Ukrainian Language

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Ukrainian (українська мова, ukrainska mova, IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔwɐ])

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language , predominantly spoken in Ukraine . It holds the distinction of being the first language for the vast majority of Ukrainians . The written form of Ukrainian utilizes the Ukrainian alphabet , a distinct variation of the Cyrillic script . The standardized language is meticulously studied and maintained by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Potebnya Institute of Linguistics . While often compared to Russian , another prominent East Slavic language, Ukrainian exhibits greater mutual intelligibility with Belarusian . Furthermore, its lexical distance is notably closer to West Slavic languages such as Polish and to South Slavic languages like Bulgarian .

Ukrainian traces its lineage back to Old East Slavic , the language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rus’ . During the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the language evolved into what is known as Ruthenian , where it attained official status. However, a subsequent period of Polonization emerged within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . By the 18th century, Ruthenian had fractured into regional variants, paving the way for the development of the modern Ukrainian language within the territories of present-day Ukraine. The policy of Russification led to the prohibition of Ukrainian as a subject in schools and as a language of instruction within the Russian Empire , a suppression that continued in various forms throughout the Soviet Union . Despite these pressures, the language persisted, maintaining a particularly strong presence in Western Ukraine .

Linguistic Development

Theories

Specific linguistic shifts that gradually transformed the Old East Slavic vowel system into the one characteristic of modern Ukrainian began to manifest around the 12th or 13th century. This period, still within the age of Kievan Rus’, saw the lengthening and raising of the Old East Slavic mid vowels e and o when they were followed by a consonant and a weak yer vowel that would eventually disappear. For instance, Old East Slavic kotŭ /kɔtə/ evolved into Ukrainian kit /kit/ (‘cat’), passing through transitional stages. Similarly, Old East Slavic pečĭ /pʲɛtʃʲə/ became Ukrainian pič /pitʃ/ (‘oven’). These phonetic developments, alongside the merger of the Old East Slavic vowel phonemes y /i/ and y /ɨ/ into the distinct Ukrainian phoneme /ɪ ~ e/, spelled with the letter и (occurring in the 13th/14th centuries), and the fricativization of the Old East Slavic consonant g /g/, likely to /ɣ/ in the 13th century, with /ɦ/ as its reflex in Modern Ukrainian, did not occur in Russian. Only the fricativization of Old East Slavic g /g/ took place in Belarusian, where the present-day reflex is /ɣ/.

Linguists Ahatanhel Krymsky and Aleksey Shakhmatov posited the existence of a common spoken language for Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times, suggesting that the diversification of Old East Slavic commenced in the 8th or early 9th century.

Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak noted that the Old Novgorod dialect differed significantly from other dialects of Kievan Rus’ during the 11th–12th centuries but began to converge with them around the 13th–15th centuries. He argued that the modern Russian language subsequently emerged from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect with the common dialect spoken in the rest of Kievan Rus’, while the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from dialects that did not diverge significantly from each other.

Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky contested the very notion of a common Old East Slavic language existing at any point in history. Similar viewpoints were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo , and Ivan Ohienko , among others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without intermediate stages between the 6th and 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language, in this view, was formed through the convergence of tribal dialects, driven by intensive population migration within the territory of present-day Ukraine in later historical periods. This perspective was further supported by George Shevelov ’s phonological research, which indicated that specific features were already discernible in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic—considered the ancestors of Ukrainian—as early as these varieties can be documented.

Origins and Developments During Medieval Times

The emergence of the voiced fricative γ/г (romanized as “h”) in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects is often explained by the assumption that it originated from contacts between Slavic populations and the remnants of the Scythian and Sarmatian peoples who inhabited the region north of the Black Sea well into the early Middle Ages . This sound is thought to have developed from earlier common Proto-Indo-European *g and *gʰ.

During the 13th century, the invitation of German settlers to Ukraine by the princes of the Kingdom of Ruthenia introduced German words into the language spoken in Ukraine. This influence persisted under Poland , not only through German colonists but also via the Yiddish-speaking Jewish population. Common loanwords from this period often relate to trade and handicrafts, including terms like dakh (‘roof’), rura (‘pipe’), rynok (‘market’), kushnir (‘furrier’), and majster (‘master’ or ‘craftsman’).

Developments Under Poland and Lithuania

The 13th century saw the eastern parts of Rus’ fall under Tatar rule until their eventual unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy . Conversely, the southwestern regions, including Kyiv , were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . For the subsequent four centuries, the languages of these two regions evolved in relative isolation. Direct written evidence of the Ukrainian language’s distinct existence dates to the late 16th century. By the 16th century, a unique official language had emerged, a composite of the liturgical standardized language of Old Church Slavonic , Ruthenian , and Polish . The influence of Polish gradually increased, particularly as the nobility and the large rural landowning class, known as the szlachta , were predominantly Polish-speaking. Official documents increasingly incorporated Polish characteristics superimposed upon Ruthenian phonetics.

The period of Polish–Lithuanian rule and education also brought significant exposure to Latin . Much of Poland’s influence on the Ukrainian language’s development is attributed to this era, reflected in numerous words and constructions found in everyday Ukrainian speech that were borrowed from Polish or Latin. Examples include zavzhdy (always; from the old Polish word zawżdy) and obitsiaty (to promise; from Polish obiecać), and from Latin (via Polish) raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal).

Extensive contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in the adoption of many Turkic words, particularly those related to military affairs and steppe industries, into the Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco).

Due to the substantial number of loanwords from Polish, German, Czech, and Latin, early modern vernacular Ukrainian (prosta mova, “simple speech ”) exhibited greater lexical similarity with West Slavic languages than with Russian or Church Slavonic. By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between Ukrainian and Russian had become so pronounced that translators were necessary during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav between Bohdan Khmelnytsky , the leader of the Zaporozhian Host , and representatives of the Russian state.

By the 18th century, Ruthenian had bifurcated into regional variants, ultimately developing into the modern Belarusian , Rusyn , and Ukrainian languages.

Chronology

The established chronology of the Ukrainian language categorizes it into Old Ukrainian, Middle Ukrainian, and Modern Ukrainian. George Shevelov noted that this division is largely based on the characteristics of contemporary written sources, which reflect socio-historical developments. He further subdivided the Middle period into three phases:

• Proto-Ukrainian (abbreviated PU, Ukrainian: protoukrajinsʹkyj period), extending up to the mid-11th century, with no extant written sources from Ukrainian speakers. This period corresponds to aspects of Old East Slavic .
• Old Ukrainian (OU, davnʹoukrajinsʹkyj period or davnʹoukrajinsʹka mova), from the mid-11th to the 14th century (conventionally ending in 1387). Phonological elements are deduced from texts primarily written in Church Slavonic. This phase is part of the broader Old East Slavic continuum.
• Middle Ukrainian (serednʹoukrajinsʹkyj period or staroukrajinsʹka mova), spanning the 15th to 18th centuries, historically referred to as Ruthenian .
  • Early Middle Ukrainian (EMU, rannʹoserednʹoukrajinsʹkyj period), from the 15th to mid-16th century (1387–1575). Analysis during this phase focuses on distinguishing Ukrainian and Belarusian texts.
  • Middle Ukrainian (MU, serednʹoukrajinsʹkyj period), from the mid-16th to early 18th century (1575–1720). This period is represented by several vernacular language varieties alongside a version of Church Slavonic.
  • Late Middle Ukrainian (LMU, piznoserednʹoukrajinsʹkyj period), covering the remainder of the 18th century (1720–1818). This phase is found in numerous mixed Ukrainian–Russian and Russian–Ukrainian texts.
• Modern Ukrainian (MoU, sučasnyj period or sučasna ukrajinsʹka mova), beginning from the very end of the 18th century (from 1818 onwards). This is the vernacular language that gained recognition first in literature and subsequently in all other written genres.

Ukraine observes the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language on November 9th, coinciding with the Eastern Orthodox feast day of Nestor the Chronicler .

History of the Spoken Language

Rus’ and Kingdom of Ruthenia

The linguistic character of the Kievan Rus’ era (c. 880–1240) remains a subject of linguistic debate. The language of much of the literature from this period was purely or heavily Old Church Slavonic . Some scholars interpret an early Ukrainian stage in the language’s development, referring to it as Old Ruthenian, while others use the term Old East Slavic . Russian theorists often conflate Rus’ with the modern Russian nation, labeling this linguistic era as Old Russian. However, according to the Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak (2012), inhabitants of the Novgorod Republic did not refer to themselves as Rus’ until the 14th century; prior to that, Novgorodians reserved the term Rus’ for the principalities of Kiev , Pereyaslavl , and Chernigov . Simultaneously, contemporary chronicles indicate that the ruling princes and kings of Galicia–Volhynia and Kiev referred to themselves as “people of Rus’” (in foreign sources, known as “Ruthenians ”), and Galicia–Volhynia was alternately designated the Principality or Kingdom of Ruthenia.

Furthermore, Zaliznyak’s analysis suggests that the Novgorodian dialect diverged significantly from other dialects of Kievan Rus’ in the 11th–12th centuries but began to assimilate with them around the 13th–15th centuries. He posits that the modern Russian language thus arose from the amalgamation of this Novgorodian dialect and the common dialect of the broader Kievan Rus’ territory, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from dialects that were not substantially different from each other.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (c. 1349–1569)

During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania progressively asserted control over most of present-day Ukraine, with the exception of Galicia, which eventually came under the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (and since 1434, was largely administered as the Ruthenian Voivodeship ). Local autonomy in both governance and language was a defining characteristic of Lithuanian rule. Within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the administrative system largely drew upon the legal legacy of Kievan Rus’ law . Old East Slavic evolved into the chancellery language, known as “Chancery Slavonic,” and gradually transformed into the Ruthenian language . Ruthenian became the dominant language in the Lithuanian Metrica of the 15th and 16th centuries and served as the original language for the Statutes of Lithuania (issued in 1529, 1566, and 1588), which were subsequently translated into Latin and then Polish.

In the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (1569–1648)

Polish rule, which was established later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. Following the 1569 Union of Lublin , which established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a considerable portion of Ukrainian territory was transferred from Lithuanian to Polish administration. This led to cultural Polonization and discernible efforts to colonize Ukraine by the Polish nobility.

Many Ukrainian nobles acquired proficiency in the Polish language and converted to Catholicism during this period to maintain their elevated aristocratic status. The lower classes were less affected, as literacy was primarily confined to the upper echelons and clergy. The clergy also faced significant pressure from Polish authorities, particularly after the Union of Brest . The educational system gradually became Polonized, and in Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents increasingly shifted towards Polish.

Despite these pressures, Ukrainian culture and language experienced a flourishing period during the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, existing within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of its inclusion rather than as a result of it. Among the numerous schools founded during this time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the precursor to the modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy ), established by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila , was of paramount importance. During this era, languages were closely associated with religious affiliations: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of the Orthodox Church used Ruthenian. Contemporary documents, such as the lexicon compiled by Pamvo Berynda , attest to a strong mutual influence between Church Slavonic literary varieties and the common speech of Ukraine.

Polish exerted a considerable influence on Ukrainian, particularly in Western Ukraine . The southwestern Ukrainian dialects exhibit transitional characteristics towards Polish. As the Ukrainian language continued to develop, it absorbed loanwords from Tatar and Turkish . Other languages that impacted Ukrainian speech during this period included Latin and Greek .

In the Cossack Hetmanate and Tsarist Russia Until 1800

With the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate in the mid-17th century, Polish remained an administrative language. Most Cossack officers and Polish nobles (groups that frequently overlapped) continued to communicate using a blend of Latin, Polish, and Ruthenian. Conversely, the language barrier between Cossack officers and Muscovite officials had become so significant that translators were required for negotiations. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky reportedly had letters in the Muscovite dialect translated into Latin to facilitate his understanding.

The 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement between the Cossack Hetmanate and Alexis of Russia effectively divided Ukraine between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. Over the ensuing century, both empires grew increasingly intolerant of Ukrainian aspirations for cultural and political self-determination. Ukrainians found themselves in a subordinate, quasi-colonial position. The Russian central government adopted the appellation Little Russia for Ukraine and “Little Russian” for its language, a term originating from Byzantine Greek that may have initially signified “old, original, fundamental Russia” and had been in use since the 14th century. Ukrainian high culture entered a prolonged period of decline. The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was absorbed by the Russian Empire. Most remaining Ukrainian educational institutions transitioned to Polish or Russian in their respective territories, leading to a renewed wave of Polonization and Russification among the native nobility. Gradually, the official language in Ukrainian provinces under Polish administration shifted to Polish, while the upper classes in Russian-controlled Ukraine adopted Russian.

In Austrian Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918)

Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the lands annexed by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy were reorganized as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria . The Habsburg administration was initially surprised to discover a population distinct from the Poles, whom they began to refer to as Ruthenen (“Ruthenians” or “Rusyny”). These individuals differed from Poles primarily in their adherence to the Greek Catholic faith (organized as the Ruthenian Uniate Church ) rather than Roman Catholicism, and their liturgical language was Church Slavonic instead of Latin. The majority lacked extensive education and used Ruthenian primarily as a spoken language; few were literate, and those who were more often employed Polish or, increasingly, German.

In 1774, Empress Maria Theresa instituted a policy of general compulsory education (Allgemeiner Schulzwang), which was implemented in the newly acquired territories of Galicia and Lodomeria in 1777. This led to the decision to produce textbooks in both Polish and Ruthenian for use in elementary schools serving these language communities.

“Language is the property of a people, and no one should forget the speech of their own folk.”

– Ivan Mohylnytsky, Information on the Ruthenian Language (1829)

While some Ruthenian parish schools were established in villages, and printed primers and catechisms in Ruthenian were distributed, the impact of Ruthenian-language education remained minimal until 1815. In that year, Ivan Mohylnytsky, a canon of the Przemyśl eparchy who played a key role in establishing a robust network of Ruthenian parish schools and a teacher training institution, published a catechism titled Christian Learning in the Case of the Common Catechism for Parish Children. He followed this in 1823 with an unpublished Grammar of the Slovene–Ruthenian Language and, in 1829, his treatise Information on the Ruthenian Language (Rozprawa o ięzyku ruskim in Polish and “Відомість о руском языці” in Ruthenian). This treatise represented the first scholarly argument asserting Ruthenian as a distinct language, separate from Polish, Russian, and Church Slavonic. However, new educational regulations in 1818 stipulated that schools exclusively attended by children of Greek Catholic parents would receive instruction in Ruthenian, whereas schools with mixed Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic student populations would use Polish as the medium of instruction . Nevertheless, students in Ruthenian-instruction schools were also required to study Polish as a second language.

In higher education, Ruthenian was not accorded equal status, and students were expected to learn and utilize Latin and Polish. Aspiring Greek Catholic priests at the University of Lviv received instruction in Ruthenian within the so-called “Studium ruthenum” from 1787 to 1809, as per Austrian regulations. However, this was not a fully developed program but rather a provisional measure for students lacking Latin proficiency. The program’s professors and alumni received only half the salary of their counterparts from the “Studium latinum,” student numbers steadily declined, and in 1809, the Ruthenians themselves requested the discontinuation of the “Studium ruthenum.”

During the initial decades of Austrian rule in Galicia, ambiguity persisted among both the Habsburg administration and educated Ruthenians regarding which variety of written Ruthenian to employ: late Church Slavonic, literary Russian, traditional written Ruthenian, or a form closely resembling the spoken Ruthenian of Galicia at the time. Jernej Kopitar , the Habsburg Imperial censor for Slavic publications, encouraged Ruthenian authors to base their written language on the vernacular and, from December 1833, to use a Latin alphabet for Ruthenian instead of Cyrillic. This initiative sparked a debate on Ruthenian identity, later termed the “First Alphabet War” or “Blizzard.” While the majority of Ruthenian intellectuals did adopt a writing style based on spoken Ruthenian, most defended the use of Cyrillic due to concerns about Polonization. Nevertheless, consensus on various standardization issues remained elusive, with three different Ruthenian grammars published between 1834 and 1848, none of which achieved widespread adoption. Prior to 1848, no Ruthenian dictionaries were published, no Ruthenian-language periodical press existed in Habsburg Galicia, and Ruthenian played no significant role in administration.

The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire brought about significant changes. The native languages of most populations within the Empire, including Ruthenian, were granted official status, and all laws in the Danubian monarchy were to be published in these languages from October 1, 1849. Ruthenian was subsequently incorporated into local administration through the Landesgesetzblätter. From 1849 onwards, various official periodicals were established in Ruthenian, and the Ministry of the Interior decreed in July 1849 that street signs in Lviv must include Ruthenian versions. In October 1852, the Ministry of Justice also ruled that Ruthenian could be used by parties in legal proceedings in their communications with courts, though it took until 1861 to permit these communications to employ skoropys Cyrillic script rather than Latin or the Muscovite graždanka variant of Cyrillic. The post-1848 era saw contradictory developments, with some measures countering Polonization in education while others stimulated further Polonization in administration. Concurrently, Galician Russophilia , or Moscophilia, advocated for the increasing assimilation of Ruthenian into the so-called “Great Russian” language as used in Moscow, which still heavily relied on Church Slavonic. Both the Habsburg administration and the Greek Catholic Church expressed concerns that these linguistic trends were “barely comprehensible” to the common people of Galicia and hindered the “development of the Ruthenian language,” viewing Orthodox Imperial Russia as a threat to the predominantly Catholic Habsburg realm.

Tensions escalated in May 1859, when the Polish governor of Galicia, Gołuchowski , endorsed Czech linguist Josef Jireček ’s proposal for a Ruthenian Latin alphabet, triggering the “Second Alphabet War” or “Blizzard.” Ruthenian intellectuals almost unanimously rejected the proposal due to fears of Polonization. In response, the government overreacted by banning the “Russian script” (referring to the Muscovite graždanka) in July 1859, a directive that Ruthenian writers largely disregarded. By March 1861, the Habsburg State Ministry essentially conceded, stating that the development of the Ruthenian language was the responsibility of the Ruthenians themselves, not the government. Around the same time, Ruthenian intellectuals became acquainted with the works of Ukrainian intellectuals from “Little Russia” in the Russian Empire, such as the poet Taras Shevchenko (who died in 1861). Shevchenko was a staunch anti-Russian and Ukrainophile , a sentiment that led many Galician Ruthenians to abandon their previous Russophilia. Navigating between pro-Polish and pro-Russian tendencies, the Ruthenian language in Galicia gradually evolved into an independent literary and intellectual written language in the latter half of the 19th century, increasingly being referred to as “Ukrainian.”

In the Russian Empire

During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification emerged among the literary circles in both Russian-ruled Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia . The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv adopted the archaic term Ukrajina, historically associated with the Cossack motherland, as a self-appellation for the Ukrainian nation, and Ukrajinsʹka mova for their language. Numerous writers, influenced by European Romanticism, produced works demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a vernacular but a language suitable for literary expression.

However, expressions of Ukrainian culture and, particularly, language faced repeated persecution within the Russian Empire, fueled by fears that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would jeopardize the empire’s unity. In 1804, Ukrainian was banned as a subject and language of instruction in schools. In 1811, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed by order of the Russian government.

The Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius was disbanded in 1847. In the same year, Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and forbidden from writing and painting for political reasons. In 1862, Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk . The Ukrainian magazine Osnova ceased publication. In 1863, the Tsarist Minister of the Interior, Pyotr Valuyev , declared in his decree that “there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language.”

Although the name of Ukraine has been documented since 1187, it was not applied to the language until the mid-19th century. The linguonym “Ukrainian language” first appears in Yakub Holovatsky ’s 1849 book, listed as a variant name for the Little Russian language. In a private letter from 1854, Taras Shevchenko lauded “our splendid Ukrainian language.” Valuyev’s 1863 decree disparaged the “Little Russian” language throughout but also made a single reference to the “so-called Ukrainian language.” In Galicia, the earliest applications of the term “Ukrainian” to the language appeared in hyphenated forms such as Ukrainian-Ruthenian (1866, by Paulin Święcicki ) or Ruthenian-Ukrainian (1871, by Panteleimon Kulish and Ivan Puluj ), with the non-hyphenated “Ukrainian language” appearing shortly thereafter (in 1878, by Mykhailo Drahomanov ).

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

For much of the 19th century, Austrian authorities demonstrated a degree of favoritism towards Polish culture. However, Ukrainians enjoyed relative freedom to pursue their own cultural activities in Halychyna and Bukovina , where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents. The suppression of Ukrainian in Russia hampered the literary development of the language in Dnieper Ukraine , but a continuous exchange with Halychyna facilitated the publication of many works under Austrian auspices, which were then smuggled eastward.

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ukrainians were poised to openly develop a national literature, establish a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the Ukrainian People’s Republic , soon joined by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic ). During this brief period of independence, the stature and usage of Ukrainian significantly improved.

Speakers in the Russian Empire

The Russian Empire Census of 1897 revealed Ukrainian to be the second most spoken language in the empire. According to the census terminology, the Russian language (Русскій) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ‘Little Russian ’), what is known today as Russian (Великорусскій, ‘Great Russian ’), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, ‘White Russian’).

The following table illustrates the distribution of settlements by native language (“по родному языку”) in 1897 within the governorates (guberniyas) of the Russian Empire that had over 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.

While in the rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants declared Ukrainian as their native language in the 1897 Census, this figure dropped to 32.5% in urban areas. For example, in Odesa , then the largest city within the territory of present-day Ukraine, only 5.6% of the population identified Ukrainian as their native language.

Until the 1920s, urban population growth in Ukraine outpaced the increase in Ukrainian speakers, suggesting a relative decline in Ukrainian language usage. In Kyiv, for instance, the proportion of individuals claiming Ukrainian as their native language decreased from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.

Soviet Era

During the seven decades of the Soviet era , Ukrainian officially held the status of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR . However, practical implementation often differed. Ukrainian consistently contended with Russian, and the Soviet leadership’s stance towards Ukrainian fluctuated between encouragement, tolerance, and de facto suppression.

Formally, the Soviet Union did not declare a state language until its final years. In 1990, Russian was proclaimed the all-Union state language, with constituent republics retaining the right to designate additional state languages within their jurisdictions. Nevertheless, it was implicitly understood that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek in the Uzbek SSR, and so forth, reflecting the aspirations of minority nations. Russian, however, functioned as the lingua franca across all Soviet territories, designated by the term “a language of inter-ethnic communication.”

Stalin

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Khrushchev Thaw

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, a general policy of leniency regarding past language policies was implemented (1958–1963). The Khrushchev era saw a period of relatively accommodating concessions for the development of local and republican languages. While these developments were not as extensive in Ukraine as during the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s, journals and encyclopedic publications saw advancements in the Ukrainian language, and the transfer of Crimea to Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction occurred during this time.

However, the 1958 school reform, which allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, proved unpopular among national intelligentsia circles in various parts of the USSR. This reform led to non-Russian languages gradually yielding ground to Russian due to pressures related to survival and career advancement. The gains achieved previously, largely reversed during the Stalin era, were somewhat offset by a liberal approach to the requirement of studying local languages (while the obligation to study Russian remained). Parents typically had the freedom to select their children’s language of study (except in limited areas where attending a Ukrainian school might necessitate a lengthy commute), and they often opted for Russian, thus reinforcing the ongoing Russification. Consequently, some analysts argue that it was not overt “oppression” or “persecution,” but rather the absence of protection against the expansion of the Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. From this perspective, career success was intrinsically linked to a strong command of Russian, while proficiency in Ukrainian was not deemed essential, making it common for Ukrainian parents to enroll their children in Russian-language schools, even when Ukrainian-language schools were available. The number of students in Russian-language schools in Ukraine steadily increased, from 14% in 1939 to over 30% in 1962.

Shelest Period

Petro Shelest , the Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, pursued policies aimed at defending Ukraine’s interests within the Soviet Union. He actively promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and planned to expand its role in higher education. However, he was removed from his post after a relatively short tenure, deemed too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

Shcherbytsky Period

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky , who led the party from 1972 to 1989, implemented purges within the local party, forcefully suppressed dissent, and insisted on the use of Russian at all official functions, even at local levels. His Russification policies saw only minor reductions after 1985.

Gorbachev and Perestroika

The suppression of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more severe and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. Consequently, at the outset of Mikhail Gorbachev ’s reforms of perestroika and glasnost (Ukrainian terms for perestroika and glasnost), Ukraine, under Shcherbytsky’s leadership, experienced a slower pace of liberalization compared to Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian remained the native language for the majority of the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant portion of ethnic Ukrainians had become Russified. In Donetsk , there were no Ukrainian-language schools, and in Kyiv, only a quarter of children attended Ukrainian-language schools. The Russian language was the dominant medium not only for government functions but also for media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case in western Ukraine, which had been spared the artificial famine , the Great Purge , and most of Stalinism . This region subsequently became the nucleus of a robust, albeit partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during the period of independence.

Independence in the Modern Era

The use of the Ukrainian language has seen an increase following a prolonged period of decline. Despite the existence of nearly fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine in 2001 (representing 77.8% of the total population at that time), the Ukrainian language is predominantly prevalent 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. This linguistic shift is primarily attributed to an influx of migrants from western regions of Ukraine, as well as some Kyivans choosing to use their home language more widely in public settings. Public signs and announcements in Kyiv are displayed in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian remains the dominant language in most large and some smaller cities. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, 87.8% of the population residing in Ukraine were fluent in Ukrainian.

In August 2022, a survey conducted in Ukraine by Rating Group indicated that 85% of respondents reported speaking Ukrainian or both Ukrainian and Russian at home, with 51% speaking only Ukrainian—an increase from 61% and 44% respectively in February 2014. In the same survey, 76% considered Ukrainian their native language (ridna mova), up from 57% in July 2012, including 30% of Russian speakers.

In 2019, the law of Ukraine “On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language” was approved by parliament, formalizing rules governing language usage and introducing penalties for violations.

Literature and Literary Language

The literary Ukrainian language, which succeeded Old East Slavic literature, can be divided into two stages: from the 12th to the 18th centuries, what is referred to in Ukraine as “Old Ukrainian” is known elsewhere and in contemporary sources as the Ruthenian language; from the end of the 18th century to the present, what is known in Ukraine as “Modern Ukrainian” is referred to elsewhere simply as Ukrainian. Influential literary figures in the development of modern Ukrainian literature include the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda , Ivan Kotlyarevsky , Mykola Kostomarov , Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky , Shevchenko, Ivan Franko , and Lesia Ukrainka . The earliest literary work in the Ukrainian language was recorded in 1798 with the publication of Kotlyarevsky’s epic poem, Eneyida. This burlesque work, based on Virgil ’s Aeneid , was written in vernacular Ukrainian in a satirical style to circumvent censorship and is the earliest surviving published Ukrainian book.

Kotlyarevsky’s work, along with that of Petro Artemovsky, another early writer employing the Ukrainian vernacular, utilized the southeastern dialect spoken in the Poltava, Kharkiv and southern Kyiv regions of the Russian Empire . This dialect subsequently formed the basis of the Ukrainian literary language, further developed by Shevchenko and Kulish in the mid-19th century. Elements of folklore and traditional styles were incorporated to elevate its status from a dialect to a recognized language.

The Ukrainian literary language underwent further development when the Russian state prohibited the use of Ukrainian, prompting many of its writers to relocate to the western Ukrainian region of Galicia, which operated under the more liberal Austrian rule. From the 1860s onward, the majority of Ukrainian literary works were published in Austrian Galicia. During this period, Galician influences, particularly in vocabulary related to law, government, technology, science, and administration, were integrated into the Ukrainian literary language.

Current Usage

The use of the Ukrainian language is on the rise after a protracted period of decline. While there are nearly fifty million ethnic Ukrainians globally, with 37.5 million residing in Ukraine in 2001 (constituting 77.8% of the population at that time), the Ukrainian language is primarily prevalent in western and central Ukraine. In Kyiv, both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was predominantly Russian-speaking. This shift is largely attributed to an influx of migrants from western regions of Ukraine, as well as some Kyivans choosing to use their native language more frequently in public spaces. Public signage and announcements in Kyiv are predominantly in Ukrainian. In southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian remains the prevalent language in most large and some smaller cities. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, 87.8% of people living in Ukraine were fluent in Ukrainian.

In August 2022, a survey conducted in Ukraine by Rating Group revealed that 85% of respondents reported speaking Ukrainian or a combination of Ukrainian and Russian at home, with 51% speaking only Ukrainian—an increase from 61% and 44% respectively in February 2014. In the same survey, 76% identified Ukrainian as their native language (ridna mova), up from 57% in July 2012, a figure that included 30% of Russian speakers.

Popular Culture

Music

Ukrainian has gained popularity in other countries through films and songs performed in the Ukrainian language. Prominent Ukrainian rock bands such as Okean Elzy , Vopli Vidopliassova , and BoomBox regularly tour across Europe, Israel, North America, and notably Russia. In countries with significant Ukrainian populations, bands singing in Ukrainian occasionally achieve top chart positions, such as Enej (a band from Poland). Other notable Ukrainian-language bands include 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 updating to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: November 17, 2013 (April 2017).

The 2010s witnessed a resurgence in Ukrainian cinema. The highest-rated Ukrainian-language films (based on IMDb ratings) include:

Argots

Oleksa Horbach’s 1951 study of argots analyzed historical primary sources, including argots of professionals, criminals, prisoners, the homeless, and school children. He paid particular attention to the etymological features of these argots, their word formation patterns, and borrowing tendencies based on source languages such as Church Slavonic, Russian, Czech, Polish, Romani, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, and German.

Dialects

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist.

• Northern (Polissian) dialects:

  • (3) Eastern Polissian: Spoken in Chernihiv Oblast (excluding southeastern districts), northern Sumy Oblast , and northeastern Kyiv Oblast , as well as adjacent areas of Russia, including the southwestern part of Bryansk Oblast (around Starodub ), and in some locations in Kursk Oblast , Voronezh Oblast , and Belgorod Oblast . No distinct linguistic border can be established, and vocabulary approximates Russian as one moves towards the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammatical structures can be applied to this dialect.
  • (2) Central Polissian: Spoken in northwestern Kyiv Oblast , northern Zhytomyr Oblast , and northeastern Rivne Oblast .
  • (1) West Polissian: Spoken in northern Volyn Oblast , northwestern Rivne Oblast , and adjacent districts of Brest Region in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus utilizes Belarusian grammar and is therefore considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.

• Southeastern dialects:

  • (4) Middle Dnieprian: This dialect forms the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in central Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern parts of Kyiv Oblast . Dialects spoken in Cherkasy Oblast , Poltava Oblast , and Kyiv regions are considered close to standard Ukrainian.
  • (5) Slobodan: Spoken in Kharkiv Oblast , Sumy Oblast , Luhansk Oblast , and northern Donetsk Oblast , as well as in the Voronezh Oblast and Belgorod Oblast regions of Russia. This dialect is a gradual amalgamation of Russian and Ukrainian, with increasing Russian influence in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Consequently, there is no clear linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and both grammatical systems can be applied.
  • A (6) Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the primary language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks .
  • 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 of Russia by descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who settled there in the late 18th century. It evolved from a gradual mixture of Russian into Ukrainian and incorporates some Russian vocabulary and grammar. Three main variants exist, categorized by location.

• Southwestern dialects:

  • (13) Boyko: Spoken by the Boyko people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in Lviv Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast . It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland.
  • (12) Hutsul: Spoken by the Hutsul people on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, in the extreme southern parts of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast , and in parts of Chernivtsi Oblast and Transcarpathian Oblast .
  • Lemko: Spoken by the Lemko people , whose homeland (Lemkivshchyna ) lies outside Ukraine’s borders, in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains, and in southeastern Poland, along the northern sides of the Carpathians.
  • (8) Podillian: Spoken in the southern parts of Vinnytsia Oblast and Khmelnytskyi Oblast , northern Odesa Oblast , and adjacent districts of Cherkasy Oblast , Kirovohrad Oblast , and Mykolaiv Oblast .
  • (7) Volynian: Spoken in Rivne Oblast and Volyn Oblast , as well as parts of Zhytomyr Oblast and Ternopil Oblast . It is also used in Chełm , Poland.
  • (11) Pokuttia (Bukovinian): Spoken in Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect exhibits distinct vocabulary borrowed from Romanian .
  • (9) Upper Dniestrian (Kresy): Considered the primary Galician dialect, spoken in Lviv Oblast , Ternopil Oblast , and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast . Its distinguishing features include influences from Polish and German vocabulary, reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some unique words used in this dialect can be found here.
  • (10) Upper Sannian: Spoken in the border region between Ukraine and Poland in the San River valley.
  • The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be a dialect of Ukrainian:
    • Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn: Spoken in Transcarpathian Oblast .
    • Pannonian or Bačka Rusyn : Spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia . The Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina .
    • Pryashiv Rusyn: 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 countries bordering Ukraine (with the exception of Hungary) historically contain regions with a significant Ukrainian population and, consequently, Ukrainian language speakers. Ukrainian is recognized as an official minority language in Belarus, Romania, and Moldova.

Ukrainian Diaspora

Ukrainian is also spoken by a substantial émigré population, notably in Canada , the United States, and several South American countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The primary emigrant groups originated from Galicia , which was part of Austro-Hungary before World War I and later belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The language spoken by most of these émigrés is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the 20th century. Compared to modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside Ukraine reflects less Russian influence but often incorporates numerous loanwords from the local language.

Many of the countries where Ukrainian is spoken are ex-USSR , where numerous Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. By country (approximated to the nearest thousand):

• Russia: 1,129,838 (according to the 2010 census )
• Canada: 200,525 (67,665 spoken at home in 2001; 148,000 spoken as “mother tongue” in 2001)

Ukrainian is declared as one of the three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria .

Ukrainian is widely spoken within the 400,000-strong (in 1994) Ukrainian community in Brazil . It holds co-official language status in Prudentópolis alongside Portuguese .

Language Structure

Grammar

Ukrainian is a fusional , nominative–accusative , satellite-framed language. It exhibits T–V distinction and is a null-subject . The canonical word order in Ukrainian is SVO . Other word orders are common due to the flexible word order facilitated by Ukrainian’s inflectional system.

Nouns possess one of three genders : masculine, feminine, or neuter. Nouns decline for:

• Seven cases : nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental , locative , and vocative .
• Two numbers : singular and plural .

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

Verbs conjugate for:

• Four tenses : past , pluperfect, present, and future .
• Two voices : active and mediopassive.
• Three persons : first, second, and third.
• Two numbers : singular and plural .

Ukrainian verbs exhibit aspect pairs : perfective and imperfective . These pairs are typically formed by a prepositional prefix and sometimes a root change . The past tense agrees with its subject in number and gender (but not person ), having evolved from the perfect participle .

The Old East Slavic and Russian o in syllables ending in a consonant often corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as seen in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). Thus, in noun declensions, the o may reappear when it is no longer in a closed syllable, such as rik (рік, ‘year’) (nom ): rotsi (loc ) (році). Similarly, some words can have i in certain cases while most cases feature o, for example, slovo (nominative singular), slova (nominative plural), but sliv (genitive plural).

Ukrainian case endings differ somewhat from Old East Slavic, and the vocabulary includes a significant overlay of Polish terminology. The Russian phrase na pervom etaže (‘on the first floor’) uses the locative (prepositional) case. The corresponding Ukrainian expression is na peršomu poversi (на першому поверсі). The suffix -omu is the standard locative (prepositional) ending, though variants in -im are common in dialects and poetry, and are permitted by standardization bodies. The kh in Ukrainian poverkh (поверх) has mutated to s under the influence of the soft vowel i (similarly, k can mutate to c in final positions).

Phonology

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

A number of consonants exist 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 the Latin ‘h’. It functions as the voiced equivalent of the English /h/. Russian speakers from Ukraine frequently substitute the soft Ukrainian /ɦ/ for the Russian /g/, which originates from northern dialects of Old East Slavic. The Ukrainian alphabet includes the additional letter ґ for the /g/ sound, found in a few native words such as ґринджоли (gryndžoly, ‘sleigh’) and ґудзик (gudzyk, ‘button’). However, the /g/ sound appears almost exclusively in loan words and is typically represented by г. For instance, loanwords from English appearing on public signs usually employ г for both the English ‘g’ and ‘h’ sounds.

Another phonetic distinction between Ukrainian and Russian lies in the pronunciation of the Cyrillic letter в (v/w). While standard Russian pronounces it as /v/, in many Ukrainian dialects, it represents /w/. Following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary, it denotes the allophone [u̯], forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel, akin to the off-glide in English words like “flow” and “cow”. Native Russian speakers will pronounce the Ukrainian в as [v], which serves as one way to differentiate the two groups. Similar to г, Ukrainians use в to represent both English ‘v’ and ‘w’; Russians occasionally use у for ‘w’.

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

Alphabet

Ukrainian is written using a variant of Cyrillic , comprising 33 letters that represent 38 phonemes . An apostrophe is also employed. Ukrainian orthography adheres to a phonemic principle, where generally one letter corresponds to one phoneme, though exceptions exist. The orthography also incorporates semantic, historical, and morphological principles.

The modern Ukrainian alphabet is the result of several proposed alphabetic reforms throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, occurring in Ukraine under the Russian Empire, in Austrian Galicia, and later in Soviet Ukraine. A unified Ukrainian alphabet (the Skrypnykivka , named after Mykola Skrypnyk ) was officially established at an international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv in 1927, during the period of Ukrainization in Soviet Ukraine. However, this policy was reversed in the 1930s, leading to a divergence between Soviet Ukrainian orthography and that used by the diaspora . The Ukrainian letter ґ (ghe) was banned in the Soviet Union from 1933 until the era of Glasnost in 1990.

The letter щ represents two consonants, [ʃt͡ʃ]. The combination of [j] with certain 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, along with a special soft sign , modify a preceding consonant, rendering it soft. An apostrophe is used to indicate the hardness of a sound in instances where the vowel would normally soften the consonant; essentially, it functions similarly to the yer in the Russian alphabet.

A consonant letter is doubled to signify a lengthened sound. The phonemes [d͡z] and [d͡ʒ] lack dedicated letters in the alphabet and are represented by the digraphs дз and дж, respectively. [d͡z] is equivalent to the English ‘ds’ in “pods,” and [d͡ʒ] is equivalent to ‘j’ in “jump.” As in Russian, the acute accent may be used to indicate vowel stress.

Transliteration

Orthography

Spelling conventions, which began to emerge in the late 18th century with the development of the modern literary language, led to the appearance of several spelling options. Notable among these were the spelling system of Oleksii Pavlovskyi, the spelling version of “Mermaid of the Dniester” (1837), Kulishivka (P. Kulish’s system), Drahomanivka (developed in Kyiv in the 1870s by a group of cultural figures led by linguist P. Zhytetskyi, including M. Drahomanov), and Zhelekhivka (Yevhen Zhelekhovskyi’s system from 1886, codified in the Ruthenian Grammar by Smal-Stotskyi and Theodore Gartner in 1893).

Borys Hrinchenko introduced corrections in his seminal four-volume Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (1907–1909). Most of the spelling rules in Hrinchenko’s dictionary, largely based on phonetic principles (“write as you hear”), remain valid today. Hrinchenko’s work served as an informal standard for Ukrainian writers and publications from 1907 until the creation of the first official Ukrainian orthography in 1918.

On January 17, 1918, the Central Rada of Ukraine issued the “Main Rules of Ukrainian Orthography,” which, however, did not encompass the entire scope of the language. On May 17, 1919, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences approved the “Main Rules of Ukrainian Orthography,” which formed the foundation for subsequent revisions and amendments.

On July 23, 1925, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR established a State Commission for the Organization of Ukrainian Spelling (State Spelling Commission). This commission included over 20 academics from the USSR and extended invitations to representatives from Western Ukraine, such as Smal-Stotskyi, Volodymyr Hnatiuk , and Vasyl Simovych.

After nearly a year of work, the “Project of Ukrainian Spelling” was published in April 1926 for public review. Following several months of discussion and consideration at the All-Ukrainian Spelling Conference (May 26 – June 6, 1927), the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 was adopted through a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars on September 6, 1928. This orthography became known historically as the “Kharkiv” or “Skrypnik orthography,” named after its place of creation or the surname of Skrypnyk.

In 1929, Hryhorii Holoskevych published the Ukrainian Spelling Dictionary (approximately 40,000 words), aligned with the comprehensive spelling system produced by the State Spelling Commission and approved by the People’s Commissar for Education on September 6, 1928.

In 1933, a spelling commission chaired by Andrii Khvylia denounced the 1928 Ukrainian orthography as “nationalist.” Dictionaries were immediately discontinued, and within a brief five-month period, a new spelling system was devised that unified Ukrainian and Russian languages to an unprecedented degree. The letter ґ was removed from the alphabet, and Ukrainian scientific terminology was revised to align with Russian. The Institute of Ukrainian Scientific Language was abolished in 1930. This revised spelling was approved by resolution of the People’s Commissar of Education of the USSR on September 5, 1933.

Minor adjustments were made to the spelling in 1946 and 1959 (published the following year), in conjunction with the document “The Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation,” published in 1956. From 1960 until 1990, the 1960 edition served as the official standard.

Following the initiation of “perestroika,” the issue of improving Ukrainian spelling regained prominence. The Orthographic Commission at the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences began revising the spelling code. The project was also discussed within the newly established Ukrainian Language Society named after T. Shevchenko (headed by Dmytro Pavlychko ). The revised version was approved on November 14, 1989, and published in 1990. Key achievements included the reinstatement of the letter ґ and the accusative case (which had been optional and referred to as the accusative form during the Soviet era).

Presently, despite the existence of the official Ukrainian language orthography, it is not the sole standard in use. Even within Ukraine, numerous publishers and publications utilize alternative spelling systems, some adhering closer to the “skrypnykivka” or differing in their rendition of foreign words.

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. This new edition revived certain features of the 1928 orthography, which were part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition. Simultaneously, the commission aimed to incorporate language practices that had become established among Ukrainians from the latter half of the 20th century to the early 21st century, recognizing them as part of the Ukrainian orthographic tradition.

Vocabulary

The Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language, in its 11 volumes, contains 253,000 entries. The lexical card catalog at the Ukrainian Institute of Linguistics holds six million cards. As previously noted, Ukrainian shares the closest lexical relationship with Belarusian and is lexically closer to Polish than to Russian (e.g., mozhlyvistʹ, можливість, meaning “possibility,” is similar to Polish możliwość but distinct from Russian vozmožnostʹ).

False Cognates with Russian

The standard Ukrainian language, based on the Kyiv–Poltava dialect, presents numerous false friends with the standard Russian language, which is based on the Moscow dialect. This linguistic divergence leads some individuals to intentionally or unintentionally adopt certain word usages, resulting in language shifts towards what is known as Surzhyk , where the meaning of words mimicking Russian might be understood differently from their literal Ukrainian meaning.

Classification

Ukrainian demonstrates varying degrees of mutual intelligibility with other Slavic languages . It is closely related to other East Slavic languages , exhibiting high levels of mutual intelligibility. Ukrainian is considered most closely related to Belarusian.

The divergence of the East Slavic languages is viewed as relatively recent. In the 19th century, the question of whether Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian constituted dialects of a single language or three distinct languages was a subject of active discussion, influenced by both linguistic and political factors. The political landscape (with Ukraine and Belarus primarily under Russian Empire rule at the time) and the historical existence of the medieval state of Kievan Rus’, which encompassed large territories of these three nations, contributed to the common classification known as the East Slavic languages. The fundamental theory underpinning this grouping is their descent from a common ancestor. In contemporary linguistics, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are typically classified as separate languages.

Ukrainians were predominantly peasants and petits bourgeois ; in 1897, 93% of Ukrainians were peasants. Consequently, the Ukrainian language was largely vernacular, with few early literary works from that period surviving. In urban centers, Ukrainian coexisted with Church Slavonic —a literary language of religion that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—and later with Polish and Russian, languages more commonly used in formal writing and communication at the time.

Differences from Other Slavic Languages

The Ukrainian language exhibits several similarities and differences when compared to other Slavic languages:

• Like all Slavic languages except Russian , Belarusian, standard written Slovak, and Slovene , Ukrainian has preserved the Common Slavic vocative case . When addressing a sister (sestra), she is referred to as sestro. In Russian, the vocative case has been almost entirely replaced by the nominative, with only a few residual forms remaining (e.g., Bozhe ‘God!’ and Gospodi ‘Lord!’).
• Ukrainian, along with all Slavic languages other than Russian, Slovak, and Slovene, has retained the Common Slavic second palatalization of the velars *k, *g, and *x before the secondary vowel *ě in the dative and locative feminine declension , resulting in the final sequences -cě, -zě, and -sě. For example, ruka (hand) becomes ruci in Ukrainian, whereas in Russian, the dative and locative of ruka is ruke.
• Ukrainian, in common with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, has developed the ending -mo for first-person plural verbs (e.g., khodymo for “we walk”). This resulted from the lengthening of the Common Slavic -mŭ.
• Ukrainian, along with Russian and Belarusian, has transformed the Common Slavic word-initial je- into o- (e.g., in the words ozero ’lake’ and odyn ‘one’).
• Ukrainian, in common with Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Belarusian, and southern Russian dialects, has changed the Common Slavic “g” into an “h” sound (e.g., noha – ’leg’).
• Ukrainian, in common with some northern Russian and Croatian dialects, has transformed the Common Slavic ě into i (e.g., lis – ‘forest’).
• Ukrainian, along with Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene, has simplified the Common Slavic tl and dl into l (e.g., mela – ‘she swept’).
• Ukrainian, like most Slavic languages, is a stress-timed language , where syllables can vary in duration, but there is a perceived consistent interval (on average) between consecutive stressed syllables.
• Ukrainian, along with all modern Slavic languages except Bulgarian and Macedonian, does not use articles .
• Other Slavic o in closed syllables (syllables ending in a consonant) often corresponds to a Ukrainian i, as in pod → pid (під, ‘under’). This also applies to place names such as Lviv (Львів in Ukrainian), Lwów in Polish, and Львов (Lvov) in Russian.

Unlike all other Slavic languages, Ukrainian possesses a synthetic future tense (also termed inflectional future), which developed through the erosion and cliticization of the verb “to have” (or possibly “to take”): pysat-ymu (infinitive-future-1st sg.) meaning “I will write.” While the inflectional future (based on the verb ’to have’) is characteristic of Romance languages , Ukrainian linguist A. Danylenko argues that Ukrainian differs from Romance languages in its choice of auxiliary verb, which should be interpreted as ’to take’ rather than ’to have.’ He posits that Late Common Slavic (LCS) had three verbs with the same Proto-Indo-European root *h₁em-: an imperfective LCS *jęti: *jĭmǫ (’to take’, later superseded by prefixed perfectives); an undetermined imperfective LCS *jĭmati: *jemljǫ (’to take’, which did not take prefixes); and an imperfective LCS *jĭměti: *jĭmamĭ (’to hold, own, have’). These three verbs became conflated in East Slavic due to morphological overlap, particularly between iměti (’to have’) and jati (’to take’), as exemplified by the Middle Ukrainian homonymic imut’ derived from both iměti (< jĭměti) and jati (< jęti). Analogous grammaticalization, where a verb meaning ’to take’ or ’to seize’ evolves into a future tense marker, is observed in Chinese and Hungarian .

Sample Text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Ukrainian:

Всі люди народжуються вільними і рівними у своїй гідності та правах. Вони наділені розумом і совістю і повинні діяти у відношенні один до одного в дусі братерства.

The romanization of the text into the Latin alphabet :

Vsi lyudy narodzhuyutʹsya vilʹnymy i rivnymy u svoyiy hidnosti ta pravakh. Vony nadileni rozumom i sovistyu i povynni diyaty u vidnoshenni odyn do odnoho v dusi braterstva.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.