Ukrainian Language
The Ukrainian language is an East Slavic language that is part of the Indo-European language family. It evolved into a distinct literary language by the end of the 18th century, though its roots trace back to the ninth century. The language utilizes the Cyrillic alphabet, which is based on the Greek alphabet but includes unique letters to represent specific Slavic sounds. Ukrainian has a rich history influenced by various Slavic dialects and foreign languages, particularly Polish and Russian, through centuries of foreign occupation and political changes.
Today, approximately fifty-one million people speak Ukrainian, making it the second largest Slavic language. It serves as the official language of Ukraine and is also spoken by communities in several countries around the world. Despite its similarities to Russian, which led to historical misunderstandings regarding its identity, Ukrainian maintains distinct grammatical and lexical features. Following Ukraine's independence in 1991, there has been a concerted effort to promote and preserve the traditional Ukrainian language in education and public life, reflecting its cultural significance and the resilience of its speakers.
Ukrainian Language
The Ukrainian language is an Indo-European language from the Slavic branch of languages. Ukrainian did not develop as a literary language until the end of the eighteenth century. Prior to its development, the language borrowed from various Slavic languages and dialects throughout the region.
The Slavic languages are divided into three subgroups: South Slavic, West Slavic, and East Slavic. Ukrainian is an East Slavic language. East Slavic languages, which include Russian and Belarusian, are spoken by more than two hundred million people and share a similar vocabulary and grammatical structure.
The Ukrainian language was not a distinct language until the ninth century. It survived the foreign invasion of the Kievan Rus state in the thirteenth century, mainly through folklore and folk song. Although several foreign countries occupied Ukrainian territory, the language remained intact over the centuries apart from small integrations of foreign grammar and vocabulary.
History and Classification
The Ukrainian language uses a Cyrillic alphabet as opposed to a Latin alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet was created for the Orthodox Slavic people of Europe in the ninth century. It is closely based on the Greek alphabet but includes letters not found in Greek to represent distinct sounds of the Slavic language. The modern Ukrainian alphabet consists of thirty-three letters. Sentence structure adheres to a subject-verb-object pattern. Ukrainian shares vocabulary and other grammatical features with several other Slavic languages, mainly Belarusian. The language also has a high percentage of common vocabulary with the Polish, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, and Slovak languages.
The Ukrainian language derives from several ancestral Slavic languages found during the sixth century in the region that became Ukraine. Slavic languages are closely related to the Romance and Germanic languages of the Indo-European family. The proto-Ukrainian language first appeared as a distinct dialect of the Common Slavic language. Several Slavic tribes inhabited what became Ukraine, and they each contributed dialectal differences to the language. Over the centuries, these dialects gradually included a mix of Common Slavic and tribal dialects, eventually becoming a separate language altogether by the ninth century.
The first written records documenting the history of the Ukrainian language were produced in 988 CE when the territory of Kiev (which became Ukraine) converted to Christianity. The Bible and other religious texts were translated into Old Slavonic, a predecessor to Ukrainian. Ukraine became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the thirteenth century, at which time Ruthenian, another ancestor of Ukrainian, became the main language. Ruthenian developed distinct dialects in the north (Belarusian) and the south (Ukrainian) and was influenced by the merger of Poland and Lithuania. This union introduced the Polish language into the territory. The Polish language integrated with Old Slavonic and influenced the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages.
In 1596, the Union of Brest, which catholicized a large portion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and gave the Polish and Latin languages further reach in the Slavic territories, inspired a revival of the Slavonic language among the Ukrainian people. A complete Slavonic translation of the Bible in 1581 preceded the emergence of a number of Slavonic dictionaries and grammars written in Ruthenian. Ruthenian was prevalent within Ukraine, and the language flourished until Russia seized control of the region in the seventeenth century and designated Russian as the language of administration.
The Russian government heavily restricted texts written in the Ukrainian language in the nineteenth century. The Russians feared a distinct Ukrainian language would undermine the empire’s unifying objective. Schools could not teach in Ukrainian, and the government heavily restricted Ukrainian written works. In 1876, the Ukrainian language was banned from public use. Restrictions on the Ukrainian language continued into the early twentieth century. Although these measures stalled the development of the literary Ukrainian language, Russian vocabulary began to influence the language. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukraine became a sovereign nation and instituted a Ukrainian language-based education system. Although this era of independence was brief, the Ukrainian language thrived.
Russia took control of Ukraine once again following the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. The Soviet Union promoted Russification, or the dominance of Russian culture. As a result, when Ukraine eventually gained independence in 1991, the traditional Ukrainian language competed with Russianized Ukrainian. Over the next decades, Ukrainians promoted the use of traditional Ukrainian, and the language gained popularity in the government, communications, and education sectors.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
About fifty-one million people speak Ukrainian throughout the world. Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine and principal language spoken among Ukrainians. It is the second largest Slavic language. Most Ukrainian speakers live in Ukraine, but the language also is spoken in many other countries, including Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Slovakia.
Some linguists find it difficult to discern Ukrainian from Russian, given the extreme influence the Russian language had on Ukrainian. Until the twentieth century, many Russians referred to the Ukrainian language as Little Russian due to the similarity between the two languages.
Bibliography
Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages. New York: Columbia UP, 2004. Print.
"Languages Across Europe: Ukrainian, Ukrayins’ka." BBC. BBC, n.d. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european‗languages/languages/ukrainian.shtml>.
Strazny, Philipp, ed. Encyclopedia of Linguistics. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2011. 915–16. Print.
"Ukrainian Language." Effective Language Learning. Effective Language Learning, 2015. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. <http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/ukrainian-language>.
"Ukrainian Language." Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2001. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. <http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CU%5CK%5CUkrainianlanguage.htm>.
"Ukrainian (Українська)." Omniglot. Simon Ager, 2015. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. <http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ukrainian.htm>.