The main hypothesis at present is the concept of Alexey Shakhmatov, according to which the Ukrainian language arose as a result of the collapse of the Old Russian language (which, in turn, came from the Proto-Slavic language) at approximately the same time as the Belarusian and Russian languages.

However, a number of researchers believe that the Old Russian language was exclusively a literary language, there was no single Old East Slavic language, and the formation of the Ukrainian language (as well as Belarusian and Russian) is associated with the collapse of the Proto-Slavic language.

IX-XIV centuries

The Ukrainian language originates from the Old Russian language, which in turn has its origins in the Proto-Slavic linguistic unity from the 6th century. n. e. In the 11th-12th centuries, during the period of the birth of the three East Slavic nationalities, the Old Church Slavonic language formed the basis of the written language of the Old Russian state.

According to modern linguistic ideas, until the 14th century, in the territory of distribution of the Old Russian language (including the areas in which the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages ​​\u200b\u200bdeveloped, as well as most of the Russian language), no tangible dialect differences were established. G. A. Khaburgaev identifies two dialect associations in the early East Slavic area (before the 13th century): South East Slavic and North East Slavic. Until the 8th-11th centuries, the center of the southern part of the range was the middle Dnieper region, and the center of the northern part of the range was Priilmenye, from where the speakers of East Slavic dialects settled throughout the territory of the future Old Russian state - the speakers of South East Slavic dialects occupied the areas of formation of the future Ukrainian, Belarusian and southeastern parts Russian languages, and speakers of North-East Slavic are the area of ​​formation of the northern part of the future Russian language. For a given historical period, relative dialectal unity of the East Slavic territory is assumed. Academician Zaliznyak writes that according to the birch bark documents, only the Pskov-Novgorod dialects differed from the rest, while sharply criticizing “amateur linguistics”, which assumes the existence of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages ​​until the 14th-15th centuries, when they formed as separate East Slavic languages as a result of the disengagement of Lithuania and Muscovite Rus'. On the other hand, the formation of the “proto-Ukrainian” language as the common language of the territory inhabited by the Slavs of Southern and Southwestern Rus' was hampered by its fragmentation into lands that belonged to different states. Thus, Chernigov-Severshchina, Podolia and Kiev region with Pereyaslav region, as well as most of Volyn were in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Northern Bukovina became part of the Principality of Moldova - here, too, for a long time all state affairs were conducted in the “Russian” language; the lands of Western Volyn and Galicia were annexed by Poland, and Transcarpathia by Hungary.

XV-XVIII

After the future Belarusian and Ukrainian lands became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Western Russian language (“Ruska Mova”) was formed on the territory of “Lithuanian Rus” in the 14th-15th centuries. According to a modern review of scientific works done by Professor Moisienko, “Ruska Mova” comes from the Old Russian language by splitting off the “Polesie” dialect from it. At the same time, spoken languages ​​did not participate in the formation of the Western Russian language. Until the 16th century, “Ruska Mova” was “supra-dialectal” throughout the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but in the 16th century, from written sources, it is possible to establish the appearance of the “Ukrainian complex”, that is, colloquial Ukrainian speech begins to affect the peculiarities of writing in “Ruska Mova”. It should be noted that the separation of the “Old Ukrainian” and “Old Belarusian” (original “Polesie”) dialects was not complete, in particular in business correspondence it disappeared by the end of the 16th century. This causes difficulty in defining written monuments as “Ukrainian” or “Belarusian” and heated debate among researchers.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. folk speech has an increasing influence on the book language, especially in interludes, verses, etc., as well as among individual writers (Galatovsky, Nekrashevich, Konissky, etc.). At the end of the 18th century, in connection with the annexation of Right Bank Ukraine to Russia, the influence of the Great Russian language on the Ukrainian language increased (for example, in the writings of the Russian and Ukrainian philosopher Grigory Skovoroda).

Modern (late 18th century to present)

The Western Russian language has not coincided with the Ukrainian spoken language since its appearance, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. A new Ukrainian literary language emerges, independently developing on a folk linguistic basis. I. P. Kotlyarevsky is considered the first creator of works in the literary Ukrainian language repeating the spoken language, and his first work is “The Aeneid,” written in 1798. I. P. Kotlyarevsky wrote in the style of comic poetry “Burlesque” based on Ukrainian speech and folklore. In purely linguistic terms, however, Ivan Nekrashevich came closer to codifying the literary language, trying to create a literary standard based on the northern dialects. Historically, however, it was Kotlyarevsky’s project based on the southeastern dialects that was continued, since it was these territories that became the main area for the development of Ukrainian national culture in the first half of the 19th century.

The formation of the modern Ukrainian literary language is associated with the Ukrainian poet T. G. Shevchenko, who finally established the living spoken language as its basis.

Notes

1. In Russia, Moldova, including the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldavian Republic, in Belarus, Romania, Poland and Slovakia.
2. In Canada, USA, Kazakhstan, Brazil, etc.
3. History of Ukrainian language // Ukrainian language. Encyclopedia. - K.: Institute of Mental Science named after O. O. Potebny NAS of Ukraine; Ukrainian Encyclopedia, 2004. - pp. 235-239.
4. Old Russian language // Ukrainian language. Encyclopedia. - K.: Institute of Mental Science named after O. O. Potebny NAS of Ukraine; Ukrainian Encyclopedia, 2004. - pp. 129-130.
5. , With. 418.
6. , With. 420.
7. , With. 438.
8. , With. 7.
9. Novgorod Rus' according to birch bark documents - POLIT.RU (undefined) . Retrieved December 5, 2018.
10. Ivanov V.V. Old Russian language// Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary / Chief editor V. N. Yartseva. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990. - 685 p. - ISBN 5-85270-031-2.
11. About the history of the Russian language (undefined) . elementy.ru. Retrieved October 11, 2015.
12. Ethnolinguistic affiliation of Russian language during the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - page 4: My library (undefined) . www.vuzlib.com.ua. Retrieved October 11, 2015.

How the Ukrainian language was created - artificially and for political reasons. “The truth is never sweet,” Irina Farion recently noted, presenting her next book about the Ukrainian language on the First Channel of the National Radio of Ukraine. And in some ways, it’s hard to disagree with the now widely known deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. The truth will always be bitter for Ukrainian “nationally conscious” figures. They are too far apart from her. However, it is necessary to know the truth. Including the truth about the Ukrainian language. This is especially important for Galicia. After all, Mikhail Sergeevich Grushevsky admitted this.

“Work on the language, as in general work on the cultural development of Ukrainians, was carried out primarily on Galician soil,” he wrote.

It is worth dwelling in more detail on this work, which began in the second half of the 19th century. Galicia was then part of the Austrian Empire. Accordingly, Russia was a foreign country for Galicians. But, despite this circumstance, the Russian literary language was not considered alien in the region. Galician Rusyns perceived it as an all-Russian, common cultural language for all parts of historical Rus', and therefore for Galician Rus'.

When at the congress of Galician-Russian scientists, held in 1848 in Lvov, it was decided that it was necessary to cleanse folk speech from Polonisms, this was seen as a gradual approach of Galician dialects to the norms of the Russian literary language. “Let the Russians start from the head, and we start from the feet, then sooner or later we will meet each other and converge in the heart,” said the prominent Galician historian Antoniy Petrushevich at the congress. Scientists and writers worked in the Russian literary language in Galicia, newspapers and magazines were published, and books were published.

The Austrian authorities did not like all this very much. Not without reason, they feared that cultural rapprochement with the neighboring state would entail political rapprochement and, in the end, the Russian provinces of the empire (Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) would openly declare their desire to reunite with Russia.

And then they came up with the roots of “mova”

From Vienna, Galician-Russian cultural ties were obstructed in every possible way. They tried to influence the Galicians with persuasion, threats, and bribery. When this did not work, they moved on to more vigorous measures. “The Rutens (as the official authorities in Austria called the Galician Rusyns - Author) did not, unfortunately, do anything to properly separate their language from the Great Russian, so the government has to take the initiative in this regard,” said the governor of France. Joseph in Galicia Agenor Golukhovsky.

At first, the authorities simply wanted to ban the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in the region and introduce the Latin alphabet into the Galician-Russian writing system. But the indignation of the Rusyns over this intention turned out to be so great that the government backed down.

The fight against the Russian language was carried out in a more sophisticated manner. Vienna was concerned with creating a movement of “young Ruthenians”. They were called young not because of their age, but because they rejected the “old” views. If the “old” Ruthenians (Rutens) considered the Great Russians and Little Russians to be a single nation, then the “young” insisted on the existence of an independent Ruthenian nation (or Little Russian - the term “Ukrainian” was used later). Well, an independent nation must, of course, have an independent literary language. The task of composing such a language was set before the “young Ruthenians.”

Ukrainians began to be raised together with the language

They succeeded, however, with difficulty. Although the authorities provided all possible support to the movement, it had no influence among the people. The “young Ruthenians” were looked upon as traitors, unprincipled servants of the government. Moreover, the movement consisted of people who, as a rule, were intellectually insignificant. There could be no question that such figures would be able to create and disseminate a new literary language in society.

The Poles came to the rescue, whose influence in Galicia was dominant at that time. Being ardent Russophobes, representatives of the Polish movement saw direct benefit for themselves in the split of the Russian nation. Therefore, they took an active part in the “linguistic” efforts of the “young Rutenes”. “All Polish officials, professors, teachers, even priests began to study primarily philology, not Masurian or Polish, no, but exclusively ours, Russian, in order to create a new Russian-Polish language with the assistance of Russian traitors,” recalled a major public figure in Galicia and Transcarpathia Adolf Dobryansky.

Thanks to the Poles, things went faster. The Cyrillic alphabet was retained, but “reformed” to make it different from the one adopted in the Russian language. They took as a basis the so-called “Kulishivka”, once invented by the Russian Ukrainophile Panteleimon Kulish with the same goal - to dissociate the Little Russians from the Great Russians. The letters “ы”, “е”, “ъ” were removed from the alphabet, but “є” and “ї”, which were absent in Russian grammar, were included.

In order for the Rusyn population to accept the changes, the “reformed” alphabet was introduced into schools by order. The need for innovation was motivated by the fact that for the subjects of the Austrian emperor “it is both better and safer not to use the same spelling that is customary in Russia.”

It is interesting that the inventor of the “kulishivka” himself, who had by that time moved away from the Ukrainophile movement, opposed such innovations. “I swear,” he wrote to the “young Ruten” Omelyan Partitsky, “that if the Poles print in my spelling to commemorate our discord with Great Russia, if our phonetic spelling is presented not as helping the people to enlightenment, but as a banner of our Russian discord, then I, writing in my own way, in Ukrainian, will print in etymological old-world orthography. That is, we don’t live at home, talk and sing songs in the same way, and if it comes down to it, we won’t allow anyone to divide us. A daring fate separated us for a long time, and we moved towards Russian unity along a bloody road, and now the devil’s attempts to separate us are useless.”

But the Poles allowed themselves to ignore Kulish’s opinion. They just needed Russian discord. After spelling, it's time for vocabulary. They tried to expel as many words used in the Russian literary language from literature and dictionaries. The resulting voids were filled with borrowings from Polish, German, other languages, or simply made-up words.

“Most of the words, phrases and forms from the previous Austro-Ruthenian period turned out to be “Moscow” and had to give way to new words, supposedly less harmful,” one of the “transformers”, who later repented, said about the language “reform”. - “Direction” - this is a Moscow word that cannot be used any longer - they said to “young people”, and they now put the word “directly”. “Modern” is also a Moscow word and gives way to the word “current”, “exclusively” is replaced by the word “exclusively”, “educational” - by the word “enlightenment”, “society” - by the word “companionship” or “suspense”.

The zeal with which the Rusyn speech was “reformed” surprised philologists. And not only locals. “The Galician Ukrainians do not want to take into account that none of the Little Russians have the right to the ancient verbal heritage, to which Kyiv and Moscow equally have a claim, to frivolously abandon and replace with Polonisms or simply fictitious words,” wrote Alexander Brickner, a professor of Slavic studies at the University of Berlin ( Pole by nationality). - I cannot understand why in Galicia several years ago the word “master” was anathematized and the word “kind” was used instead. “Dobrodiy” is a remnant of patriarchal-slave relations, and we cannot stand it even in politeness.”

However, the reasons for “innovation” had, of course, to be sought not in philology, but in politics. They began to rewrite school textbooks in a “new way.” It was in vain that the conferences of national teachers, held in August and September 1896 in Peremyshlyany and Glinany, noted that now the teaching aids had become incomprehensible. And they are incomprehensible not only for students, but also for teachers. In vain did teachers complain that under the current conditions “it is necessary to publish an explanatory dictionary for teachers.”

The authorities remained adamant. Dissatisfied teachers were fired from schools. Rusyn officials who pointed out the absurdity of the changes were removed from their positions. Writers and journalists who stubbornly adhered to the “pre-reform” spelling and vocabulary were declared “Muscovites” and persecuted. “Our language goes into the Polish sieve,” noted the outstanding Galician writer and public figure, priest John Naumovich. “Healthy grain is separated like Muscovy, and the seedings are left to us by grace.”

In this regard, it is interesting to compare various editions of Ivan Franko's works. Many words from the writer’s works published in 1870-1880, for example, “look”, “air”, “army”, “yesterday” and others, were replaced in later reprints with “look”, “povitrya”, “viysko”, “yesterday”, etc. Changes were made both by Franco himself, who joined the Ukrainian movement, and by his “assistants” from among the “nationally conscious” editors.

In total, in 43 works that were published in two or more editions during the author’s lifetime, experts counted more than 10 thousand (!) changes. Moreover, after the death of the writer, “edits” of the texts continued. The same, however, as “corrections” of the texts of works by other authors. This is how independent literature was created in an independent language, later called Ukrainian.

But this language was not accepted by the people. Works published in Ukrainian experienced an acute shortage of readers. “Ten to fifteen years pass until the book of Franko, Kotsyubinsky, Kobylyanskaya sells one thousand to one and a half thousand copies,” complained Mikhail Grushevsky, who then lived in Galicia, in 1911. Meanwhile, books by Russian writers (especially Gogol’s “Taras Bulba”) quickly spread throughout the Galician villages in huge circulations for that era.

And one more wonderful moment. When World War I broke out, an Austrian military publishing house published a special phrase book in Vienna. It was intended for soldiers mobilized into the army from various parts of Austria-Hungary, so that military personnel of different nationalities could communicate with each other. The phrasebook was compiled in six languages: German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Croatian and Russian. “They missed the Ukrainian language. This is wrong,” the “nationally conscious” newspaper “Dilo” lamented about this. Meanwhile, everything was logical. The Austrian authorities knew very well that the Ukrainian language was created artificially and was not widespread among the people.

It was possible to implant this language on the territory of Western Ukraine (and even then not immediately) only after the massacre of the indigenous population committed in Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia by the Austro-Hungarians in 1914-1917. That massacre changed a lot in the region. In Central and Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian language spread even later, but in a different period of history...

Alexander Karevin

– is one of the East Slavic languages, closely related to the languages; all three languages ​​use the Cyrillic alphabet. At the time of the christening of Rus (the East Slavic lands that stretched from the southern part of Kyiv to the northern part of Novgorod) in 988, the East Slavic dialects were characterized by relative unity, with minor differences depending on the region. The differences that currently separate the three languages ​​were not the result of linguistic changes alone; an important role in this was played by events of a political nature, mainly taking place in the form of invasions of non-Slavic lands and the seizure of territory by other Slavs.

Mongol-Tatar yoke

The first destructive event of this kind was the protracted invasion and destruction of Kyiv by the Tatars in 1240. The immediate consequence of this was the collapse of the state, the formation of small principalities and, accordingly, the disruption of continuous linguistic development, which until then had been concentrated in Kyiv. The rule of the Tatars did not have a lasting effect on the development of local dialects, apart from the borrowing of some words characteristic of Tatar culture.

Polish-Lithuanian rule

The final overthrow of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Kievan Rus left behind anarchy, which took place in the 15th century. occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian state (mostly Polish). The historical development of this period differed significantly from the Tatar period, since the Polish language truly became the lingua franca of the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands: Polish culture penetrated deeply into the daily life of these regions, as a result of which the Polish language became widespread. The consequences of this for the further development of the Ukrainian (and Belarusian) language are becoming obvious in our time, since a significant part of the vocabulary of the Ukrainian language consists of borrowings from the Polish language. Thus, the lexical composition is one of those elements that most distinguishes the modern Ukrainian language from Russian. Of course, there are also significant phonological and morphological differences, but they are a consequence of gradual linguistic development and are not noticeable as clearly at first glance as the absolute quantitative superiority of more than one thousand Polish lexemes. It was from this period that the formation of the Ukrainian language began in the form in which we know it today; and as a result of lexical transformations that took place in the Ukrainian-Belarusian lands, the modern Ukrainian language is closer to the Belarusian language than to Russian.

Russian rule

Polish hegemony lasted until the mid-17th century, after which most of the territories that are today part of Ukraine passed to the Russian Empire. After a brief period of independence following the October Revolution of 1917, Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union. This period, ending in 1991, had about the same linguistic impact as the Polish period (on Belarusian and Ukrainian languages): Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism, political life and education with a Russian emphasis led to the widespread use of Russian lexemes in Ukrainian language. The share of Russianisms was highest, of course, in the press (as printed organs of the state), in the language of government and politics.
Issues of interaction between Polish and Russian vocabulary with native Ukrainian vocabulary, as well as changes that are currently occurring in the Ukrainian language, will be discussed in more detail below.

Modern Ukrainian language.

The process of development of the linguistic component, which we call "lexical composition", has been briefly described in the previous paragraphs, but what about modern language? Despite the fact that the Polish and Russian periods can be equated to each other, given the widespread use/borrowing of lexemes from these languages, there is a significant difference between them. In the 17th century there was no such thing as a “literary (standard) language,” there were no grammars, rules, or media. Consequently, most of the lexemes borrowed from the Polish language remained in the Ukrainian language - Polish words became Ukrainian. They were used first in spoken language and then in writing. When we say “dyakuyu” today, we do not think about the fact that this is a borrowing from the Polish language (Polish: dziękuję). No attempts were made to clear the Ukrainian language of Polish borrowings, since the development of the language was not something planned at that time. Nowadays, Ukrainian is the state language. It is the language of a country that is defining its own identity after centuries of being part of another country. Consequently, in the process of Ukrainization, the introduction of the Ukrainian language into use as a language of education, commerce and government, an unspoken question may arise: “What is the Ukrainian language?” Some native speakers, describing the active use of the Ukrainian language from their experience, say that from time to time they consciously decide which lexeme to use: if a word supposedly borrowed from the Russian language is used in the Ukrainian language (for example, “spir” (Russian dispute) ), but there is a native Ukrainian equivalent (in this case, “superechka”), they will choose the latter. Of course, Ukrainians, for whom Russian is the first language, will most likely choose the first option.

Issues of this kind take many years to resolve. Single lexemes of Russian origin may remain in the language or disappear. And most likely, most of them will remain simply because (i) there are a large number of them and they have been used for many years, and (ii) because it is sometimes difficult to understand whether a word is a Russian loanword or simply has East Slavic roots. The latter relates to the word “spir” because: (i) this word is found already in the 15th century. (in the form “argue”), despite some semantic difference from the modern word; and (ii) the word reflects the vowel alternation o-i in a closed syllable. If this word were a recent borrowing, it is unlikely that it would reflect this feature. The 1997 English-Ukrainian Dictionary offers two equivalents to the English word “argument” - “superechka” and “spir”. However, the 1997 spelling dictionary does not contain the latter option. Subsequent grammars and dictionaries offer us “officially accepted” words in the lexical composition of the Ukrainian language. But, as always, the use of one or another lexeme in spoken or written speech is everyone’s choice.

There are a huge number of variations in the Ukrainian language. In grammatical terms, this is manifested in the existence of alternative endings for nouns. The pronunciation of Ukrainian words may also differ depending on the region and the individual characteristics of the speaker. Also, pronunciation features may be associated with the influence of the Russian language (for example, there may be two variants of pronunciation of the name of the city “Lviv” - or; the latter option reflects the influence of the Russian language - Russian Lviv). Changes occur most quickly in lexical composition. Until 1991, Russian was the main source of borrowings. Currently, given attempts at a rapid transition to a market economy, English terminology from business and advertising is often found in the media. We will see later whether new lexemes will remain in the Ukrainian language, and this depends on the success of the market economy in the long term. Most likely, English computer terminology will remain exactly the same, given the increasingly widespread use of computer technology.

The language of youth plays an important role in the development of a living spoken language: as Ukraine opens up to the West, the younger generation actively borrows and adopts Western (mainly English-language) mass culture. English-language education programs are available in major cities across the country, and those studying the language are predominantly, but not exclusively, members of the younger generation.

The effect that all these factors will have on the Ukrainian language in the future can only be assumed. In this context, it is worth remembering, which has been heavily influenced by English-speaking culture since the 1950s. An English speaker who leafs through German magazines, watches German TV channels (especially commercials) and talks to young people will be shocked by the number of English lexemes that are constantly used. Very often, such words are no longer used as cultural markers or as a tribute to fashion - this is a clear indication that English words are being transformed into German words (in other words, they are becoming real borrowings). In Ukraine, English is rapidly replacing Russian as the language of international communication. This development of the language, along with the use of Americanisms/Anglicisms as markers of mass culture, will over time have a significant impact, at least on the lexical composition of the Ukrainian language. In the coming years, new dictionaries of the Ukrainian language will reflect these changes.

Some “experts” derive Ukrainian almost from Sanskrit, others spread myths about imaginary Polish or even Hungarian influence, although most of them do not speak Polish, Ukrainian, or even less Hungarian.

Recently popular article I published about the formation of the Russian language aroused considerable interest among visitors to the UNIAN website. Readers sent us many reviews, comments, and questions from the field of linguistics. Having summarized these questions, I will try to answer them in “popular language”, without delving into the scientific jungle.

Why are there many words from Sanskrit in the Ukrainian language?

Comparing different languages, scientists came to the conclusion that some of them are very close to each other, others are more distant relatives. And there are those who have nothing in common with each other. For example, it has been established that Ukrainian, Latin, Norwegian, Tajik, Hindi, English, etc. are related languages. But Japanese, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, Etruscan, Arabic, Basque, etc. are in no way connected with Ukrainian or, say, Spanish.

It has been proven that several thousand years BC there was a certain community of people (tribes) who spoke similar dialects. We don't know where it was or at what exact time. Possibly 3–5 thousand years BC. It is assumed that these tribes lived somewhere in the Northern Mediterranean, perhaps even in the Dnieper region. The Indo-European proto-language has not survived to this day. The oldest written monuments that have survived to this day were written a thousand years BC in the language of the ancient inhabitants of India, which is called “Sanskrit”. Being the oldest, this language is considered the closest to Indo-European.

Scientists reconstruct the proto-language based on the laws of change in sounds and grammatical forms, moving, so to speak, in the opposite direction: from modern languages ​​to a common language. Reconstructed words are given in etymological dictionaries, ancient grammatical forms - in the literati from the history of grammars.

Modern Indo-European languages ​​have inherited most of their roots from the time of their former unity. In different languages, related words sometimes sound very differently, but these differences are subject to certain sound patterns.

Compare Ukrainian and English words that have a common origin: day - day, nіch - night, sun - sun, matir - mother, sin - son, eye - eye, tree - tree, water - water, two - two, could - might, cook – swear, velіti – will. Thus, Ukrainian, like all other Indo-European languages, has many words in common with Sanskrit and other related languages ​​- Greek, Icelandic, Old Persian, Armenian, etc., not to mention close Slavic ones - Russian, Slovak, Polish...

As a result of migrations of peoples, wars, conquests of some peoples by others, language dialects moved away from each other, new languages ​​were formed, and old ones disappeared. The Indo-Europeans settled throughout Europe and penetrated into Asia (which is why they got their name).

The Proto-Indo-European language family left behind, in particular, the following groups of languages: Romance (dead Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldavian, etc.); Germanic (dead Gothic, English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, Afrikaans, etc.); Celtic (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, etc.), Indo-Iranian (dead Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Tajik, Ossetian, Gypsy, possibly also dead Scythian, etc.); Baltic (dead Prussian, Lithuanian, Latvian, etc.), Slavic (dead Old Church Slavonic, or “Old Bulgarian”, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Great Russian, Belarusian, etc.). Separate Indo-European branches developed Greek, Armenian, Albanian languages, which have no close relatives. Quite a few Indo-European languages ​​did not survive into historical times.

Why are Indo-European languages ​​so different from each other?

As a rule, the formation of a language is associated with the geographical isolation of its speakers, migration, and the conquest of some peoples by others. Differences in Indo-European languages ​​are explained by interactions with other – often non-Indo-European – languages. One language, displacing another, received certain characteristics of the defeated language and, accordingly, differed in these characteristics from its relative (the displaced language that left its traces is called the substrate), and also experienced grammatical and lexical changes. Perhaps there are certain internal patterns of language development that, over time, “distance” it from related dialects. Although, apparently, the reason for the appearance of any internal patterns is the influence of other (substrate) languages.

Thus, in ancient times, numerous languages ​​were widespread in Europe, the influence of which led to the current motley linguistic picture. The development of the Greek language was influenced, in particular, by Illyrian (Albanian) and Etruscan. Into English - Norman and various Celtic dialects, into French - Gaulish, into Great Russian - Finno-Ugric languages, as well as “Old Bulgarian”. The Finno-Ugric influence in the Great Russian language weakened unstressed vowels (in particular akanye: milk - malako), strengthened g on site G, deafening of consonants at the end of a syllable.

It is believed that at a certain stage of linguistic evolution, before the formation of separate Slavic and Baltic languages, there was a Balto-Slavic unity, since these languages ​​have a huge number of common words, morphemes and even grammatical forms. It is assumed that the common ancestors of the Balts and Slavs inhabited the territories from the Northern Dnieper region to the Baltic Sea. However, as a result of migration processes, this unity disintegrated.

At the linguistic level, this was reflected in a surprising way: the Proto-Slavic language emerged as a separate language (and not a Balto-Slavic dialect) with the onset of the so-called law of the open syllable. The Proto-Slavs received this linguistic law by interacting with some non-Indo-European people, whose language did not tolerate the combination of several consonant sounds. Its essence boiled down to the fact that all syllables ended with a vowel sound. Old words began to be rearranged in such a way that short vowels were inserted between consonants, or vowels changed places with consonants, final consonants were lost, or short vowels appeared after them. So, “al-ktis” turned into “lo-ko-ti” (elbow), “kor-vas” into “ko-ro-va” (cow), “med-dus” into “me-do” (honey ), “or-bi-ti” to “ro-bi-ti” (work), “drau-gas” to “dru-gi” (other), etc. Roughly speaking, an idea of ​​the “pre-Slavic” linguistic period is given by the Baltic languages, which were not affected by the law of the open syllable.

How do we know about this law? First of all, from the most ancient monuments of Slavic writing (X - XII centuries). Short vowel sounds were represented in writing by the letters “ъ” (something between the short “о” and “ы”) and “ь” (short “i”). The tradition of writing “ъ” at the end of words after consonants, which passed into the Great Russian language according to the Kyiv tradition of transmitting Church Slavonic, survived until the beginning of the twentieth century, although, of course, these vowels were never read in Great Russian.

What language did the Proto-Slavs speak?

This language has existed since the 1st millennium BC. until the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. Of course, there was no coherent language in the modern understanding of this word, much less its literary version. We are talking about close dialects that were characterized by common features.

The Proto-Slavic language, having adopted the law of the open syllable, sounded something like this: ze-le-n lie-s shu-mi-t (read “ze-le-ni lie-so shu-mi-to” - the green forest is noisy); where do i-don-t honey-vie-d and vl-k? (reads “ko-de i-dou-to me-do-vie-do and vly-ko? (Where are the bear and the wolf going?) Monotonously and evenly: tra-ta-ta-ta... tra-ta-ta... tra-ta-ta... Our modern ear could hardly recognize familiar words in this stream.

Some scientists believe that the substrate language for the Proto-Slavs, which “launched” the law of the open syllable, was the non-Indo-European language of the Trypillians, who inhabited the current Ukrainian lands (the substrate language is an absorbed language that left phonetic and other traces in the victorious language).

It was he who did not tolerate clusters of consonants; his syllables ended only with vowels. And it was allegedly from the Trypillians that such words of unknown origin came to us, characterized by open syllables and a strict order of sounds (consonant - vowel), such as mo-gi-la, ko-by-la and some others. They say that from the Trypillian language, Ukrainian - through the mediation of other languages ​​and Proto-Slavic dialects - inherited its melody and some phonetic features (for example, the alternation u-v, i-y, which helps to avoid dissonant clusters of sounds).

Unfortunately, it is impossible to either refute or confirm this hypothesis, since no reliable data about the language of the Trypillians (as, by the way, of the Scythians) has been preserved. At the same time, it is known that the substrate in a certain territory (phonetic and other traces of a defeated language) is indeed very tenacious and can be transmitted through several linguistic “epochs,” even through the mediation of languages ​​that have not survived to this day.

The relative unity of the Proto-Slavic dialects lasted until the 5th–6th centuries of the new era. It is not known exactly where the Proto-Slavs lived. It is believed that somewhere north of the Black Sea - in the Dnieper, Danube, Carpathian Mountains or between the Vistula and Oder. In the middle of the first millennium, as a result of rapid migration processes, the pre-Slavic unity disintegrated. The Slavs settled all of central Europe - from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

Since then, the proto-languages ​​of modern Slavic languages ​​began to form. The starting point for the emergence of new languages ​​was the fall of the law of the open syllable. As mysterious as its origin. We do not know what caused this fall - another substrate or some internal law of linguistic evolution, which began to operate during the times of Proto-Slavic unity. However, not a single Slavic language has survived the law of the open syllable. Although he left deep traces in each of them. By and large, the phonetic and morphological differences between these languages ​​come down to how different the reflexes caused by the fall of the open syllable are in each of the languages.

How did modern Slavic languages ​​appear?

This law declined unevenly. In one dialect, the melodic pronunciation (“tra-ta-ta”) was preserved longer, while in others the phonetic “revolution” took place faster. As a result, the Proto-Slavic language gave rise to three subgroups of dialects: South Slavic (modern Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian, etc.); Western Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc.); East Slavic (modern Ukrainian, Great Russian, Belarusian). In ancient times, each of the subgroups represented numerous dialects, characterized by certain common features that distinguished them from other subgroups. These dialects do not always coincide with the modern division of Slavic languages ​​and the settlement of the Slavs. The processes of state formation, the mutual influence of Slavic dialects, as well as foreign language elements played a major role in linguistic evolution in different periods.

Actually, the collapse of the Proto-Slavic linguistic unity could occur in the following way. First, the southern (Balkan) Slavs “broke away” territorially from the other tribes. This explains the fact that in their dialects the law of the open syllable lasted the longest - until the 9th–12th centuries.

Among the tribes that were the ancestors of the Eastern and Western Slavs, unlike the Balkan ones, the language experienced dramatic changes in the middle of the first millennium. The fall of the open syllable law gave rise to the development of new European languages, many of which have not survived to our time.

The speakers of the Proto-Ukrainian language were disparate tribes, each of which spoke its own dialect. The Polyany spoke in Polyansky, the Derevlyans spoke in Derevlyansky, the Siveryans spoke in Siveryansky, the Ulichi and Tivertsy spoke in their own way, etc. But all these adverbs were characterized by common features, that is, the same consequences of the fall of the open syllable, which even now distinguish the Ukrainian language from other Slavic languages.

How do we know about how people spoke in Ukraine in ancient times?

There are two real sources of our current knowledge about ancient Ukrainian dialects. The first is written monuments, the oldest of which were written in the 10th–12th centuries. However, unfortunately, no records were kept at all in the language our ancestors spoke. The literary language of Kyiv was the “Old Bulgarian” (Church Slavonic) language, which came to us from the Balkans. This is the language into which Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible in the 9th century. It was not understandable to the Eastern Slavs, since it retained the ancient law of the open syllable. In particular, it contained short vowels after consonant sounds, denoted by the letters “ъ” and “ь”. However, in Kyiv this language was gradually Ukrainized: short sounds were not read, and some vowels were replaced with their own - Ukrainian. In particular, nasal vowels, which are still preserved, say, in Polish, were pronounced as usual, “Old Bulgarian” diphthongs (double vowels) were read in the Ukrainian manner. Cyril and Methodius would have been very surprised to hear “their” language in the Kyiv church.

Interestingly, some scientists tried to reconstruct the so-called “Old Russian” language, which was supposedly common to all Eastern Slavs, based on ancient Kievan texts. And it turned out that in Kyiv they spoke almost the “Old Bulgarian” language, which, of course, in no way corresponded to the historical truth.

Ancient texts can be used to study the language of our ancestors, but in a very unique way. This is what Professor Ivan Ogienko did in the first half of the twentieth century. He examined the slips and mistakes of Kyiv authors and copyists who, against their will, were influenced by the living folk language. At times, ancient scribes “remade” words and “Old Bulgarian” grammatical forms deliberately - to make it “more understandable.”

The second source of our knowledge is modern Ukrainian dialects, especially those that remained isolated for a long time and were almost not subject to external influence. For example, the descendants of the Derevlyans still inhabit the north of the Zhitomir region, and the descendants of the Siveryans still inhabit the north of the Chernigov region. In many dialects, ancient Ukrainian phonetic, grammatical, and morphological forms have been preserved, coinciding with the clerical notes of Kyiv clerks and writers.

In the scientific literature you can find other dates for the fall of short vowels among the Eastern Slavs - the 12th - 13th centuries. However, such a “life extension” of the open syllable law is hardly justified.

When did the Ukrainian language appear?

The countdown, apparently, can begin from the middle of the first millennium - when short vowels disappeared. This is what caused the emergence of Ukrainian linguistic characteristics proper - as, ultimately, the characteristics of most Slavic languages. The list of features that distinguished our proto-language from other languages ​​may turn out to be somewhat boring for non-specialists. Here are just a few of them.

Ancient Ukrainian dialects were characterized by so-called full-vocality: instead of the South Slavic sound combinations ra-, la-, re-, le - in the language of our ancestors the sounds were -oro-, -olo-, -ere-, -ele-. For example: licorice (in “Old Bulgarian” - sweet), full (captivity), sereda (Wednesday), morok (darkness), etc. The “coincidences” in the Bulgarian and Russian languages ​​are explained by the enormous influence of “Old Bulgarian” on the formation of the Russian language.

The Bulgarian (South Slavic) sound combination at the beginning of the root ra-, la - answered the East Slavic ro-, lo-: robota (work), rosti (grow), ulovlyu (I catch). In place of the typical Bulgarian sound combination -zhd - Ukrainians had -zh-: vorozhnecha (enmity), kozhen (everyone). The Bulgarian suffixes -ash-, -yushch – were answered by the Ukrainian -ach-, -yuch-: viyuchy (howling), sizzling (sizzling).

When short vowel sounds fell after voiced consonants, in Proto-Ukrainian dialects these consonants continued to be pronounced voiced, as they are now (oak, snow, love, blood). Stunning has developed in Polish, and in Great Russian too (dup, snek, lyubof, krof).

Academician Potebnya discovered that the disappearance of short sounds (ъ and ь) in some places “forced” to prolong the pronunciation of the previous vowels “o” and “e” in a new closed syllable in order to compensate for the “shortening” of the word. So, stol-l (“sto-lo”) turned into “stіel” (the final ъ disappeared, but the “internal” vowel became longer, turning into a double sound - a diphthong). But in forms where there is a vowel after the final consonant, the old sound has not changed: sto-lu, sto-li. Most (“mo-sto”) turned into mіest, muest, mіist, etc. (depending on the dialect). The diphthong eventually transformed into a regular vowel. Therefore, in modern literary language, “i” in a closed syllable alternates with “o” and “e” - in an open one (kit - ko-ta, popil - po-pe-lu, rig - ro-gu, mig - mo-zhe and etc.). Although some Ukrainian dialects store ancient diphthongs in a closed syllable (keet, popiel, rieg).

Ancient Proto-Slavic diphthongs, in particular in case endings, denoted in writing by the letter “yat”, found their continuation in the ancient Ukrainian language. In some dialects they have been preserved to this day, in others they have been transformed into “i” (as in the literary language): lie, na zemlie, mieh, beliy, etc. By the way, Ukrainians, knowing their language, never confused the spelling of “yat” and “e” in pre-revolutionary Russian spelling. In some Ukrainian dialects, the ancient diphthong was actively replaced by the vowel “i” (lis, on the ground, mikh, biliy), becoming entrenched in the literary language.

Some of the phonetic and grammatical features of the Proto-Slavic language were continued in Ukrainian dialects. Thus, Proto-Ukrainian inherited the ancient alternation k–ch, g–z, x–s (ruka – ruci, rig – rozi, fly – musi), which has been preserved in the modern literary language. The vocative case has been used in our language for a long time. In dialects, the ancient form of the “pre-future” tense (I will brav), as well as the ancient indicators of person and number in past tense verbs (I - go, we - walked, you - walked, you - walked), are active in dialects.

The description of all these signs takes up entire volumes in academic literature...

What language was spoken in Kyiv in prehistoric times?

Of course, not in modern literary language.

Any literary language is to a certain extent artificial - it is developed by writers, educators, and cultural figures as a result of rethinking the living language. Often the literary language is foreign, borrowed, and sometimes incomprehensible to the uneducated part of the population. Thus, in Ukraine from the 10th to the 18th centuries, the literary language was considered an artificial - Ukrainianized “Old Bulgarian” language, in which the majority of literary monuments were written, in particular “Svyatoslav’s Collections”, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The History of Time Litas”, the works of Ivan Vishensky , Grigory Skovoroda, etc. The literary language was not frozen: it constantly developed, changed over the centuries, was enriched with new vocabulary, its grammar was simplified. The degree of Ukrainization of texts depended on the education and “free-thinking” of the authors (the church did not approve of the penetration of the vernacular language into writing). This Kievan literary language, created on the basis of “Old Bulgarian,” played a huge role in the formation of the Great Russian (“Russian”) language.

The modern literary language was formed on the basis of the Dnieper dialects - the heirs of the dialect of the chronicle glades (as well as, apparently, the Anta union of tribes, known from foreign historical sources) - in the first half of the 19th century thanks to the writers Kotlyarevsky, Grebinka, Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, as well as Taras Shevchenko .

Consequently, before the formation of a national language, Ukrainians spoke different Ukrainian dialects, using the Ukrainized “Old Bulgarian” in writing.

During the princely era in Kyiv they spoke a language “commonly understood” by the residents of the capital city (koine), which was formed on the basis of various ancient Ukrainian tribal dialects, mainly Polans. No one ever heard it, and it was not recorded. But, again, the clerical notes of ancient chroniclers and copyists, as well as modern Ukrainian dialects, give an idea of ​​this language. To imagine it, it is apparently necessary to “cross” the grammar of Transcarpathian dialects, where the ancient forms are best preserved, Chernigov diphthongs in place of “yat” and the modern “i” in a closed syllable, the peculiarities of the “deep” pronunciation of vowel sounds among the current inhabitants of the south of the Kiev region , as well as Cherkasy and Poltava regions.

Were modern Ukrainians able to understand the language spoken by the people of Kiev, say, in the first half of the 13th century (before the horde)?

Undoubtedly, yes. To a “modern” ear it would sound like a peculiar Ukrainian dialect. Something like what we hear on trains, at bazaars and construction sites in the capital.

Is it possible to call an ancient language “Ukrainian” if the word “Ukraine” itself did not exist?

You can call the language whatever you want - the essence does not change. The ancient Indo-European tribes also did not call their language “Indo-European”.

The laws of linguistic evolution in no way depend on the name of the language that is given to it at different periods of history by its speakers or outsiders.

We do not know what the Proto-Slavs called their language. Perhaps there was no generic name at all. We also do not know what the Eastern Slavs called their dialect in prehistoric times. Most likely, each tribe had its own self-name and called its dialect in its own way. There is an assumption that the Slavs simply called their language “their”.

The word “Russian” appeared relatively late in relation to the language of our ancestors. This word first denoted a simple folk language - as opposed to written “Slavic”. Later, “Ruska Mova” was contrasted with “Polish”, “Moscow”, as well as non-Slavic languages ​​spoken by neighboring peoples (in different periods - Chud, Muroma, Meshchera, Polovtsy, Tatars, Khazars, Pechenegs, etc.). The Ukrainian language was called “Russian” until the 18th century.

In the Ukrainian language, the names are clearly distinguished - “Rusky” and “Russian”, in contrast to Great Russian, where these names are groundlessly confused.

The word “Ukraine” also appeared relatively late. It has been found in chronicles since the 12th century, therefore, it arose several centuries earlier.

How did other languages ​​influence the formation of Ukrainian?

The Ukrainian language belongs to the “archaic” languages ​​in its vocabulary and grammatical structure (like, say, Lithuanian and Icelandic). Most Ukrainian words are inherited from the Indo-European proto-language, as well as from Proto-Slavic dialects.

Quite a lot of words came to us from the tribes that neighbored our ancestors, traded with them, fought with them, etc. - Goths, Greeks, Turks, Ugrians, Romans, etc. (ship, bowl, poppy, Cossack, hut etc.). Ukrainian also contains borrowings from “Old Bulgarian” (for example, region, benefit, ancestor), Polish (crib, funny, saber) and other Slavic. However, none of these languages ​​influenced either the grammar or phonetics (sound structure) of the language. Myths about Polish influence are spread, as a rule, by non-specialists who have a very distant understanding of both the Polish and Ukrainian languages, and the common origin of all Slavic languages.

Ukrainian is constantly being updated with English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish words, which is typical for any European language.

Distributed mainly in Ukraine, mostly in the western and central regions of Ukraine. The Ukrainian language has the status of the state language of Ukraine and the working language of the UN; about 40 million people speak it. Ukrainian language belongs to the eastern group of Slavic languages, part of the Indo-European family of languages. The writing is based on the civil Cyrillic font.

The language is divided into groups of dialects that developed under the influence of neighboring languages. Northwestern (Polesie) dialects were influenced by the Belarusian language; southwestern - influence of the Polish language; northeastern (Slobozhansky) - Russian. The southeastern (Dnieper) dialects were used as the basis for the literary language. The dialect of the population of Transcarpathia is considered as an independent Rusyn language, influenced by the Slovak and Hungarian languages. A significant part of the population of Eastern, Southern, and Central Ukraine speaks a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian (surzhik), which combines Ukrainian pronunciation norms with Russian vocabulary.
The main phonetic features of the Ukrainian literary language are the distinction between the front i and the more posterior “i”; transition of old “o”, “e” in a closed syllable to i (sheaf - snip); consistent change of the Old Russian “o” into i (loto - lito); change of “e” to “o” after sibilants and j before hard consonants, regardless of stress (shchoka, pshono); fricative "g" (head); preservation of voiced consonants at the end of a word and before voiceless ones (snig, oak, masonry); long soft consonants resulting from the assimilation of the soft consonant of the subsequent j (buttya, pitannya, picchu); sound [w] (spelling “v”) in place of the Old Russian “l” before a consonant and in masculine past tense verbs (Vovk, Khodiv); variants of words with initial i - th, u - in (iti - go, teacher - reader); prosthetic “v”, “g” (vukho, gostrium). Differences from the Russian language in morphology: vocative case of nouns (Petre); the endings -оvi, -еi in the dative case of nouns of the second declension (brothers); forms of the comparative degree of adjectives with the suffix -ish- and -sh- (kind, broad); loss of the ending - in the third person singular of the present tense of verbs of the first conjugation (know, write); verbal ending -mo in the first person plural (known); synthetic form of verbs of the future tense (hodimu); gerunds in -chi (knowing, walking). Specific features of the syntactic structure: impersonal sentences with the main member expressed by unchangeable verbal forms in -no, -to (robotu viconano); a complex nominal predicate in the form of the accusative case with the preposition “for” (elder brother buv for us dad); the originality of verbal control (dyakuvati kom - to thank someone) and the use of prepositions (about the first year - in the first hour). The basis of the vocabulary is made up of words of common East Slavic origin; many words in the Ukrainian language came from Polish and German.
After the Mongol-Tatar invasion in the southern regions of Kievan Rus, the process of formation of an independent nationality accelerated, and local linguistic features also took shape. At the same time, the traditions of Old Russian writing and the literary language of Kievan Rus - the Church Slavonic language - developed here. Since the end of the 15th century, attempts were made to bring the book language closer to the living speech of local dialects; in the 16th century, translations of church books appeared: “Peresopnitsa Gospel” (1556-1561), “Krekhovsky Apostle” (1560); Two types of literary language emerge - “prosta mova” and “Slavic Russian language”. At the end of the 16th - first half of the 17th century, works of the polemical genre appeared in Ukraine, chronicles were compiled, and fiction developed. The standardization of the language was influenced by the grammar of M. Smotrytsky (1619) and the dictionary of P. Berynda (1627). The reunification of Ukraine with Russia (1654) contributed to closer relations between the Ukrainian and Russian languages. In the 17th - first half of the 18th centuries, the Ukrainian language was used in all genres of writing. In the mass consciousness, it was not perceived as an independent language, but was considered as a local dialect, a colloquial language. The Russian language in the minds of Ukrainians was perceived as the “correct language”; mastery of it distinguished a literate person from an ignoramus. Nevertheless, original literature developed in the vernacular language (The Aeneid by I. Kotlyarevsky, 1798).
The work of T.G. was of fundamental importance in the creation of the literary Ukrainian language. Shevchenko. In the second half of the 19th century, the authorities of the Russian Empire made attempts to narrow the scope of the Ukrainian language. After the revolution of 1917, a wave of Ukrainization took place in Ukraine - the forced introduction of the Ukrainian language into all spheres of society. A new stage of Ukrainization began after Ukraine gained independence in 1991.