Hello, everyone.
Welcome to the Langfocus channel, and my name is Paul.
Today, we're going to look at the differences
between two languages that many people mistakenly think are the same,
Russian and Ukrainian.
The misconception that Russian and Ukrainian are the same
might stem from the fact that Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine.
The numbers differ depending on the survey, but according to one 2015 survey
60% of Ukrainians consider Ukrainian their native language,
15% consider Russian to be their native language
and 22% consider both to be their native languages.
These numbers do not include Crimea, which has been annexed by Russia,
or parts of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk,
which are not currently under Ukrainian control.
Those areas have a Russian-speaking majority.
It's also worth noting that most Ukrainian speakers can also speak Russian,
even if it's as a second language.
Some people may hear Ukrainians speaking Russian and think to themselves,
"Wow, Ukrainian is so similar to Russian".
But, what they should say to themselves is,
"Wow, Russian is so similar to Russian".
On top of that some people use a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian called Surzhyk,
and they may not be consciously aware of
which elements are Ukrainian and which are Russian.
This code-mixing may also blur the lines between Ukrainian and Russian.
However, despite the sometimes unclear delineation between the two languages,
Standard Russian and Standard Ukrainian are clearly distinct,
and the vernacular speech of most people is also clearly distinct.
Both languages developed from the Old East Slavic language,
which comprised a set of mutually intelligible dialects
spoken within the Federation of Rus,
which later came to be referred to as Kievan Rus.
These Old East Slavic speakers are thought of
as the ancestors of today's Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.
When Kievan Rus fell, the Slavic tribes were divided into two separate states,
and the Old East Slavic dialects in those separate states
began to grow apart from each other and undergo different influences.
Tribes to the east came under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Moscow,
and their dialects evolved into Russian.
Standard Russian, which is dominant today,
developed with more influence from Old Church Slavonic,
the old Slavic literary language which differed from vernacular dialects.
Also, under Peter the Great,
who aimed to turn Russia into a major Western power.
Russian adopted a significant amount of vocabulary
from French and other European languages.
Tribes to the west came under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania,
and then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Standard Ukrainian was based on spoken vernacular
specifically the southeastern dialects,
and lacks much of the Old Church Slavonic influence that Russian has.
Ukrainian also underwent a lot of Polish influence
due to geographic proximity and Polish political control,
with Polish being a lingua franca for a period of time.
This is especially true in Western Ukrainian dialects.
Now, let's cut to the chase and start looking at the languages themselves.
Vocabulary.
Russian and Ukrainian share about 62% lexical similarity.
I personally found this number surprisingly low.
Ukrainian has a higher lexical similarity
with Polish, Slovak and Belarusian, than it does with Russian,
especially with Belarusian.
Even among very basic words there are lots of differences.
The word for paper.
In Ukrainian: papir,
and in Russian: bumaga.
I suspect the Ukrainian word was borrowed from Polish,
which in turn borrowed it from German.
The word for sugar: tsukor - sakhar
Both of these words are cognates that trace back to Proto-Indo-European.
The Russian word traces back to Old East Slavic,
while the Ukrainian word was borrowed from Polish,
which borrowed it from German.
The word for money: hroshi - den'gi.
This Russian word is a borrowing from a Turkic language,
but Russian also has a cognate of the Ukrainian word: groshi,
which refers to pennies or a small amount of money,
and is also the name of some older types of coins.
The word for mourning: ranok - utro
The word for bottle: plyashka,
this word traces back to Polish and then to German,
butylka, this Russian word is also a loanword from Polish
which in turn got it from French.
In Polish, "butelka" is a more general word,
while "flaszka" is more for hard liquor.
Also, the names of months are different.
In Russian, the names of months came from Latin via Old Church Slavonic.
In Ukrainian, the names of the months are original vernacular Slavic words.
For example, January. In Russian : yanvar'
and in Ukrainian: sichen'
and February: fevral' - lyutyy, and so on
As with most languages which are closely related,
there are lots of false friends in Russian and Ukrainian.
Words that appear to have the same meaning, but actually don't.
"chas", this Ukrainian word means time.
"chas", this Russian word means hour.
"harbuz", this means pumpkin.
"arbuz", and this means watermelon.
"nedilya", this means Sunday.
"nedelya", and this means week.
"svaryty", and this means to scold in the imperfective form.
"svarit'", and this means to boil in the perfective form
"svit", this word means world.
"svet", this means light.
This Russian word does have a secondary meaning of "world",
but only in some fixed expressions.
"layaty", this means to scold
"layat'", this word means to bark.
Orthography and pronunciation.
Both languages use varieties of the Cyrillic alphabet,
but there are a number of differences
between the Russian variety and the Ukrainian variety.
First, Ukrainian has this letter, which represents the sound g,
but Russian doesn't have this letter.
In Russian g is represented by this letter,
In Ukrainian, this letter is normally pronounced as h.
Next, Ukrainian has this letter which represents the sound i,
but Russian doesn't have this letter.
In Russian this letter represents the sound i,
Ukrainian has this letter which represents the sound ye.
In Russian this letter represents the similar sound ye.
But, in Ukrainian this letter represents the sound e,
and in Russian that sound e is represented by this letter,
a letter which isn't used in Ukrainian.
Russian has this letter which represents the sound e,
a letter which Ukrainian doesn't have.
Instead, in Ukrainian this letter represents the equivalent sound,
in addition to the sound e.
For example, the words meaning "soap",
in Russian "mylo" and in Ukranian "mylo".
Ukrainian has this letter to represent the sound yi
but Russian doesn't have this letter.
In Russian, this sound is represented by a combination of two letters.
Russian has this letter to represent the sound yo,
but Ukrainian doesn't use this letter,
instead it uses a combination of two letters.
Russian has this special letter that doesn't represent a sound,
but indicates that the previous consonant is in it's hard consonant form
in a context where you would expect the soft consonant form.
Ukrainian doesn't use this letter,
but instead uses an apostrophe after the consonant.
So, in Russian, it's written like this "ob"yekt",
while in Ukrainian, it's written like this "ob"yekt".
Grammar.
The concepts of grammar, in Russian and Ukrainian, are generally the same.
They both have three genders masculine, feminine, and neuter.
They both have almost the same set of noun cases,
that apply to adjectives and pronouns, as well.
They share the same major verb conjugations, and so on.
But, the exact word forms are often different,
or at least not entirely the same.
Let's look at the different case forms
for the noun meaning "head" in both languages.
These words are cognates.
In Russian: golova, and in Ukrainian: holova
These are both in the nominative singular form.
Notice that in the nominative singular,
they are spelled exactly the same,
but sound fairly different.
The first consonant is one that I mentioned before,
which normally sounds like g in Russian,
but h in Ukrainian.
In Russian, the o vowel is frequently reduced to a or swha a when unstressed,
while in Ukrainian it tends to not be reduced.
Now, looking at the case forms,
one thing to notice is that the case endings have some different vowels.
Some are different letters representing equivalent sounds.
For example, the Russian genitive singular "golovy",
and the Ukrainian genitive singular, "holovy".
Others represent different sounds.
For example, the Russian dative singular "golove",
and Ukrainian dative singular "holovi".
Another thing to notice is that while Ukrainian has a vocative case,
Russian does not
The vocative form is the form you use when you are addressing
or calling someone or something.
The old vocative form was lost from Russian,
except for a few specific words.
For example, when addressing God.
Bozhe.
It seems that it's being used less and less in spoken Ukrainian, as well.
But, it's still used by some and is part of standard Ukrainian.
In Russian, a new vocative form is apparently starting to develop,
in which the final vowel is dropped,
usually from names and familial words.
For example, "mama" becomes "mam".
But, whether or not it's a genuine vocative case form is debated.
Another common difference is that in Russian, the copula - byt'-
the word meaning "to be" is not used in the present tense
This is often true in Ukrainian too,
which has a lot of dialectal variation.
But, in formal standard speech, and in western dialects closer to Poland,
the copula is commonly used.
For example, let's look at the sentences meaning "this is illegal".
In Russian: eto nezakonno.
In Ukrainian, it could be similar: tse nezakonno.
Or, it might have the copula like this:
tse ye nezakonno
In western Ukraine, it might be like this: to ye nezakonno
"to ye" is similar to "to jest" in Polish.
Another difference is that Ukrainian has some additional verb conjugations,
that Russian doesn't have.
In Ukrainian, there's an additional way to express the imperfective future
that Russian doesn't have.
Take the sentence meaning "they will be eating"
or "they will eat" in an imperfective tense.
In Russian: Oni budut yest'.
And now in Ukrainian, first with an equivalent structure:
Vony budut' yisty.
In both languages, there's the subject pronoun, the third-person plural,
then the future conjugation of the verb meaning "to be",
followed by the infinitive of the lexical verb,
the main verb that supplies the core meaning.
But, Ukrainian also has this form: Vony yistymut'.
rather than using the verb "to be"
a suffix is attached to the infinitive,
followed by the same future inflection that appeared on the verb meaning "to be".
This alternate conjugation is called the imperfective synthetic future tense.
Ukrainian also has a pluperfect conjugation that Russian doesn't have,
though not everyone uses it in Ukrainian anymore.
For example, here's a sentence meaning:
"I had been reading this book, but I forgot its contents".
Ya chytav buv tsyu knyzhku, ta zabuv yiyi zmist.
The pluperfect is formed
with the past tense perfective form of the lexical verb,
followed by the past tense of the verb meaning "to be".
In Russian, the sentence would be:
Ya chital etu knigu no zabyl yeyo soderzhaniye.
In Russian, the past tense perfective form of the verb is used,
rather than a special pluperfect form.
This might be a good time to stop for a moment,
and examine some other differences between these two sentences,
Before, we saw that the words for "this" are different,
that was in the neuter nominative form.
Here they are, both in the feminine accusative form,
and again they take on slightly different forms.
Next, notice the words meaning book are cognate,
but with different forms.
The Ukrainian word is in its diminutive form,
knyzhku,
which is the everyday way to say book.
It can also be said with the same form as in Russian,
but that would be more formal in Ukrainian.
In Russian, there is also a diminutive form,
kishka,
it's less common than in Ukrainian,
and is even more informal word for a book or something like a booklet.
Both words are in the accusative singular form here.
Notice that the words for "but" are different.
However, it's worthnoting that the primary meaning of the Ukrainian word is "and".
and this word "ale" is a more common word for "but".
And, notice the cognate words meaning "forgot"
that takes somewhat different forms.
"ee" these are the third-person feminine singular genitive personal pronouns,
and these words are cognates.
And finally, we see the nouns meaning content.
The Russian word "soderzhaniye" consists of the verb "soderzat"
meaning "to contain" plus "anije" a suffix that forms abstract nouns from verbs.
The Ukrainian word is a simple noun that isn't composed of these two parts.
Another difference is that Russian, at least formal Russian,
makes use of active participles
to give extra information about a noun or a noun phrase,
while Ukrainian does not.
For example, the phrases meaning "the woman sitting on the chair".
First, in Russian: zhenshchina sidyashchaya na stule.
This phrase has an active participant.
But, in Ukrainian this meaning would be expressed using a relative clause
zhinka, shcho sydyt' ba stil'tsi.
This is like saying, "the woman that sits on the chair".
That's also how this meeting would be expressed in daily speech in Russian
zhenshchina, kotoraya sidit na stule.
In a Russian sentence, the relative pronoun is "kotoraya"
But, in Ukrainian there are several possibilities,
"kotryy", which is cognate with the Russian word "yakyy" or "shcho",
as in the sentence above.
And, as a side note, look at the different forms the word for woman takes.
In Russian, it's "zhenshchina",
while in Ukranian it's "zhinka".
The preposition meaning "on" is the same,
except for slightly different vowel quality.
And, the word for "chair" are clearly related, but take on different forms.
In the most basic form, the nominative singular,
the Russian word is "stule"
and the Ukrainian word is "stil'tsi".
Here they are in the locative case,
though for Russian, it's often referred to as the prepositional case.
Now, let's look at one final sentence and see what we find.
These sentences mean 'I can't go because I'll be working tomorrow'.
In Russian: Ya ne mogu poyti, potomu chto zavtra (ya) budu rabotat'.
And in Ukrainian: Ya ne mozhu pity, tomu shcho zavtra (ya) budu pratsyuvaty.
Word for word, both sentences are:
I-negative-can-go-because- tomorrow-I-will be-to work.
Notice that the first two words meaning 'I',
then the 'negative' are basically the same.
Next, the words meaning 'can' are cognates,
but have grown apart and are now pronounced differently,
notably the second consonant.
Next, the verbs meaning 'go' are cognates,
they are both perfective infinitive forms.
Both verbs contain a perfective prefix attached to the imperfective verb.
Next, there's a compound conjunction meaning 'because' in both languages,
and these parts are cognates.
But, the Russian compound contains an extra element.
In Ukranian, a different conjunction "bo" can also be used.
Next, the words for 'tomorrow' are basically the same.
After that, we see the subject pronoun again,
but it isn't necessary and can be dropped,
because the subject is clear from the conjugation of the verb.
Both Russian and Ukrainian are pro-drop languages
Next, the imperfective future tense is formed in the same way
with the verb meaning 'to be' as the auxiliary verb in the future tense,
followed by the infinitive of the lexical verb meaning 'to work'.
But, the lexical verbs themselves are different,
the Ukrainian word was borrowed from Polish.
Now, remember that Ukrainian has the alternate way
of saying something in the imperfective future.
As I'm sure you can see,
Russian and Ukrainian are very closely related languages
that share a lot of similarities
But, they also have a lot of differences, some of them minor and some of them major.
Lots of different vocabulary, different pronunciation, and different word forms,
that have arisen over time to make the two languages
only partially mutually intelligible
to people who don't have much exposure to the other language.
But, since most Ukrainian speakers also speak Russian
or have extensive exposure to it,
asymmetric intelligibility is the norm.
In other words, Ukrainian speakers can often understand Russian,
while the Russian speaker doesn't understand Ukrainian,
especially Russian speakers from outside Ukraine.
The question of the day. For speakers of Russian and Ukrainian:
How similar do you think the two languages are?
To what extent can you understand the other one?
And for other people:
How similar do Russian and Ukrainian seem to you?
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