Ukrainian language — facts and uniqueness

Ukrainian (Ukr. українська мова) is one of Eastern Slavic languages. It is the state language of Ukraine. It is the native language, according to data of 1993, for 37 million people in the world, and about 47 million have a command of this language. The science about Ukrainian is called Ukrainian linguistics. Writing is created on the basis of Cyrillics.

Differences from other Slavic languages

Ukrainian has lines which pull together or distance it from other Slavic languages such as Polish, Belarusian, Russian, Bulgarian and Slovak. Lexically the next to Ukrainian is the Belarusian language (84% of the general lexicon), then Polish (70%), Slovak (68%) and Russian (62%).

Specifics of language are found in word-formation models and the most boldly in lexicon, in so-called lexical ukrainizms.

Influence of Ukrainian on other Slavic languages is noticeable, especially on Polish, and also into Russian and the Belarusian language. The Ukrainian word «czereśnia» — sweet cherry was borrowed to Polish, «galushki» (dumplings) was borrowed to Russian , Romanian «ştiucă» was borrowed from Ukrainian “shchuka” (a pike), «holub» — a pigeon etc.

Influence of Ukrainian felt also lexicon of the South Russian dialect of Russian. This influence on Nizhny Don is most noticeable: baidyuge (indifferentely), zhmenya(pellet), drabyna (ladder), zayevy (extra), kodra (blanket), kokhat (love), nekhai ( though), nekhayanny (messy), pozychyt(borrow/lend), repatsya(start up), trokhy (a little bit), troshky (a little bit), shlyakh (highway), shukat (look for), etc. Thus, part from borrowed words are of the Polish origin.

The interesting facts about Ukrainian

• The most ancient mention of Ukrainian is dated 858, and for the first time Ukrainian was equated to level of the literary language at the end of the XVIII century after the release of the first «Eneiida» edition in 1798 which author is Ivan Kotlyarevsky. He is also considered as the founder of the new Ukrainian literary language.
• Ukrainian is one of the most widespread languages in the world and according to the number of native speakers it takes the 26th place. Also it the second in prevalence among languages of a Slavic origin after Russian. In the territory of Ukraine there are more than 32 million persons who communicate in Ukrainian. About 4,2 million more Ukrainians live in the Russian Federation and also know Ukrainian.
• An interesting fact about Ukrainian is that, it enters the top three the most beautiful languages in the world. At the language competitions in Italy and France it was recognized as the second melodical languages.
• Letter «p» is the most common letter in the Ukrainian alphabet. Also the greatest number of words begins on this letter. Whereas the least often letter «f» is used. In Ukrainian, words which begin on this letter, in most cases were borrowed from other languages.
• The name of one of pesticides «dikhlordifeniltrikhlormetilmetan» is the longest word in Ukrainian. It contains thirty letters.
• The longest abbreviation in Ukrainian is «ЦНДІТЕДМП» which is deciphered as the Central research institute of information and technical and economic researches on logistics. It consists about nine letters.
• The greatest number of synonyms has the word «byt'». According to «The short dictionary of synonyms of Ukrainian» there are about 45 variants of it.
• Some facts about palindromes (a word, a word combination or a phrase which can be read both from left to right, and from right to left, thus sounding and meanings don’t change). In Ukrainian there are only two seven alphabetic palindromes: «rotator» and «tartrate». And to the longest phrases of palindromes belong «Я несу гусеня»(Ya nesu gusenya – I carry a gosling) and «Аргентина манить негра» (Argentyna manyt’ negra – Argentine attracts an Afroamerican). In the latter case the letter «myagki znak» — «letter after soft consonant» aren’t considered . Such small violations of smooth surface are allowed, after all drawing up compositions is a difficult issue.

We hope you liked these informative and fascinating facts about Ukrainian and you could find here something useful personally for you.