![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Is there a reason for the Polish column in the census table? Is this a particularly large minority in Ukrainian lands? The cited census results includes dozens of languages, and I can't see why Polish specifically should be included here.
Does 1897's Jevropejskaja Rossija include Malorossija and Bjelorossija, or only what we know as today's Russian Federation? — Michael Z. 2006-01-29 22:53 Z
I've changed the phrase "that time's prevailing teminology" to "the Imperial census's terminology"—this doesn't change the facts, just limits the scope of the assertion to the census.
Saying "prevailing" is an oversimplification, and the issue is discussed in some detail in the section above (although some more could be added). Regardless of the EB1911 picking up its academic view of East Slavs from non-censored Russian academics, the term was not universally used—by 1897 many Ukrainians already considered themselves Ukrainians, and others Ruthenians, and the state-endorsed terminology represents one particular POV with a heavy political agenda behind it. — Michael Z. 2006-01-30 06:29 Z
Data of the 2001 census is inexact interpreted in this article.
In the 2001 census:
Also, total of the sum: 32.577.468 + 9.797.380 = 42.374.848 Ukrainian speakers of 48.240.902 population (87.84%). See also [3]. -- Yakudza 13:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's highly controversial to enlist Rusyn dialects as dialects of the Ukrainian language. As far as I know, they consider themselves to be a seperate entity. It should be at least marked as disputed.
Another problem. There is no information about status of the language in Poland in the interwar period. Western Ukraine was under Polish administration then and it might be interesting. Zbihniew 12:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
78.151.173.120 (
talk) 20:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Can anyone explain to me why '25 times smaller' country as Lithuania took over Kiev Rus and couldn't do the same with Russia??? Explanaition here only one - LITHUANIANS AND KIEV RASIANS WERE THE SAME NATION ALWAYS IN THE PAST CALLED BALTS, BUT THEY WERE FORCED TO USE SLAVIAN ALPHABET, CAUSE THEY HAD ONLY RUNES WHICH WAS REPLACED WITH CHRISTIANITY BY GREEK LETTERS...Explain me and another fact - WE NEVER EVER HAD WAR BETWEEN US, GUD (Gudai or in russian language Belorussians) AND RUS (Rasai or in russian language Ukrainians), but always lived in peace. And why Russia exterminated Ukrainians and Belorussians??????? And why Poles tried to Polonise all these 3 countries (in fact this is one and the same nation Balts, but Slavs were like parasites seeking the ways to destroy or enslave us)
78.151.173.120 (
talk)
20:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
While this is a pretty good article, I think there needs to be a better referencing in place before it can reach a GA status. There are still a lot of areas that need references. As well the reference system that is currently here needs to be standardized. Try adopting a footnote system like the one in this article: Names_of_the_Greeks#References. I hope this helps! The best to you.-- P-Chan 22:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Ukrainian is not official language in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. No matter what some (uninformed) journalist wrote in that external link, here you can see official web site of the government of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina: http://www.vojvodina.sr.gov.yu/Engleski/vojvodina.htm Quote: "The Statute of AP Vojvodina stipilates that the official languages, besides Serbian, are Hungarian, Slovak, Rumanian, Ruthenian and Croatian." Ukrainian is not mentioned, thus, not official. PANONIAN (talk) 21:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Rusyn (Ruthen) is official language of Vojvodyna, not Ukrainian.... And Rusyn isn't the same as Ukrainian (even if some ukrainian nationalists pretend that...) rusyn (talk) 19:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
...is highly overestimated. Where is this data from? The website of the 2001 census says 8213 people speak Ukrainian in Hungary [4] (sorry, Hungarian only; click on the hand on the right side on the screen until you reach page 4, ukrán will be the last one under the upprmost title anyanyelvén kívül). – Alensha talk 14:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Should the Cryllic spelling of the Malorusskij, Vjelikorusskij, and Bjelorusskij, be given along with the Anglicization pronunciation ( which I believe is what is written ? ) I know how to do this for Russian, but I'm not sure if there are any spelling issues for Ukrainian. NemoX 06:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Should we even link to dictionaries at all? [5] was removed, but it's just another dictionary. I don't know whether we need any dictionary links at all, and if we do, how many? - Iopq 13:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think phonetics is less ambiguous. Plus, this isn't the Simple Wikipedia. - iopq 07:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It is not a dialect of Ukrainian, but considered to be a dialect of Slovak. After seeing a few sample texts it's hard to disagree. The vocabulary is West Slavic (although Ukrainian does share some with West Slavic due to contact), and the entire language looks completely different from Ukrainian. - iopq 06:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC) To me it is a dialect of Ukrainian as can be seen by the grammar and historic development. There are many borrowings from Slovak, but the basis of the language is Ukrainian. Bandurist ( talk) 03:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Language map is incorrect and does not reflect the reality. Some parts of the South-Eastern regions and the whole Crimean peninsula should not have such an intense coloring. If I understand coloring should represent the percentage of people speaking in Ukrainian in those areas but there are problems. In Crimea less than 7% of the population actually speak it. ( Ahnode 00:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC))
Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language".[10]
Someone is trying to make the forgery look like a genuine quote. According to some authors, the famous "there never has been, is not, and never can be..." is personal opinion of the minister Valueyev. In fact, he was just stating what the 'majority of Little-Russians' were arguing about.
...самый вопрос о пользе и возможности употребления в школах этого наречия не только не решен, но даже возбуждение этого вопроса принято большинством малороссиян с негодованием, часто высказывающимся в печати. Они весьма основательно доказывают, что никакого особенного малороссийского языка не было, нет и быть не может, и что наречие их, употребляемое простонародием, есть тот же русский язык, только испорченный влиянием на него Польши...
Ahnode 09:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Can someone render Hotuis (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into Ukrainian script? Thanks! Chris 15:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Bandurist you write that: A Kuban dialect related to the Steppe dialect often referred to by the derogatory term of Balachka is spoken in the Kuban region in Russia, by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late eighteenth century. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary on a Ukrainian grammar substructure. There are 3 main variants according to location.
Gentlemen, would a compromise be possible? If Kuban insists (without sources I might add) that it is a subgroup of the Russian language, then let's remove it altogether from an article about Ukrainian language and move it to the Russian language article. Unless there are sources to prove it belongs here. -- Hillock65 14:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Bandurist 15:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Въ станицахъ 1 - го Донского окр. въ говор часто встрчаются слова малороссiйскiя; этихъ словъ еще больше встрчается въ говорнизовыхъ казаковъ и въ станицахъ, расположенныхъ выше по Донцу, въ Гундоровской и въ особенности Луганской. Въ говорнизовыхъ казаковъ звуки в и у часто замняютъ другъ друга, особенно въ началсловъ, какъ, напримръ: усе - все, узять, лоуко - ловко, въ мене - у меня, въ насъ -у насъ. Вмсто ы всегда употребляется и, какъ то: бики, корови, риба, вигодно, вiхалъ, виждалъ, вискочилъ, вилeтлъ, вишал(вышелъ), викосилъ, вирзалъ, ми (мы), ви и проч. Вмсто ы часто произносится о: накролъ, закролъ, помолъ (помылъ); звукъ е почти всегда замняется и, а окончанiе "eтъ", произносится какъ "ить", напримръ: бгаить или бгить, читаить, играить, гуляить, скачить и т. д. Также говорятъ: ходю, просю, крутю, чистю, оны (они), булъ (былъ), чугинъ (чугунъ), выпулилъ глаза, вмсто выпялилъ глаза, вечиръ вмсто вечеръ, смички, гарбузъ - арбузъ и проч. As for the map, it, unlike your clearly marks territory which is a hybrid dialect, and territory which is Ukrainian. If you disagree with me, I will begin a WP:DR process, I've had enough of POV's thrown at Kuban Cossacks. -- Kuban Cossack 16:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I reworked the paragraph without referring it to either Russian or Ukrianian. I also added the source from an encyclopaedia. I hope that settles it. -- Hillock65 18:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Малоруський та великоруський мови / малорусский а великорусский языкы (Speakers in the Russian Empire sub-section, in the table header): As no one expressing moderate, balanced views in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Byelorussia and places in independant countries where Russian is widely used (Kazakhstan, for example) does not use these words of Little or Great (or White, either) Russian nowadays, why do we use them here? This is clearly derogative, and every time I ask Russians what they mean about these words, only chauvinistic, nationalistic partisans use them — not the moderate Russians. I still put this question around in Peterburg and Moscow last week, just before the legislative elections, and the divide was clearly visible here too between true democrats or rather opinionless people on one side, and partisans of Putin and others on the other 'side', including assumed backward-looking or self-proclaimed partisans of a return to some 'new old' Empire-like state of things.
Would not it be good to live in the present time, and limit the use of such words to specific articles, like the one about the
Great Russian language (which does not state what the Russian article says, by the way, nor do the
History of the Russian language and
Russian language ones).
I wish these lines were not to be the beginning of any raging (but undesirable) war… If so, I will stay apart.
— Kanġi Oĥanko (
talk)
10:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Последовательное и систематическое искоренение украинского языка нашло свое наиболее яркое отражение в знаменитом валуевском циркуляре 1863 г., наложившем запрет на печатание учебной и научно-популярной литературы на украинском языке под тем предлогом, что «oни весьма основательно доказывают, что никакого особенного малороссийского языка не было, нет и быть не может и что наречие их, употребляемое простонародьем, есть тот же русский язык, только испорченный влиянием на него Польши». С неимоверными трудностями украинский язык преодолевал подобные полицейские рогатки, но развиваться нормально в таких условиях, безусловно, не мог, что привело почти к полному исчезновению украинского языка изо всех областей культурной и общественно-политической жизни. В 1876 г. царское правительство запретило печатание большинства видов литературы на украинском языке, а также ввоз любых украинских изданий из-за рубежа («Эмский указ»). Этот указ оставался в силе и применялся вплоть до революции 1905 г., которая вынудила царское правительство дать некоторые послабления, просуществовавшие очень недолго и уничтоженные в период реакции.
Царский режим неимоверно глушил и временами почти совершенно устранял малейшие возможности для развития украинского языка, но ему не удалось и не могло удаться полицейскими мерами окончательно искоренить украинский язык, так как существовал живой народный язык, остающийся неизменной основой для литературного языка. Bandurist ( talk) 14:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
The wikibooks link to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ukrainian does not work properly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.202.233 ( talk) 10:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I suggest deleting the sentence "Ukrainians tend to pronounce long sounds where the letters are doubled in other languages, English or Russian, for example" from the Sounds section. This type of pronunciation is erroneous and clearly influenced by the Russian language. If the purpose of this section is to analyze common mistakes people make, then other errors must be discussed as well.
The Sounds section also contains the questionable statement that the Old East Slavic letter г denoted /g/. I find it more likely that г used to be fricative in old Russian, which is suggested by its mutation into ж when palatalized (нога — ножка), its lenition when it is devoiced (снег, когти), and its traditional fricative pronunciation in the word Господи.
Sclerolith ( talk) 07:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I find it very awkward that the Croatian language is identified as being related to Ukrainian, yet Serbian nor Bosnian are, even though they are the same languages? Does the Croatian language take precedence over the other languages? The articles needs to be edited to include all the languages, if one is mentioned. The Croatian language as of late, does not use the Cyrillic alphabet, so in reality they would not be able to read any Ukrainian, since they can't read their alphabet. I myself have know Cyrillic as well as Serbo-croatian, and I can confirm that are languages are related, because in many of the pictures I can understand most of the words. Such as the one with the Ukrainian schools for Ukrainian children: Ukrajnskој djeci Ukrajnsku Skolu Украјнској Дјеци Украјнску Школу So if anything, I think Serbian would be more appropriate to add, since the majority of Croatians don't know Cyrillic. 67.204.1.106 ( talk) 00:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I am Ugo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.182.193.194 ( talk) 20:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Regarding KK's edit labelled Alphabet: Oh come on, there is not a source that links grammatical reforms with political scenes, why can't one try and keep sensitive topics neutral:
Since language was traditionally equated with the survival of national distinctiveness, it is not surprising that among Skrypnyk's greatest sins was his promotion of Ukrainian language reforms, including linguistic purism and a new orthography (popularly known as the skrypnykivka) approved in 1928. Seemingly esoteric academic issues took on profound political significance: the revised Ukrainian alphabet and the search for a 'pure' Ukrainian vocabulary offered clear evidence, in the words of one critic, that 'Comrade Skrypnyk ... had taken the path of alienating the Ukrainian language from Russian and bringing it closer to Polish.' (Magocsi 1996:567)
No one could be sure that a neighbor, a co-worker, even a family member was not a secret police informer ready to accuse him or her of being a counterrevolutionary, because of some offhand comment or joke about daily life, or—absurd as it may sound—such things as favoring use of the letter G (a Ukrainian Cyrillic letter that does not appear in Russian) in the 'Skrypnyk alphabet'. (Magocsi 1996:567)
With regard to cultural life, the goal after 1933 was to reverse the policy of the previous years, in which Shums’kyi's and Skrypnyk's 'nefarious' policies had brought about 'forced Ukrainianization.' More and more emphasis was to be given to Russian culture and the Russian language, considered the medium through which the world's 'first socialist state' had been created. In 1933, the alphabet and language reforms instituted in 1928 were abolished, and decrees were passed requiring that in its alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar the Ukrainian language be brought steadily closer to Russian. By 1937, Soviet ideologists were proposing the intimate union of the two languages, and the following year a law was passed providing for a rigid system of language training designed to ensure that all Ukrainians, whether in the cities or the countryside, would have a fluent command of Russian. (Magocsi 1996:570–71)
One can find more, but this should be enough to justify restoring the article to the previous revision. — Michael Z. 2008-05-14 12:07 z
In my opinion but not only opinion but also facts i would say there is no clear ukrainian language. People around Lvov speak one type and people around Poltava speak different type. I agree with Lomonosov in this case. The language spoken in Lvov had strong influence of polish. Because by historical facts we know that Lvov and western part of ukraine has been taken away by poland. Before that it that there were several russian kingdoms lying on that land with capital of kiev. That is why it was called "kievan rus". By the way rus is older name for russia and is still widely used. After polish took over tha land they started forcing the locals to catholic church and polish language. Since people did not want to change from orthodox to catholic. Polish created an uniat church which was a mix of catholic and orthodox beliefs. After almost 300 hundred years russia got half of ukraine back, but other half remaind with poland for 200 more years. Because of that long period under polish government western ukraine is now talks that language. Eastern part however spoke russian and surzhik for long time. Surshik appeared because of westerners movin to east 1600-1900 and mixing with russian speaking population. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxater ( talk • contribs) 23:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow. What an opinion. My folks came from Poltava. My wife was born in Lviv. I have toured most of Ukraine, Poland and the Kuban with concerts. Yes there are some differences in the language from Western Ukraine to the Kuban, primarily lexical, however it is the same language. It baffles me when some people say that Western Ukrainian is not understandable by Ukrainians in the Kuban. It makes me laugh when half their songs are originally from Western Ukraine only with the word striletz (rifleman) substituted by the word kozak. Surzhik does exists, primarily in the urban centres and primarily spoken by people with an incomplete education. I did not hear it in the Kuban however, nor in the many collective farms I performed in . Bandurist ( talk) 20:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Please don't feed the trolls. This one hasn't been active on Wikipedia for three months, so there's no point in continuing the chatter. — Michael Z. 2008-08-07 18:37 z
Is it the fact that Eneyida was the first publicised literary work in the Ukrainian? What does support this hypothesis? What about the Ruska Biblia? It was published before that. Aleksandr Grigoryev ( talk) 20:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it is wrong to call changing the language on the signs as the Ukrainization. It sounds as something forceful which in truth is something logical. The sign in the Kyivan metro is provided to the Ukrainian citizens who pay their taxes to their government therefore for convenience purposes they have the sign to inform them. On the other hand, what kind of a citizen would not be able to speak their own language? The Russian-speaking, of course. For him or her, everybody needs to speak Russian and therefore any extension on the freedoms of other languages perceived to be offensive towards him or her. Is it fair and civil? Is it logical? The answer is no! I understand when in the Russian Federation, for example Taganrog or Voronezh, placing Ukrainian language based signs would be perceived as a process of the Ukrainization; or placing such signs in Peremyshl or Sanok in Poland.
On another note, how come publically funded schools in Ukraine have nerve to protest conversion of them into the Ukrainian speaking? How do those teacher contribute to provide the residence with the foreign language? Using the tax money of the Ukrainian citizens in their personal interest and the interest of the foreign land. Why does Ukraine need such teachers? Russian as any other foreign language should be the primary language of privately owned schools. Aleksandr Grigoryev ( talk) 20:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I have heard this from a friend, but can't find a sollid reference for it (for now). Is it true? — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 08:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
No. This may have been true in the Shelest years, but under Brezhnev they worked in exemptions initially from children of military who were on temporary assignement, then all military, then those who had moved from other republics, and then gradually to include anyone who wanted their child exempt.
Another interesting point was that although Russian language teachers were paid initially the same as Ukrainian langiuage teachers, during the breahnev years they introduced an additional bonus to the the pay of Russian teachers. (I think 35%) which once again stacked the cards agains Ukrainian language.
They also changed the name of the subject from "Russkiy yazyk" (Russian language) to "Rodnaya Rech" (True/ spesking????/ My language?).
Bandurist ( talk) 15:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Дякую :))))))))))) — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 21:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand why this phrase is at the top of this article or come to think of it, why is it there at all? "The language shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Polish and Slovak in the West, and Belarusan and Russian in the North and the East."
If you think, that's significant, then a similar, equivalent phrase should be added to Polish, Slovak, Belarussan and Russian laungages as well. Why is only Ukrainian selected as if to imply that's it's not a real language. I am truly tired of this anti Ukrainian bias on Wikipedia. Anytime I look something up, there is always some offensive phrase added. Enough of this already. Please remove this phrase or add it to ALL other Slavic langauges who ALL share some vocabulary with their respective Slavic neighbours. Funny how you all insist that Ukrainian is similar to Russian and Polish and yet in the same breath claim that a language practically IDENTICAL to Ukrainian - Rusyn is a separate langauge. It is really a shame that a a group of individuals have taken a knowledge site hostage and is using it to push their own political agenda —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.228.193 ( talk) 02:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if it was done with malicious intent but the English wikipages Russians in Ukraine + Russian language in Ukraine did gave the impression that some form of slow genoicide of Russian was taken place in Ukraine before I started to work on the pages (on a Ukrainian national survey only 0,5% of respondents felt they where discriminated because of their language!!!). Hence the first times I was in Kyiv I was very surpriced to find out that a lot of pro-Ukrainians speak mostly Russian... I do believe the situation is better now, editors on Ukrainian topics in wikipedia do not display ultra-nationalistic views anymore these days. — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 09:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement that "almost all" Ukrainian citizens in modern Ukraine speak Ukrainian. I dont want to get wrapped up in your nationalist arguments - I really am just a passive observer - but I lived for a year in Donetsk teaching English. I met only a few people who told me that they "spoke" ukrainian. They understand it of course, but they don't (and can't) speak it. Its enough to go and listen to Yanukovich give a speech in Ukrainian :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.75.208.200 ( talk) 14:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I live in Donetsk and easily can speake ukrainian, same as all my friends and etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.31.179.210 ( talk) 11:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not a linguist, but if you look at any other language page, you will see what a real grammar page looks like. What is described in the grammar section, I think, is called Morphology. It needs attention from an expert on the subject. 72.78.25.72 ( talk) 21:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
In the opening paragraph of the Ukrainian Diaspora section, there is the phrase "Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population." There is not, however, an entry for the United States in the list. Did this get accidentally deleted at some point, or is there a reason for its absence? Does anyone know the number from a reliable source? 216.49.181.254 ( talk) 17:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Some very intelligent people, linguisists, intellectuals ( Anatoly Vasserman - http://vz.ru/news/2009/3/16/265622.html), etc. claim that Ukrainian is NOT a language, but a dialect of Russian. For example, up until 19th century there was no literature in Ukrainian. And many other such proves. What do you think? How would you argue Mr. Vasserman? Would you argue at all? Are these people factually correct (if not politically)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mizanthrop ( talk • contribs) 08:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Done! — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 09:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Placing the political comments in the lead was mabey a bit over the top... I agree with your latest edits! — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 15:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) You don't understand how Wikipedia works. I don't have to provide the full quote for everything written in Wikipedia, just a source where you, yourself, can look it up to verify it. Do not remove anything in that paragraph. It is all properly referenced by reliable sources and verifiable. I don't have to provide you with the hard copy, it is your responsibility to look it up yourself if you don't think it is there. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
(outdent)Your edits that try to de-emphasize the fact that the Eastern Slavic languages are virtually one language based on the strictly linguistic criterion of mutual intelligibility are not based on actual scholarly sources, but upon your own POV. I read on your talk page that you pushed for Rusyn to be considered a dialect of Ukrainian. It seems rather hypocritical to push for the inclusion in Ukrainian of Rusyn because of mutual intelligibility, but fight against discussing Russian/Belarusan/Ukrainian as a single language despite their mutual intelligibility. The linguistic scholarly literature on the subject all agrees that the Eastern Slavic languages are mutually intelligible. Some list them as three separate languages, some list them as one language. Those are the linguistic facts and the paragraph is very clear on that fact. -- Taivo ( talk) 18:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Respectable organisations like the UN and the BBC treat Ukrainian as a separate language; should there be some mentioning of that in this article? — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 00:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
This article focusses on external history and politics. There's a place for this but it doesn't fit into the usual format for an article on a specific language or dialect. If you look at, for instance, Scots, whose position is similar, or Basque, which is also in quite a politicised situation, whereas the politics and history of those forms of speech are covered, it's from an internal perspective, whereas this article fails to inform in that respect. I don't know anything about the politics of Ukrainian aside from the general politics of minority languages in the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire, but I think this needs to have a different title and there should be a separate article on the Ukrainian language from the perspective of the likes of internal history, morphology, phonology and the like. Right now, this is not informative in the right way. I came here to compare this with standard Russian and it's not very helpful in that respect.
Nineteenthly ( talk) 07:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The first paragraph in this "History" section is not PC and should be removed, or moved to another page.
Language is a social phenomenon, and is intimately tied to national and cultural identity. The implication of the paragraph, that Ukrainian, Belorussian and Russian are considered (albeit for the purposes of comparison) by linguists to be one language, is offensive to Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Russians, who have the right to their own language, culture and national identity. This paragraph should be removed from this, the main page describing the Ukrainian language, and, perhaps, moved to a different page, discussing the commonalities between the Slavic tongues.
In the end, it IS true that what constitutes a language vs. a "dialect" or “variant” is up for the speakers to decide, not linguists, no matter their qualifications.
There is no evidence to support the theory that a proto-“western” Slavic language (as opposed to a proto-“Eastern” Slavic language ever existed. The distinction between the Eastern and Western Slavic languages is purely geographical, and does not imply any commonality nor links between grammar or vocabulary. Modern Ukrainian and Belorussian can just as easily be grouped together with Polish. In fact, Ukrainian is closer to Polish than Russian in many aspects, including basic vocabulary words, number of cases (7 for Polish and Ukrainian, vs. 6 in Russian), use of particles, sentence structure, and verb conjugations (Ukrainian and Polish both have a true future form, where Russian does not.) Insofar as mutual intelligibility is concerned, among educated speakers, the Slavic languages in general are as mutually intelligible as the neo-latin group. The existence of “Surzhyk” in Ukraine does not imply that the speakers are using a common language any more than “Portuñol” speakers in the bordering regions of Brazil and Argentina are speaking a common Spanish/Portuguese hybrid language. I believe it would be difficult to say that Portuguese and Spanish are simply dialects of a common “Western Neo-Latin” language, no one claims to speak. The fact that Portuguese and certain dialects of Spain did not become distinct languages until the 16th century is proof to the contrary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BohdanH ( talk • contribs) 20:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
This discussion kind of got segmented, so I'm going to initiate a single thread. There are several layers to the question of whether Ukrainian is part of a single East Slavic language or a separate language within an East Slavic groups of languages. Each deserves to be dealt with, but I'm not sure that all the issues are necessarily relevant to this article because some are theoretical and practical issues within the science of linguistics rather than specific to Ukrainian.
So that's what we have here and what I tried to maintain in the paragraph in question--that there are more factors than just mutual intelligibility involved and that there are scholarly sources that link them. I'm not sure how much detail we actually need to cover in dealing with this issue, but since readers might very well encounter works that mention the single-language option, it needs to mentioned here and why. -- Taivo ( talk) 03:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
(outdent)Yes, we can actually assume dialect diversity in any language that occupies a sufficiently large land area. Same is true for England in the early Middle Ages as well. We usually start dating dialect differentiation that can lead to different languages, however, based on some migration event or some historical break. Dialect differentiation actually begins on the day that one village splits and half the villagers go to live on the other side of the river. So linguistically dating dialect differentiation isn't an exact science. That's why we usually tie it to historical events when we can actually see a split in the historical record. Otherwise it's just supposition. -- Taivo ( talk) 20:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Is there a reason for the Polish column in the census table? Is this a particularly large minority in Ukrainian lands? The cited census results includes dozens of languages, and I can't see why Polish specifically should be included here.
Does 1897's Jevropejskaja Rossija include Malorossija and Bjelorossija, or only what we know as today's Russian Federation? — Michael Z. 2006-01-29 22:53 Z
I've changed the phrase "that time's prevailing teminology" to "the Imperial census's terminology"—this doesn't change the facts, just limits the scope of the assertion to the census.
Saying "prevailing" is an oversimplification, and the issue is discussed in some detail in the section above (although some more could be added). Regardless of the EB1911 picking up its academic view of East Slavs from non-censored Russian academics, the term was not universally used—by 1897 many Ukrainians already considered themselves Ukrainians, and others Ruthenians, and the state-endorsed terminology represents one particular POV with a heavy political agenda behind it. — Michael Z. 2006-01-30 06:29 Z
Data of the 2001 census is inexact interpreted in this article.
In the 2001 census:
Also, total of the sum: 32.577.468 + 9.797.380 = 42.374.848 Ukrainian speakers of 48.240.902 population (87.84%). See also [3]. -- Yakudza 13:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's highly controversial to enlist Rusyn dialects as dialects of the Ukrainian language. As far as I know, they consider themselves to be a seperate entity. It should be at least marked as disputed.
Another problem. There is no information about status of the language in Poland in the interwar period. Western Ukraine was under Polish administration then and it might be interesting. Zbihniew 12:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
78.151.173.120 (
talk) 20:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Can anyone explain to me why '25 times smaller' country as Lithuania took over Kiev Rus and couldn't do the same with Russia??? Explanaition here only one - LITHUANIANS AND KIEV RASIANS WERE THE SAME NATION ALWAYS IN THE PAST CALLED BALTS, BUT THEY WERE FORCED TO USE SLAVIAN ALPHABET, CAUSE THEY HAD ONLY RUNES WHICH WAS REPLACED WITH CHRISTIANITY BY GREEK LETTERS...Explain me and another fact - WE NEVER EVER HAD WAR BETWEEN US, GUD (Gudai or in russian language Belorussians) AND RUS (Rasai or in russian language Ukrainians), but always lived in peace. And why Russia exterminated Ukrainians and Belorussians??????? And why Poles tried to Polonise all these 3 countries (in fact this is one and the same nation Balts, but Slavs were like parasites seeking the ways to destroy or enslave us)
78.151.173.120 (
talk)
20:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
While this is a pretty good article, I think there needs to be a better referencing in place before it can reach a GA status. There are still a lot of areas that need references. As well the reference system that is currently here needs to be standardized. Try adopting a footnote system like the one in this article: Names_of_the_Greeks#References. I hope this helps! The best to you.-- P-Chan 22:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Ukrainian is not official language in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. No matter what some (uninformed) journalist wrote in that external link, here you can see official web site of the government of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina: http://www.vojvodina.sr.gov.yu/Engleski/vojvodina.htm Quote: "The Statute of AP Vojvodina stipilates that the official languages, besides Serbian, are Hungarian, Slovak, Rumanian, Ruthenian and Croatian." Ukrainian is not mentioned, thus, not official. PANONIAN (talk) 21:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Rusyn (Ruthen) is official language of Vojvodyna, not Ukrainian.... And Rusyn isn't the same as Ukrainian (even if some ukrainian nationalists pretend that...) rusyn (talk) 19:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
...is highly overestimated. Where is this data from? The website of the 2001 census says 8213 people speak Ukrainian in Hungary [4] (sorry, Hungarian only; click on the hand on the right side on the screen until you reach page 4, ukrán will be the last one under the upprmost title anyanyelvén kívül). – Alensha talk 14:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Should the Cryllic spelling of the Malorusskij, Vjelikorusskij, and Bjelorusskij, be given along with the Anglicization pronunciation ( which I believe is what is written ? ) I know how to do this for Russian, but I'm not sure if there are any spelling issues for Ukrainian. NemoX 06:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Should we even link to dictionaries at all? [5] was removed, but it's just another dictionary. I don't know whether we need any dictionary links at all, and if we do, how many? - Iopq 13:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think phonetics is less ambiguous. Plus, this isn't the Simple Wikipedia. - iopq 07:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It is not a dialect of Ukrainian, but considered to be a dialect of Slovak. After seeing a few sample texts it's hard to disagree. The vocabulary is West Slavic (although Ukrainian does share some with West Slavic due to contact), and the entire language looks completely different from Ukrainian. - iopq 06:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC) To me it is a dialect of Ukrainian as can be seen by the grammar and historic development. There are many borrowings from Slovak, but the basis of the language is Ukrainian. Bandurist ( talk) 03:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Language map is incorrect and does not reflect the reality. Some parts of the South-Eastern regions and the whole Crimean peninsula should not have such an intense coloring. If I understand coloring should represent the percentage of people speaking in Ukrainian in those areas but there are problems. In Crimea less than 7% of the population actually speak it. ( Ahnode 00:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC))
Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language".[10]
Someone is trying to make the forgery look like a genuine quote. According to some authors, the famous "there never has been, is not, and never can be..." is personal opinion of the minister Valueyev. In fact, he was just stating what the 'majority of Little-Russians' were arguing about.
...самый вопрос о пользе и возможности употребления в школах этого наречия не только не решен, но даже возбуждение этого вопроса принято большинством малороссиян с негодованием, часто высказывающимся в печати. Они весьма основательно доказывают, что никакого особенного малороссийского языка не было, нет и быть не может, и что наречие их, употребляемое простонародием, есть тот же русский язык, только испорченный влиянием на него Польши...
Ahnode 09:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Can someone render Hotuis (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into Ukrainian script? Thanks! Chris 15:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Bandurist you write that: A Kuban dialect related to the Steppe dialect often referred to by the derogatory term of Balachka is spoken in the Kuban region in Russia, by the descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who settled in that area in the late eighteenth century. This dialect features the use of some Russian vocabulary on a Ukrainian grammar substructure. There are 3 main variants according to location.
Gentlemen, would a compromise be possible? If Kuban insists (without sources I might add) that it is a subgroup of the Russian language, then let's remove it altogether from an article about Ukrainian language and move it to the Russian language article. Unless there are sources to prove it belongs here. -- Hillock65 14:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Bandurist 15:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Въ станицахъ 1 - го Донского окр. въ говор часто встрчаются слова малороссiйскiя; этихъ словъ еще больше встрчается въ говорнизовыхъ казаковъ и въ станицахъ, расположенныхъ выше по Донцу, въ Гундоровской и въ особенности Луганской. Въ говорнизовыхъ казаковъ звуки в и у часто замняютъ другъ друга, особенно въ началсловъ, какъ, напримръ: усе - все, узять, лоуко - ловко, въ мене - у меня, въ насъ -у насъ. Вмсто ы всегда употребляется и, какъ то: бики, корови, риба, вигодно, вiхалъ, виждалъ, вискочилъ, вилeтлъ, вишал(вышелъ), викосилъ, вирзалъ, ми (мы), ви и проч. Вмсто ы часто произносится о: накролъ, закролъ, помолъ (помылъ); звукъ е почти всегда замняется и, а окончанiе "eтъ", произносится какъ "ить", напримръ: бгаить или бгить, читаить, играить, гуляить, скачить и т. д. Также говорятъ: ходю, просю, крутю, чистю, оны (они), булъ (былъ), чугинъ (чугунъ), выпулилъ глаза, вмсто выпялилъ глаза, вечиръ вмсто вечеръ, смички, гарбузъ - арбузъ и проч. As for the map, it, unlike your clearly marks territory which is a hybrid dialect, and territory which is Ukrainian. If you disagree with me, I will begin a WP:DR process, I've had enough of POV's thrown at Kuban Cossacks. -- Kuban Cossack 16:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I reworked the paragraph without referring it to either Russian or Ukrianian. I also added the source from an encyclopaedia. I hope that settles it. -- Hillock65 18:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Малоруський та великоруський мови / малорусский а великорусский языкы (Speakers in the Russian Empire sub-section, in the table header): As no one expressing moderate, balanced views in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Byelorussia and places in independant countries where Russian is widely used (Kazakhstan, for example) does not use these words of Little or Great (or White, either) Russian nowadays, why do we use them here? This is clearly derogative, and every time I ask Russians what they mean about these words, only chauvinistic, nationalistic partisans use them — not the moderate Russians. I still put this question around in Peterburg and Moscow last week, just before the legislative elections, and the divide was clearly visible here too between true democrats or rather opinionless people on one side, and partisans of Putin and others on the other 'side', including assumed backward-looking or self-proclaimed partisans of a return to some 'new old' Empire-like state of things.
Would not it be good to live in the present time, and limit the use of such words to specific articles, like the one about the
Great Russian language (which does not state what the Russian article says, by the way, nor do the
History of the Russian language and
Russian language ones).
I wish these lines were not to be the beginning of any raging (but undesirable) war… If so, I will stay apart.
— Kanġi Oĥanko (
talk)
10:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Последовательное и систематическое искоренение украинского языка нашло свое наиболее яркое отражение в знаменитом валуевском циркуляре 1863 г., наложившем запрет на печатание учебной и научно-популярной литературы на украинском языке под тем предлогом, что «oни весьма основательно доказывают, что никакого особенного малороссийского языка не было, нет и быть не может и что наречие их, употребляемое простонародьем, есть тот же русский язык, только испорченный влиянием на него Польши». С неимоверными трудностями украинский язык преодолевал подобные полицейские рогатки, но развиваться нормально в таких условиях, безусловно, не мог, что привело почти к полному исчезновению украинского языка изо всех областей культурной и общественно-политической жизни. В 1876 г. царское правительство запретило печатание большинства видов литературы на украинском языке, а также ввоз любых украинских изданий из-за рубежа («Эмский указ»). Этот указ оставался в силе и применялся вплоть до революции 1905 г., которая вынудила царское правительство дать некоторые послабления, просуществовавшие очень недолго и уничтоженные в период реакции.
Царский режим неимоверно глушил и временами почти совершенно устранял малейшие возможности для развития украинского языка, но ему не удалось и не могло удаться полицейскими мерами окончательно искоренить украинский язык, так как существовал живой народный язык, остающийся неизменной основой для литературного языка. Bandurist ( talk) 14:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
The wikibooks link to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ukrainian does not work properly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.202.233 ( talk) 10:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I suggest deleting the sentence "Ukrainians tend to pronounce long sounds where the letters are doubled in other languages, English or Russian, for example" from the Sounds section. This type of pronunciation is erroneous and clearly influenced by the Russian language. If the purpose of this section is to analyze common mistakes people make, then other errors must be discussed as well.
The Sounds section also contains the questionable statement that the Old East Slavic letter г denoted /g/. I find it more likely that г used to be fricative in old Russian, which is suggested by its mutation into ж when palatalized (нога — ножка), its lenition when it is devoiced (снег, когти), and its traditional fricative pronunciation in the word Господи.
Sclerolith ( talk) 07:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I find it very awkward that the Croatian language is identified as being related to Ukrainian, yet Serbian nor Bosnian are, even though they are the same languages? Does the Croatian language take precedence over the other languages? The articles needs to be edited to include all the languages, if one is mentioned. The Croatian language as of late, does not use the Cyrillic alphabet, so in reality they would not be able to read any Ukrainian, since they can't read their alphabet. I myself have know Cyrillic as well as Serbo-croatian, and I can confirm that are languages are related, because in many of the pictures I can understand most of the words. Such as the one with the Ukrainian schools for Ukrainian children: Ukrajnskој djeci Ukrajnsku Skolu Украјнској Дјеци Украјнску Школу So if anything, I think Serbian would be more appropriate to add, since the majority of Croatians don't know Cyrillic. 67.204.1.106 ( talk) 00:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I am Ugo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.182.193.194 ( talk) 20:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Regarding KK's edit labelled Alphabet: Oh come on, there is not a source that links grammatical reforms with political scenes, why can't one try and keep sensitive topics neutral:
Since language was traditionally equated with the survival of national distinctiveness, it is not surprising that among Skrypnyk's greatest sins was his promotion of Ukrainian language reforms, including linguistic purism and a new orthography (popularly known as the skrypnykivka) approved in 1928. Seemingly esoteric academic issues took on profound political significance: the revised Ukrainian alphabet and the search for a 'pure' Ukrainian vocabulary offered clear evidence, in the words of one critic, that 'Comrade Skrypnyk ... had taken the path of alienating the Ukrainian language from Russian and bringing it closer to Polish.' (Magocsi 1996:567)
No one could be sure that a neighbor, a co-worker, even a family member was not a secret police informer ready to accuse him or her of being a counterrevolutionary, because of some offhand comment or joke about daily life, or—absurd as it may sound—such things as favoring use of the letter G (a Ukrainian Cyrillic letter that does not appear in Russian) in the 'Skrypnyk alphabet'. (Magocsi 1996:567)
With regard to cultural life, the goal after 1933 was to reverse the policy of the previous years, in which Shums’kyi's and Skrypnyk's 'nefarious' policies had brought about 'forced Ukrainianization.' More and more emphasis was to be given to Russian culture and the Russian language, considered the medium through which the world's 'first socialist state' had been created. In 1933, the alphabet and language reforms instituted in 1928 were abolished, and decrees were passed requiring that in its alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar the Ukrainian language be brought steadily closer to Russian. By 1937, Soviet ideologists were proposing the intimate union of the two languages, and the following year a law was passed providing for a rigid system of language training designed to ensure that all Ukrainians, whether in the cities or the countryside, would have a fluent command of Russian. (Magocsi 1996:570–71)
One can find more, but this should be enough to justify restoring the article to the previous revision. — Michael Z. 2008-05-14 12:07 z
In my opinion but not only opinion but also facts i would say there is no clear ukrainian language. People around Lvov speak one type and people around Poltava speak different type. I agree with Lomonosov in this case. The language spoken in Lvov had strong influence of polish. Because by historical facts we know that Lvov and western part of ukraine has been taken away by poland. Before that it that there were several russian kingdoms lying on that land with capital of kiev. That is why it was called "kievan rus". By the way rus is older name for russia and is still widely used. After polish took over tha land they started forcing the locals to catholic church and polish language. Since people did not want to change from orthodox to catholic. Polish created an uniat church which was a mix of catholic and orthodox beliefs. After almost 300 hundred years russia got half of ukraine back, but other half remaind with poland for 200 more years. Because of that long period under polish government western ukraine is now talks that language. Eastern part however spoke russian and surzhik for long time. Surshik appeared because of westerners movin to east 1600-1900 and mixing with russian speaking population. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxater ( talk • contribs) 23:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow. What an opinion. My folks came from Poltava. My wife was born in Lviv. I have toured most of Ukraine, Poland and the Kuban with concerts. Yes there are some differences in the language from Western Ukraine to the Kuban, primarily lexical, however it is the same language. It baffles me when some people say that Western Ukrainian is not understandable by Ukrainians in the Kuban. It makes me laugh when half their songs are originally from Western Ukraine only with the word striletz (rifleman) substituted by the word kozak. Surzhik does exists, primarily in the urban centres and primarily spoken by people with an incomplete education. I did not hear it in the Kuban however, nor in the many collective farms I performed in . Bandurist ( talk) 20:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Please don't feed the trolls. This one hasn't been active on Wikipedia for three months, so there's no point in continuing the chatter. — Michael Z. 2008-08-07 18:37 z
Is it the fact that Eneyida was the first publicised literary work in the Ukrainian? What does support this hypothesis? What about the Ruska Biblia? It was published before that. Aleksandr Grigoryev ( talk) 20:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it is wrong to call changing the language on the signs as the Ukrainization. It sounds as something forceful which in truth is something logical. The sign in the Kyivan metro is provided to the Ukrainian citizens who pay their taxes to their government therefore for convenience purposes they have the sign to inform them. On the other hand, what kind of a citizen would not be able to speak their own language? The Russian-speaking, of course. For him or her, everybody needs to speak Russian and therefore any extension on the freedoms of other languages perceived to be offensive towards him or her. Is it fair and civil? Is it logical? The answer is no! I understand when in the Russian Federation, for example Taganrog or Voronezh, placing Ukrainian language based signs would be perceived as a process of the Ukrainization; or placing such signs in Peremyshl or Sanok in Poland.
On another note, how come publically funded schools in Ukraine have nerve to protest conversion of them into the Ukrainian speaking? How do those teacher contribute to provide the residence with the foreign language? Using the tax money of the Ukrainian citizens in their personal interest and the interest of the foreign land. Why does Ukraine need such teachers? Russian as any other foreign language should be the primary language of privately owned schools. Aleksandr Grigoryev ( talk) 20:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I have heard this from a friend, but can't find a sollid reference for it (for now). Is it true? — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 08:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
No. This may have been true in the Shelest years, but under Brezhnev they worked in exemptions initially from children of military who were on temporary assignement, then all military, then those who had moved from other republics, and then gradually to include anyone who wanted their child exempt.
Another interesting point was that although Russian language teachers were paid initially the same as Ukrainian langiuage teachers, during the breahnev years they introduced an additional bonus to the the pay of Russian teachers. (I think 35%) which once again stacked the cards agains Ukrainian language.
They also changed the name of the subject from "Russkiy yazyk" (Russian language) to "Rodnaya Rech" (True/ spesking????/ My language?).
Bandurist ( talk) 15:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Дякую :))))))))))) — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 21:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand why this phrase is at the top of this article or come to think of it, why is it there at all? "The language shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Polish and Slovak in the West, and Belarusan and Russian in the North and the East."
If you think, that's significant, then a similar, equivalent phrase should be added to Polish, Slovak, Belarussan and Russian laungages as well. Why is only Ukrainian selected as if to imply that's it's not a real language. I am truly tired of this anti Ukrainian bias on Wikipedia. Anytime I look something up, there is always some offensive phrase added. Enough of this already. Please remove this phrase or add it to ALL other Slavic langauges who ALL share some vocabulary with their respective Slavic neighbours. Funny how you all insist that Ukrainian is similar to Russian and Polish and yet in the same breath claim that a language practically IDENTICAL to Ukrainian - Rusyn is a separate langauge. It is really a shame that a a group of individuals have taken a knowledge site hostage and is using it to push their own political agenda —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.228.193 ( talk) 02:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if it was done with malicious intent but the English wikipages Russians in Ukraine + Russian language in Ukraine did gave the impression that some form of slow genoicide of Russian was taken place in Ukraine before I started to work on the pages (on a Ukrainian national survey only 0,5% of respondents felt they where discriminated because of their language!!!). Hence the first times I was in Kyiv I was very surpriced to find out that a lot of pro-Ukrainians speak mostly Russian... I do believe the situation is better now, editors on Ukrainian topics in wikipedia do not display ultra-nationalistic views anymore these days. — Mariah-Yulia ( talk) 09:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement that "almost all" Ukrainian citizens in modern Ukraine speak Ukrainian. I dont want to get wrapped up in your nationalist arguments - I really am just a passive observer - but I lived for a year in Donetsk teaching English. I met only a few people who told me that they "spoke" ukrainian. They understand it of course, but they don't (and can't) speak it. Its enough to go and listen to Yanukovich give a speech in Ukrainian :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.75.208.200 ( talk) 14:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I live in Donetsk and easily can speake ukrainian, same as all my friends and etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.31.179.210 ( talk) 11:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not a linguist, but if you look at any other language page, you will see what a real grammar page looks like. What is described in the grammar section, I think, is called Morphology. It needs attention from an expert on the subject. 72.78.25.72 ( talk) 21:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
In the opening paragraph of the Ukrainian Diaspora section, there is the phrase "Canada and the United States are also home to a large Ukrainian population." There is not, however, an entry for the United States in the list. Did this get accidentally deleted at some point, or is there a reason for its absence? Does anyone know the number from a reliable source? 216.49.181.254 ( talk) 17:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Some very intelligent people, linguisists, intellectuals ( Anatoly Vasserman - http://vz.ru/news/2009/3/16/265622.html), etc. claim that Ukrainian is NOT a language, but a dialect of Russian. For example, up until 19th century there was no literature in Ukrainian. And many other such proves. What do you think? How would you argue Mr. Vasserman? Would you argue at all? Are these people factually correct (if not politically)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mizanthrop ( talk • contribs) 08:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Done! — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 09:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Placing the political comments in the lead was mabey a bit over the top... I agree with your latest edits! — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 15:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) You don't understand how Wikipedia works. I don't have to provide the full quote for everything written in Wikipedia, just a source where you, yourself, can look it up to verify it. Do not remove anything in that paragraph. It is all properly referenced by reliable sources and verifiable. I don't have to provide you with the hard copy, it is your responsibility to look it up yourself if you don't think it is there. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
(outdent)Your edits that try to de-emphasize the fact that the Eastern Slavic languages are virtually one language based on the strictly linguistic criterion of mutual intelligibility are not based on actual scholarly sources, but upon your own POV. I read on your talk page that you pushed for Rusyn to be considered a dialect of Ukrainian. It seems rather hypocritical to push for the inclusion in Ukrainian of Rusyn because of mutual intelligibility, but fight against discussing Russian/Belarusan/Ukrainian as a single language despite their mutual intelligibility. The linguistic scholarly literature on the subject all agrees that the Eastern Slavic languages are mutually intelligible. Some list them as three separate languages, some list them as one language. Those are the linguistic facts and the paragraph is very clear on that fact. -- Taivo ( talk) 18:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Respectable organisations like the UN and the BBC treat Ukrainian as a separate language; should there be some mentioning of that in this article? — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 00:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
This article focusses on external history and politics. There's a place for this but it doesn't fit into the usual format for an article on a specific language or dialect. If you look at, for instance, Scots, whose position is similar, or Basque, which is also in quite a politicised situation, whereas the politics and history of those forms of speech are covered, it's from an internal perspective, whereas this article fails to inform in that respect. I don't know anything about the politics of Ukrainian aside from the general politics of minority languages in the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire, but I think this needs to have a different title and there should be a separate article on the Ukrainian language from the perspective of the likes of internal history, morphology, phonology and the like. Right now, this is not informative in the right way. I came here to compare this with standard Russian and it's not very helpful in that respect.
Nineteenthly ( talk) 07:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The first paragraph in this "History" section is not PC and should be removed, or moved to another page.
Language is a social phenomenon, and is intimately tied to national and cultural identity. The implication of the paragraph, that Ukrainian, Belorussian and Russian are considered (albeit for the purposes of comparison) by linguists to be one language, is offensive to Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Russians, who have the right to their own language, culture and national identity. This paragraph should be removed from this, the main page describing the Ukrainian language, and, perhaps, moved to a different page, discussing the commonalities between the Slavic tongues.
In the end, it IS true that what constitutes a language vs. a "dialect" or “variant” is up for the speakers to decide, not linguists, no matter their qualifications.
There is no evidence to support the theory that a proto-“western” Slavic language (as opposed to a proto-“Eastern” Slavic language ever existed. The distinction between the Eastern and Western Slavic languages is purely geographical, and does not imply any commonality nor links between grammar or vocabulary. Modern Ukrainian and Belorussian can just as easily be grouped together with Polish. In fact, Ukrainian is closer to Polish than Russian in many aspects, including basic vocabulary words, number of cases (7 for Polish and Ukrainian, vs. 6 in Russian), use of particles, sentence structure, and verb conjugations (Ukrainian and Polish both have a true future form, where Russian does not.) Insofar as mutual intelligibility is concerned, among educated speakers, the Slavic languages in general are as mutually intelligible as the neo-latin group. The existence of “Surzhyk” in Ukraine does not imply that the speakers are using a common language any more than “Portuñol” speakers in the bordering regions of Brazil and Argentina are speaking a common Spanish/Portuguese hybrid language. I believe it would be difficult to say that Portuguese and Spanish are simply dialects of a common “Western Neo-Latin” language, no one claims to speak. The fact that Portuguese and certain dialects of Spain did not become distinct languages until the 16th century is proof to the contrary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BohdanH ( talk • contribs) 20:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
This discussion kind of got segmented, so I'm going to initiate a single thread. There are several layers to the question of whether Ukrainian is part of a single East Slavic language or a separate language within an East Slavic groups of languages. Each deserves to be dealt with, but I'm not sure that all the issues are necessarily relevant to this article because some are theoretical and practical issues within the science of linguistics rather than specific to Ukrainian.
So that's what we have here and what I tried to maintain in the paragraph in question--that there are more factors than just mutual intelligibility involved and that there are scholarly sources that link them. I'm not sure how much detail we actually need to cover in dealing with this issue, but since readers might very well encounter works that mention the single-language option, it needs to mentioned here and why. -- Taivo ( talk) 03:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
(outdent)Yes, we can actually assume dialect diversity in any language that occupies a sufficiently large land area. Same is true for England in the early Middle Ages as well. We usually start dating dialect differentiation that can lead to different languages, however, based on some migration event or some historical break. Dialect differentiation actually begins on the day that one village splits and half the villagers go to live on the other side of the river. So linguistically dating dialect differentiation isn't an exact science. That's why we usually tie it to historical events when we can actually see a split in the historical record. Otherwise it's just supposition. -- Taivo ( talk) 20:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)