Languages of Ukraine
Getting by in a bilingual society
Ukrainian and Russian both belong to the Slavic language family — languages considered difficult for native English speakers because of their different alphabet (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Macedonian), complex system of endings, perfective and imperfective verb forms, unpredictable accents within words, difficult pronunciation, and different mindset from romance or germanic languages. That being said, the hardest part is simply getting started. After that it's just like learning any foreign language.
Ukrainian and Russian language distribution
Ukraine and Russian are used roughly equally across Ukraine. While the official state language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, the preferred spoken language in most cities of southern, eastern, and northern Ukraine is Russian.
In Kiev and many other regions use of Ukrainian has been increasing and instruction in most schools is in Ukrainian. The percentage of people speaking Ukrainian "on the street" is about 30% in Kiev, 40-80% in Zhytomyr, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskyy, and Chernivtsi, 5-10% in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odessa, 1-5% in Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk, and 80-98% in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil (these are just approximations). Rural areas have a significantly higher concentration of Ukrainian speakers and speakers of "Surzhyk" (Ukrainian mixed with Russian), however, the most literary Ukrainian is spoken by educated individuals in the cities.
Ukrainian tends to be spoken at government institutions and is the language of most official events. Russian is often more popular in business, where pragmatism reigns. In certain areas of business — for example, programming — Russian is clearly predominant. In fact, I recently read that 80% of Ukrainian websites are in Russian. Most university and school instruction is in Ukrainian, even in many areas where Russian speakers predominate. This is a topic of frequent political debate: should there be more Russian schools? Should Russian be made the second official language?
- article on Ukrainization issues and arguments in Ukraine
Mixing Ukrainian and Russian
Fortunately, there is generally not much antagonism between Russian and Ukrainian speakers. Antagonism tends to occur among people who only speak one of the languages and feel alienated when surrounded by people who speak the other language. Luckily, much of the country is bilingual — especially the well-educated. Often you hear two people having a conversation where one is speaking Russian and the other Ukrainian. They may not even realize that this is going on.
While educated people usually speak clean literary Russian and/or Ukrainian, large segments of the population — for example, street vendors, laborers, farmers, and many others — speak a mixture of the two languages that leans either towards Russian or Ukrainian. This mix is commonly called "Surzhyk" or "Surzhik." It is also a fact that there are quite a few more people in Ukraine who speak clean Russian than clean Ukrainian.
Is the same Russian spoken in Ukraine as in Russia?
Among educated Russian speakers you will find a few minor differences in pronunciation from "classic" Russian. For example, the [g] sound is often pronounced [h] (which Russians in Russia often make fun of), and there are slight differences in intonation and speaking style. This can hardly be considered a reason not to choose Ukraine as a place to study Russian, though! In fact, "Moscow Russian" has just as many, if not more, idiosyncracies.
- read about language programs in Ukraine
How easy is it to learn Ukrainian if you know Russian?
If you happen to be fluent in Russian, several months of passive exposure is generally enough to learn to understand a lot of Ukrainian — or vice versa. In fact, westerners usually have an easier time learning Ukrainian than Russian, since it has fewer palatized, or "soft" consonants (t', d', l', r', s', and so on) and fewer difficult consonant clusters (str, vstv, and the like). Ukrainian and Russian share much of their vocabulary but have different pronunciation paradigms. Nonetheless, learning Ukrainian from a base of Russian or vice-versa is much easier than mastering a new language from scratch.
Can I pick up Russian or Ukrainian while in Ukraine?
Being an English speaking foreigner in Ukraine actually puts you at a disadvantage if you are trying to learn Ukrainian or Russian, since so many people will want to practice their English with you. For this reason it is essential that you learn the basics of the language first in your home country so that you can begin communicating in Russian or Ukrainian immediately upon arrival (if you have plans to learn the language, of course). So many western expats in Ukraine claim to want to learn to speak the language, but not too many do — except for those who already spoke it when they arrived. The path of least resistance for English speaking foreigners is usually too powerful to overcome. What's more, the older you get, the less your brain feels like changing its structure around, which is what is necessary to become fluent in a foreign language.
If you are already in Ukraine and nonetheless decide to learn Ukrainian or Russian from scratch, enroll in language courses or find a one-on-one tutor and devote at least an hour or two a day to serious language study. Otherwise the chances of overcoming the tendency to revert to your native language are very slim. Keep in mind that it takes months just to begin understanding normal conversation, not to mention expressing your thoughts coherently, and by the time this happens you will have already picked up a half-dozen friends who speak English with you. Trying to switch the language you speak with your friends is for all intents and purposes impossible. If you want to speak Russian or Ukrainian you will have to find new friends who speak it with you from the very beginning or make friends with a lot of babushki who you are certain will never learn a word of English.
 Read tips for learning Russian and Ukrainian for expats in Ukraine
Some speculation on the future of Russian in Ukraine
It would be naïve to think that after a generation or two of "Ukrainization" Russian will disappear or play a marginal role in Ukrainian society. People very rarely change their mother tongue and are almost always successful in passing it on to their children, regardless of the language of instruction in schools. The proportion of Ukrainians who consider Ukrainian or Russian their mother tongue has remained stable over the years.
If the Ukrainian government system tries to totally marginalize the Russian language, and a generation of people arises that has been incubated from the Russian language and culture by an education system that ignores anything Russian, I would expect to see Russia-related fads appear among youth such as a fascination with Russian literature and film, etc. as a sort of "boomerang effect."
Over time, if Ukraine is able to preserve its independence, we might expect to see more and more differences accumulate between the Russian spoken in Ukraine and that of Russia. This process is similar to how British English and American English have differentiated. Russians (in Russia) have constant exposure to the great Russian literary classics and Russian cultural roots, which anchor the language to centuries-old literary traditions. Russian speaking Ukrainians, on the other hand, may gradually have fewer and fewer bonds to these traditions, and their language may undergo greater changes, especially if Russian is not taught in schools. Even today we see many young people whose mother tongue is Russian but who cannot write properly in the language since they have learned to write in Ukrainian at school, but they cannot speak Ukrainian fluently.
My prediction is that Ukrainian Russian will be influenced by the Ukrainian language more and more, with people first using Ukrainian words for added effect as they do today, then eventually incorporating them in regular speech. Secondly, Ukraine's national character — which is recognizably different from Russia's and likely to differentiate even more in coming decades — will continue to influence the language. Ukrainian Russian will likely become more terse and pragmatic, cut off from Russia's heavy-weight literary traditions — much like American English has come to differ from British. Eventually a unique Ukrainian style of Russian may gain literary recognition. |
