in Hebrew. There's not even a computer in it קאמפיוטער , A מחשב , no umbrella שירעם (from the German der Schirm), and מטריה , but the midwife is not אַבסטאַטרישאַן , A מְיַלֶדֶת - almost like a Ukrainian navel cutter.

7 facts about the Ukrainian language that Ukrainians consider indisputable

(taken from the Ukrainian site 7dniv.info)

1. The oldest mention of the Ukrainian language dates back to 858. Slavic enlightener Konstantin (Kirill) Philosopher, describing his stay in the Crimean city of Chersonese (Korsun) during the journey from Byzantium to the Khazars, notes that: “To curse the man with Russian conversation”. And for the first time, the Ukrainian language was equated to the level of a literary language at the end of the 18th century after the publication in 1798 of the first edition of the Aeneid, authored by Ivan Kotlyarevsky. It is he who is considered the founder of the new Ukrainian literary language.

2. The oldest grammar in Ukraine called “Grammar of the friendly Hellenic-Slovenian language” was published by the Stavropegian printing house of the Lviv Brotherhood in 1651.

3. In the 2nd half of the 19th century. The letters ы, ь, е, ъ have dropped from the civil alphabet in Ukraine; The letters and i were assigned different sounds.

4. The Byzantine traveler and historian Priscus of Pania in 448, while in the camp of the Hunnic leader Attila, on the territory of modern Ukraine, wrote down the words “honey” and “grass”, this is a mention of the very first Ukrainian words.

5. Basis modern system spelling became the spelling used by B. Grinchank in the “Dictionary of Ukrainian Language” in 1907 - 1909.

6. The “most Ukrainian” letter, that is, not used in the alphabets of other nations, is “g”. This breakthrough sound has been designated in various ways in Ukrainian writing since at least the 14th century, and the letter g in the Ukrainian alphabet dates back to 1619, which was first introduced by M. Smotrytsky as a variety of the Greek “scale” in his “Gramatitsa”.

7. “The most passive”, that is, the least used letter of the Ukrainian alphabet, is “f”.

“The language of padonkaff” or “he who does not know words must create them”

As we see, the Ukrainians themselves admit that the current “ridna mov” was invented at the end of the 18th century Ivan Kotlyarevsky, but they are silent about its humorous creation through deliberate distortion of common Slavic phonetics and clogging the language with heterodox borrowings and deliberately invented neologisms like brake pad.

Modern ukrophilologists also keep silent about the fact that Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid” in the 18th century was perceived precisely as macaroni poetry - a kind of comic poetry. Now it is presented as an epic work of the Little Russians.

Nobody stutters at all about why the letter “f” has become the least used in Ukrainian Newspeak. After all, Kotlyarevsky in the newly invented Little Russian language replaced the sound “f” with “hv” solely for comic effect.

Eh, Ivan Petrovich knew what crap he had come up with... However, even during his lifetime he was horrified when he found out what his linguistic tricks had led to. The innocent joke of the Poltava nobleman became a nightmare in reality.

Ukraine is preparing to switch to the Latin alphabet

Sergey Mironovich Kvit

The Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, a member of Petro Poroshenko’s bloc and a member of the right-wing radical Ukrainian nationalist organization “Trident” named after S. Bandera, said in one of his private conversations that Ukraine will soon switch to the Latin script. According to the minister, such a decision will lead to significant savings in budgetary funds due to the fact that there will be no need to change computer interfaces, mobile phones, smartphones and other equipment will not have to be modified to fit the Cyrillic alphabet.

Also, the introduction of the Latin alphabet in Ukraine will significantly simplify the stay of foreign tourists in the country and make it more comfortable, and, therefore, will contribute to the influx of tourists from Europe.

It must be said that the project of switching to the Latin alphabet was proposed even under Yanukovych. The author of the bill was then a deputy with the characteristic surname Latynin.

Cyrillic | Latin | pronunciation

a A a A [a]
b B b B [b]
in V v V [v]/[w]
g G gh Gh [γ]
ґ Ґ g G [g]
d D d D [d]
e E e E [e]
є Є je Je /[‘e]
f Zh Zh [h]
z Z z Z [z]
and And y Y [y]
і І i I [i]
ї Ї ji Ji
й И j J [j]
k K k K [k]
l L l L [l]
m M m M [m]
n N n N [n]
o O o O [o]
p P p P [p]
р Р r R [r]
с С s S [s]
t T t T [t]
u У u U [u]
f Ф f F [f]
x X kh Kh [x]
ts ts c C
ch ch ch
sh Sh sh Sh [∫]

However, then this project was blocked by the communists. Now that the Communists have simply been expelled from the Rada, no one will stop the nationalists from abandoning everything national in favor of what is “universal to mankind.” nevertheless, preparations for such a transition had been going on latently throughout the previous years. Thus, on January 27, 2010, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued Resolution No. 55, in which it streamlined the rules for transliteration of the Ukrainian alphabet in the Latin alphabet, approving the transliteration table, and the corresponding GOST was adopted on July 11, 1996. The official system of Ukrainian transliteration is based on political rather than scientific principles and is too closely tied to English spelling. The motivation for such a close connection is the following arguments: firstly, if English in the modern globalized world is international, then all transliterations must be strictly subject to the norms of English spelling.

Galician nationalists, nurtured by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, tried to write Latin in Ukrainian. However, even the creator of the Ukrainian Latin alphabet, the so-called “abetsadlo”, Joseph Lozinsky, later revised his position and completely broke with the Ukrainophile movement. In 1859, Czech Slavist Josef Jireček proposed his own version of the Ukrainian Latin alphabet, based on the Czech alphabet.

Overall material rating: 4.8

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Khokhol, Jew, Katsap, Moskal and others In Ukraine or in Ukraine. The issue has been resolved a long time ago All letters of the alphabet in one phrase - pangram

Entire science fiction novels have been written today about the origin of the Ukrainian language and the etymology of Ukrainian words. The lack of popular philological literature forced enthusiasts who are often not specialists in matters of language to take up the matter. However, they are surprisingly active. (Ukrainian Language Day)

Some “experts” derive Ukrainian almost from Sanskrit, others spread myths about imaginary Polish or even Hungarian influence, although most of them do not speak Polish, Ukrainian, or even less Hungarian.

Recently it aroused considerable interest among visitors to the UNIAN website. Readers sent us many reviews, comments, and questions from the field of linguistics. Having summarized these questions, I will try to answer them in “popular language”, without delving into the scientific jungle.

Why are there many words from Sanskrit in the Ukrainian language?

Comparing various languages, scientists have come to the conclusion that some of them are very close to each other, others are more distant relatives. And there are those who have nothing in common with each other. For example, it has been established that Ukrainian, Latin, Norwegian, Tajik, Hindi, English, etc. are related languages. But Japanese, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, Etruscan, Arabic, Basque, etc. are in no way connected with Ukrainian or, say, Spanish.

It has been proven that several thousand years BC there was a certain community of people (tribes) who spoke similar dialects. We don't know where it was or at what exact time. Perhaps 3-5 thousand years BC. It is assumed that these tribes lived somewhere in the Northern Mediterranean, perhaps even in the Dnieper region. The Indo-European proto-language has not survived to this day. The oldest written monuments that have survived to this day were written a thousand years BC in the language of the ancient inhabitants of India, which is called “Sanskrit”. Being the oldest, this language is considered the closest to Indo-European.

Scientists reconstruct the proto-language based on the laws of change in sounds and grammatical forms, moving, so to speak, in the opposite direction: from modern languages to common language. Reconstructed words are given in etymological dictionaries, ancient grammatical forms- in a writer from the history of grammars.

Modern Indo-European languages have inherited most of their roots from the time of their former unity. In different languages related words sometimes they sound very different, but these differences are subject to certain sound patterns.

Compare Ukrainian and English words having a common origin: day - day, nіch - night, sun - sun, matіr - mother, syn - son, eye - eye, tree - tree, water - water, two - two, could - might, cook - swear, velіti - will. Thus, Ukrainian, like all other Indo-European languages, has many common words with Sanskrit and other related languages - Greek, Icelandic, Old Persian, Armenian, etc., not to mention close Slavic languages - Russian, Slovak, Polish...

As a result of migrations of peoples, wars, conquests of some peoples by others, language dialects moved away from each other, new languages were formed, and old ones disappeared. The Indo-Europeans settled throughout Europe and penetrated into Asia (which is why they got their name).

Proto-Indo-European language family left behind, in particular, the following groups of languages: Romanesque (dead Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldavian, etc.); Germanic (dead Gothic, English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, Afrikaans, etc.); Celtic (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, etc.), Indo-Iranian (dead Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Tajik, Ossetian, Gypsy, possibly also dead Scythian, etc.); Baltic (dead Prussian, Lithuanian, Latvian, etc.), Slavic (dead Old Church Slavonic, or “Old Bulgarian”, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Great Russian, Belarusian, etc.). Separate Indo-European branches started Greek, Armenian, Albanian languages that have no close relatives. Quite a few Indo-European languages did not survive into historical times.

Why are Indo-European languages so different from each other?

As a rule, the formation of a language is associated with the geographical isolation of its speakers, migration, and the conquest of some peoples by others. Differences in Indo-European languages are explained by interactions with other - often non-Indo-European - languages. One language, displacing another, received certain characteristics of the defeated language and, accordingly, differed in these characteristics from its relative (the displaced language that left its traces is called the substrate), and also experienced grammatical and lexical changes. Perhaps there are certain internal patterns of language development that, over time, “distance” it from related dialects. Although, apparently, the reason for the appearance of any internal patterns is the influence of other (substrate) languages.

So, in ancient times Numerous languages were widespread in Europe, the influence of which led to the current motley linguistic picture. The development of the Greek language was influenced, in particular, by Illyrian (Albanian) and Etruscan. Into English - Norman and various Celtic dialects, into French - Gaelic, into Great Russian - Finno-Ugric languages, as well as “Old Bulgarian”. The Finno-Ugric influence in the Great Russian language weakened unstressed vowels (in particular akanye: milk - malaco), fixing g in place of g, deafening consonants at the end of a syllable.

It is believed that at a certain stage of linguistic evolution, before the formation of separate Slavic and Baltic languages, there was a Balto-Slavic unity, since these languages have a huge number of common words, morphemes and even grammatical forms. It is assumed that the common ancestors of the Balts and Slavs inhabited the territories from the Northern Dnieper region to the Baltic Sea. However, as a result of migration processes, this unity disintegrated.

At the linguistic level, this was reflected in a surprising way: the Proto-Slavic language emerged as a separate language (and not a Balto-Slavic dialect) with the onset of the so-called law of the open syllable. The Proto-Slavs received this linguistic law by interacting with some non-Indo-European people, whose language did not tolerate the combination of several consonant sounds. Its essence boiled down to the fact that all syllables ended with a vowel sound. Old words began to be rearranged in such a way that short vowels were inserted between consonants, or vowels changed places with consonants, final consonants were lost, or short vowels appeared after them. So, “al-ktis” turned into “lo-ko-ti” (elbow), “kor-you” on “ko-ro-va” (cow), “me-dus” on “me-do” (honey), “or-bi-ti” on “ro-bi-ti” (work), “drau-gas” to “dru-gi” (other) and so on. Roughly speaking, an idea of the “pre-Slavic” linguistic period is given by the Baltic languages, which were not affected by the law of the open syllable.

How do we know about this law? First of all, from the most ancient monuments Slavic writing(X - XII centuries). Short vowel sounds were represented in writing by the letters “ъ” (something between the short “о” and “ы”) and “ь” (short “i”). The tradition of writing “ъ” at the end of words after consonants, which passed into the Great Russian language according to the Kyiv tradition of transmitting Church Slavonic, survived until the beginning of the twentieth century, although, of course, these vowels were never read in Great Russian.

What language did the Proto-Slavs speak?

This language has existed since the 1st millennium BC. until the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. Of course, there was no coherent language in the modern understanding of this word, much less its literary version. We are talking about close dialects that were characterized by common features.

The Proto-Slavic language, having adopted the law of the open syllable, sounded something like this: ze-le-n lie-s shu-mi-t(reads “ze-le-ni lie-so shu-mi-to” - the green forest is noisy); where do i-don-t honey-vie-d and vl-k?(reads “ko-de i-dou-to me-do-vie-do and vly-ko? (Where are the bear and the wolf going?). Monotonously and evenly: tra-ta-ta-ta... tra-ta-ta... tra-ta-ta... Our modern ear could hardly recognize familiar words in this stream.

Some scientists believe that the substrate language for the Proto-Slavs, which “launched” the law of the open syllable, was the non-Indo-European language of the Tripolians, who inhabited the current Ukrainian lands (the substrate language is an absorbed language that left phonetic and other traces in the victorious language).

It was he who did not tolerate clusters of consonants; the syllables in it ended only with vowels. And it was allegedly from the Trypillians that such words of unknown origin came to us, characterized by open syllables and a strict order of sounds (consonant - vowel), such as mo-gi-la, whoa-la and some others. They say that from the Trypillian language Ukrainian - through the mediation of other languages and proto-Slavic dialects - inherited its melody and some phonetic features (for example alternation, i-th, which helps to avoid dissonant clusters of sounds).

Unfortunately, it is impossible to either refute or confirm this hypothesis, since no reliable data about the language of the Trypillians (as, by the way, of the Scythians) has been preserved. At the same time, it is known that the substrate in a certain territory (phonetic and other traces of a defeated language) is indeed very tenacious and can be transmitted through several linguistic “epochs,” even through the mediation of languages that have not survived to this day.

The relative unity of the Proto-Slavic dialects lasted until the 5th-6th centuries of the new era. It is not known exactly where the Proto-Slavs lived. It is believed that somewhere north of the Black Sea - in the Dnieper, Danube, Carpathian Mountains or between the Vistula and Oder. In the middle of the first millennium, as a result of rapid migration processes, the pre-Slavic unity disintegrated. The Slavs settled all of central Europe - from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

Since then, the proto-languages of modern Slavic languages began to form. The starting point for the emergence of new languages was the fall of the law of the open syllable. As mysterious as its origin. We do not know what caused this fall - another substrate or some internal law of linguistic evolution, which began to operate during the times of Proto-Slavic unity. However, not a single Slavic language has survived the law of the open syllable. Although he left deep traces in each of them. By and large, the phonetic and morphological differences between these languages come down to how different the reflexes caused by the fall of the open syllable are in each of the languages.

How did modern Slavic languages appear?

This law declined unevenly. In one dialect, the melodic pronunciation (“tra-ta-ta”) was preserved longer, in others the phonetic “revolution” took place faster. As a result, the Proto-Slavic language gave three subgroups of dialects: South Slavic (modern Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian, etc.); West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc.); East Slavic (modern Ukrainian, Great Russian, Belarusian). In ancient times, each of the subgroups represented numerous dialects, characterized by certain common features that distinguished them from other subgroups. These dialects do not always coincide with the modern division of Slavic languages and the settlement of the Slavs. Big role processes of state formation played a role in linguistic evolution in different periods, mutual influence Slavic dialects, as well as foreign language elements.

Actually, the collapse of the Proto-Slavic linguistic unity could occur in the following way. First, the southern (Balkan) Slavs “broke away” territorially from the other tribes. This explains the fact that in their dialects the law of open syllable lasted the longest - until the 9th-12th centuries.

Among the tribes that were the ancestors of the eastern and Western Slavs, unlike the Balkan ones, in the middle of the first millennium the language experienced dramatic changes. The fall of the open syllable law gave rise to the development of new European languages, many of which have not survived to our time.

The speakers of the Proto-Ukrainian language were disparate tribes, each of which spoke its own dialect. The Polyany spoke in Polyansky, the Derevlyans spoke in Derevlyansky, the Siveryans spoke in Siveryansky, the Ulichi and Tivertsy spoke in their own way, etc. But all these adverbs were characterized by common features, that is, the same consequences of the fall of the open syllable, which even now distinguish the Ukrainian language from other Slavic languages.

How do we know about how people spoke in Ukraine in ancient times?

There are two real sources of our current knowledge about ancient Ukrainian dialects. The first is written monuments, the oldest of which were written in the 10th-12th centuries. However, unfortunately, no records were kept at all in the language our ancestors spoke. The literary language of Kyiv was the “Old Bulgarian” (Church Slavonic) language, which came to us from the Balkans. This is the language into which Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible in the 9th century. It was not understandable to the Eastern Slavs, since it retained the ancient law of the open syllable. In particular, it contained short vowels after consonant sounds, denoted by the letters “ъ” and “ь”. However, in Kyiv this language was gradually Ukrainized: short sounds were not read, and some vowels were replaced with their own - Ukrainian. In particular, nasal vowels, which are still preserved, say, in Polish, were pronounced as usual, “Old Bulgarian” diphthongs (double vowels) were read in the Ukrainian manner. Cyril and Methodius would have been very surprised to hear “their” language in the Kyiv church.

Interestingly, some scientists tried to reconstruct the so-called “Old Russian” language, which was supposedly common to all Eastern Slavs, based on ancient Kievan texts. And it turned out that in Kyiv they spoke almost the “Old Bulgarian” language, which, of course, in no way corresponded to the historical truth.

Ancient texts can be used to study the language of our ancestors, but in a very unique way. This is what Professor Ivan Ogienko did in the first half of the twentieth century. He investigated the slips and mistakes of Kyiv authors and copyists who, against their will, were influenced by the living folk language. At times, ancient scribes “remade” words and “Old Bulgarian” grammatical forms deliberately - to make it “more understandable.”

The second source of our knowledge is modern Ukrainian dialects, especially those that remained isolated for a long time and were almost not subject to external influence. For example, the descendants of the Derevlyans still inhabit the north of the Zhitomir region, and the Siverians - the north of the Chernigov region. In many dialects, ancient Ukrainian phonetic, grammatical, and morphological forms have been preserved, coinciding with the clerical notes of Kyiv clerks and writers.

IN scientific literature You can find other dates for the fall of short vowels among the Eastern Slavs - the 12th - 13th centuries. However, such a “life extension” of the open syllable law is hardly justified.

When did the Ukrainian language appear?

The countdown, apparently, can begin from the middle of the first millennium - when short vowels disappeared. This is what caused the emergence of Ukrainian linguistic characteristics proper - as, ultimately, the characteristics of most Slavic languages. The list of features that distinguished our proto-language from other languages may turn out to be somewhat boring for non-specialists. Here are just a few of them.

Ancient Ukrainian dialects were characterized by the so-called full-voice: in place of the South Slavic sound combinations ra-, la-, re-, le - in the language of our ancestors the sounds were -oro-, -olo-, -ere-, -ele-. For example: licorice (in “Old Bulgarian” - sweet), full (captivity), middle (Wednesday), darkness (darkness) and so on. The “coincidences” in the Bulgarian and Russian languages are explained by the enormous influence of “Old Bulgarian” on the formation of the Russian language.

The Bulgarian (South Slavic) sound combination at the beginning of the root ra-, la - answered the East Slavic ro-, lo-: robot (work), grow (grow), catch (catch). In place of the typical Bulgarian sound combination -zhd - Ukrainians had -zh-: vorozhnecha (enmity), kozhen (everyone). The Bulgarian suffixes -ash-, -yush- were answered by the Ukrainian -ach-, -yuch-: howling (howling), smoldering (sizzling).

When short vowel sounds fell after voiced consonants, in Proto-Ukrainian dialects these consonants continued to be pronounced voiced, as they are now (oak, snow, love, shelter). Stunning has developed in Polish, and in Great Russian too (dup, snack, love, crof).

Academician Potebnya discovered that the disappearance of short sounds (ъ and ь) in some places “forced” the pronunciation of the previous vowels “o” and “e” to be prolonged in a new closed syllable in order to compensate for the “shortening” of the word. So, stol-l (“sto-lo”) turned into “stіel” (the final ъ disappeared, but the “internal” vowel became longer, turning into a double sound - a diphthong). But in forms where the final consonant is followed by a vowel, the old sound has not changed: sto-lu, sto-li. Most (“mo-sto”) turned into mіest, muest, mіist, etc. (depending on the dialect). The diphthong eventually transformed into a regular vowel. Therefore, in modern literary language, “i” in a closed syllable alternates with “o” and “e” in an open syllable. (kit - cat, popil - po-pe-lu, rig - ro-gu, mig - maybe, etc.). Although some Ukrainian dialects store ancient diphthongs in a closed syllable (kit, drank, reg).

Ancient Proto-Slavic diphthongs, in particular in case endings, denoted in writing by the letter “yat”, found their continuation in the ancient Ukrainian language. In some dialects they have been preserved to this day, in others they have been transformed into “i” (as in the literary language): forest, on the ground, mieh, white etc. By the way, Ukrainians, knowing their language, never confused the spelling of “yat” and “e” in pre-revolutionary Russian orthography. In some Ukrainian dialects, the ancient diphthong was actively replaced by the vowel “i” (lis, on the ground, mikh, biliy), becoming entrenched in the literary language.

Some of the phonetic and grammatical features of the Proto-Slavic language were continued in Ukrainian dialects. Thus, Proto-Ukrainian inherited the ancient alternation k-ch, g-z, x-s (hand - ruci, rig - rose, fly - musi), which has been preserved in modern literary language. The vocative case has been used in our language for a long time. In dialects, the ancient form of the “pre-future” tense (I will brav), as well as the ancient indicators of person and number in past tense verbs (I - go, we - walked, you - walked, you - walked), are active in dialects.

The description of all these features takes up entire volumes in academic literature...
What language was spoken in Kyiv in prehistoric times?

Of course, not in modern literary language.

Any literary language is to a certain extent artificial - it is developed by writers, educators, and cultural figures as a result of rethinking the living language. Often the literary language is foreign, borrowed, and sometimes incomprehensible to the uneducated part of the population. Thus, in Ukraine from the 10th to the 18th centuries, the literary language was considered an artificial - Ukrainianized “Old Bulgarian” language, in which the majority of literary monuments were written, in particular “Svyatoslav’s Selections”, “The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “The History of Time Literatures”, the works of Ivan Vishensky , Grigory Skovoroda, etc. The literary language was not frozen: it constantly developed, changed over the centuries, was enriched with new vocabulary, its grammar was simplified. The degree of Ukrainization of texts depended on the education and “free-thinking” of the authors (the church did not approve of the penetration of the vernacular language into writing). This Kiev literary language, created on the basis of “Old Bulgarian”, played huge role in the formation of the Great Russian (“Russian”) language.

The modern literary language was formed on the basis of the Dnieper dialects - the heirs of the dialect of the chronicle glades (as well as, apparently, the Ant union of tribes, known from foreign languages historical sources) - in the first half of the 19th century thanks to the writers Kotlyarevsky, Grebinka, Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, as well as Taras Shevchenko.

Consequently, before the formation of a national language, Ukrainians spoke different Ukrainian dialects, using the Ukrainized “Old Bulgarian” in writing.

During the princely era in Kyiv they spoke a language “commonly understood” by the residents of the capital city (koine), which was formed on the basis of various ancient Ukrainian tribal dialects, mainly Polans. No one ever heard it, and it was not recorded. But, again, the notes of ancient chroniclers and copyists, as well as modern Ukrainian dialects, give an idea of this language. To imagine it, it is apparently necessary to “cross” the grammar of Transcarpathian dialects, where the ancient forms are best preserved, Chernigov diphthongs in place of “yat” and the modern “i” in a closed syllable, the peculiarities of the “deep” pronunciation of vowel sounds among the current inhabitants of the south of the Kiev region , as well as Cherkasy and Poltava regions.

Were modern Ukrainians able to understand the language spoken by the people of Kiev, say, in the first half of the 13th century (before the horde)?

Undoubtedly, yes. To a “modern” ear it would sound like a peculiar Ukrainian dialect. Something like what we hear on trains, at bazaars and construction sites in the capital.

Is it possible to call ancient language“Ukrainian” if the word “Ukraine” itself did not exist?

You can call the language whatever you want - the essence does not change. The ancient Indo-European tribes also did not call their language “Indo-European”.

The laws of linguistic evolution in no way depend on the name of the language that is given to it at different periods of history by its speakers or outsiders.

We do not know what the Proto-Slavs called their language. Perhaps there was no generic name at all. We also do not know what the Eastern Slavs called their dialect in prehistoric era. Most likely, each tribe had its own self-name and called its dialect in its own way. There is an assumption that the Slavs simply called their language “their”.

The word “Russian” appeared relatively late in relation to the language of our ancestors. This word first denoted a simple folk language - as opposed to written “Slavic”. Later, “Ruska Mova” was contrasted with “Polish”, “Moscow”, and also not Slavic languages, spoken by neighboring peoples (in different periods - Chud, Muroma, Meshchera, Polovtsy, Tatars, Khazars, Pechenegs, etc.). The Ukrainian language was called “Russian” until the 18th century.

In the Ukrainian language the names are clearly distinguished - “Russkiy” and “Russian” , in contrast to Great Russian, where these names are groundlessly confused.

The word “Ukraine” also appeared relatively late. It has been found in chronicles since the 12th century, therefore, it arose several centuries earlier.

How did other languages influence the formation of Ukrainian?

The Ukrainian language belongs to the “archaic” languages in its vocabulary and grammatical structure(like, say, Lithuanian and Icelandic). Most Ukrainian words are inherited from the Indo-European proto-language, as well as from Proto-Slavic dialects.
Quite a lot of words came to us from tribes that neighbored our ancestors, traded with them, fought with them, etc. - Goths, Greeks, Turks, Ugrians, Romans, etc. (ship, bowl, poppy, Cossack, hut, etc.). Ukrainian also has borrowings from “Old Bulgarian” (for example, region, benefit, ancestor), Polish (crib, funny, saber) and other Slavic. However, none of these languages influenced either the grammar or phonetics (sound structure) of the language. Myths about Polish influence are spread, as a rule, by non-specialists who have a very distant understanding of both the Polish and Ukrainian languages, and the common origin of all Slavic languages.

Ukrainian is constantly updated with English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish words, which is typical for any European language.

Having common roots Russian and Ukrainian languages seem very similar at first glance. But that's not true. In fact, they have more differences than similarities.

Some roots

As you know, Ukrainian and Russian languages belong to the same group of East Slavic languages. They have a common alphabet, similar grammar and significant lexical uniformity. However, the peculiarities of the development of the cultures of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples have led to noticeable differences in their language systems.

The first differences between the Russian and Ukrainian languages are already found in the alphabet. In the Ukrainian alphabet, which took shape in late XIX centuries, unlike Russian, the letters Ёё, Ъъ, ыы, Эе are not used, but there are Ґґ, Єє, Іі, Її, which are not in Russian.

As a result, the pronunciation of some sounds of the Ukrainian language is unusual for Russians. Thus, the letter “Ї”, which is absent in Russian, sounds approximately like “YI”, “CH” is pronounced more firmly, as in Belarusian or Polish, and “G” conveys a guttural, fricative sound.

Similar languages?

Modern research shows that the Ukrainian language is closer to other Slavic languages – Belarusian (29 common features), Czech and Slovak (23), Polish (22), Croatian and Bulgarian (21), and it has only 11 common features with the Russian language.

Based on these data, some linguists question the unification of the Russian and Ukrainian languages into one language group.

Statistics show that only 62% of words are common to the Russian and Ukrainian languages. According to this indicator, the Russian language in relation to Ukrainian is only in fifth place after Polish, Czech, Slovak and Belarusian. For comparison, you can note that the English and Dutch languages are 63% similar in lexical composition - that is, more than Russian and Ukrainian.

Parting of the ways

The differences between the Russian and Ukrainian languages are largely due to the peculiarities of the formation of the two nations. The Russian nation was centrally formed around Moscow, which led to the dilution of its vocabulary with Finno-Ugric and Turkic words. The Ukrainian nation was formed by uniting southern Russian ethnic groups, and therefore the Ukrainian language largely retained its ancient Russian basis.

Already by mid-16th century centuries, the Ukrainian and Russian languages had significant differences.

But if the texts of that time in the old Ukrainian language are generally understandable to modern Ukrainians, then, for example, documents from the era of Ivan the Terrible are very difficult to “translate” by a resident of today’s Russia.

Even more noticeable differences between the two languages began to appear with the beginning of the formation of the Russian literary language in the first half XVIII century. The abundance of Church Slavonic words in the new Russian language made it difficult to understand for Ukrainians.

For example, let’s take the Church Slavonic word “thanks”, from which the well-known “thank you” arose. The Ukrainian language, on the contrary, has retained the old Russian word"dákuyu", which now exists as "dyakuyu".

From the end of the 18th century, the Ukrainian literary language began to take shape, which, being in line with pan-European processes, gradually got rid of connections with the Russian language.

In particular, there is a rejection of Church Slavonicisms - instead, an emphasis is placed on folk dialects, as well as borrowing words from other, primarily Eastern European languages.

The following table can clearly show how close the vocabulary of the modern Ukrainian language is to a number of Eastern European languages and how far it is from Russian:

An important feature of the Ukrainian language is its dialectical diversity. This is a consequence of the fact that certain regions of Western Ukraine were part of other states - Austria-Hungary, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia. Thus, the speech of a resident of the Ivano-Frankivsk region is not always understandable to a resident of Kiev, while a Muscovite and a Siberian speak the same language.

Game of meanings

Despite the fact that there are quite a lot of common words in the Russian and Ukrainian languages, and also more words similar in sound and spelling, they often have different semantic shades.

Take, for example, the Russian word “other” and its related Ukrainian word “inshiy”. If these words are similar in sound and spelling, then their meaning has noticeable differences.

More accurate match Ukrainian word“inshiy” in Russian will be “other” - it is somewhat more formal and does not carry such emotional and artistic expression, as the word "other".

Another word – “sorry” – is identical in both languages in spelling and pronunciation, but differs in semantic meaning. In Russian it exists as a predicative adverb. Its main task is to express regret about something, or pity for someone.

In the Ukrainian language, used as an adverb, the word “sorry” has a similar meaning. However, it can also be a noun, and then its semantic shades are noticeably enriched, becoming consonant with such words as sorrow, bitterness, pain. “Oh, it’s a pity now all over Ukraine.” In this context given word not used in Russian.

Western style

You can often hear from foreign students that the Ukrainian language is more close to European languages than Russian. It has long been noted that translation from French or English languages In some respects, writing into Ukrainian is easier and more convenient than writing into Russian.

It's all about certain grammatical structures. Linguists have this joke: in European languages “the priest had a dog” and only in Russian “the priest had a dog.” Indeed, in Ukrainian in such cases, along with the verb “is”, the verb “to have” is used. For example, English phrase“I have a younger brother” in Ukrainian can sound both like “I have a younger brother” and “I have a younger brother.”

The Ukrainian language, unlike Russian, adopted modal verbs from European languages. Thus, in the phrase “I may tse zrobiti” (“I must do it”), modality is used in the sense of obligation, as in English – “I have to do it.” In the Russian language, a similar function of the verb “to have” has long disappeared from use.

Another indicator of the difference in grammar is that the Russian verb “to wait” is transitive, but the Ukrainian “chekati” is not, and, as a result, it is not used without a preposition: “I’m waiting for you” (“I’m waiting for you”). For comparison in English – “waiting for you”.

However, there are cases when the Russian language uses borrowings from European languages, but Ukrainian does not. Thus, the names of the months in Russian are a kind of tracing paper from Latin: for example, March - martii (Latin), März (German), march (English), mars (French). The Ukrainian language here has retained its connection with the Slavic vocabulary - “berezen”.