2007-02-20 20:55:46 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
No. They are closely related languages, but different enough that speakers of one cannot understand speakers of the other. My fiancé is a Russian Ukrainian (as must eastern Ukrainians are) and she had to learn Ukrainian as a second language. She speaks English better than she speaks Ukrainian, however. Russian and Ukrainian are clearly different languages.
2007-02-20 21:12:33 · answer #1 · answered by Taivo 7 · 3⤊ 1⤋
No, Russian and Ukrainian are two different languages. Ukrainian language is closely related to Russian and Belarusian. Russian and Ukrainian have different alphabet. Some of the letters are the same and some of them aren't.
We all had to speak Russian during Soviet Union and take Ukrainian language as a second language at school if you wore born in Ukraine and, of course, a third foreign language like English, German or French.
For 75 years of Soviet Union Ukrainian language didn't develop any new words since the pressure of Russian language was so great. In different regions people adopted lots of new words from other languages like English, Romanian, Polish, even German and Greek. On the North part of Ukraine people considered Soviet Union as a Russian invasion and refused to adopt new words from Russian language. So this is how we ended up now with 2-3 different words but the same meaning. For example, the word "helicopter". On the North people will call it "ghelikopter" with a stress on the last "e" and in the middle part of the country it will be "vertolet" which came from Russian word "vertolyot".
When Ukraine became an independent country Ukrainian linguists started to put new dictionaries of Ukrainian language together making life translators/interpreters much easier.
I remember the frist years of adoptation to Ukrainian language was pretty tough. Since most of the people spoke Russian and took Ukrainian as a second language or didn't take it at all at school to switch completely to a new language was very difficult.
Professional translators that work in the parlament will know the language much better than the average person. It was very funny to see confusion on our politicians faces when something has been translated from other language into a proper Ukrainian, like "a deer in a headlight" look... lol
So finally most of them took classes that government held.
New generation can speak and understand both Ukrainian and Russian. Most of them speak English since it's a business language.
But not every Russian person will understand or speak Ukrainian.
I hope this will help.
2007-02-21 00:35:28 · answer #2 · answered by Anyuta M 3 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Russian and Ukrainian are different languages, though they are closely related, in most cases the Russians cannot understand Ukrainian and vice versa. In the time when existed USSR, Ukraine was within the territory of USSR, in schools Russian used to be learnt as first compulsory language. Hence, the younger generation do not speak Russian and to tell you the truth Ukrainian people are very proud and even understanding Russian, they are reluctant to use it..
Hope that helps!
have a great day!
2007-02-20 22:58:17 · answer #3 · answered by sunflower 7 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Ukrainian and Russian started off as the same language, in Church they use the common tongue call old Slavonic which was used by all in the ancient Rus lands. Kiev was capital of Rus before it was moved to Suzdal in the north.Just like in China people speak Mandarin, some Chinese cannot understand one another , the south has a diff. dialect from the north so the govt. made Mandarin the official language. every country in Europe has similar differences. one expert told me people in Western Ukraine were Polish or Hungarian!
2015-02-24 13:54:21 · answer #4 · answered by ? 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They belong to the East-Slavic branch of languages,sound and look much in common. But still have some peculiarities in word forms and a bit in grammar. To the Russian ear Ukrainian sounds often funny:)
2007-02-21 21:28:25 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Russian is my native, but I speak both. A Ukrainian speaker can easily understand the Russian, but the Russian can't always understand the Ukrainian.
1)There are many words absolutely similar, which can sometimes change the prononciation or the accent:
Дерево (Russian) = Дерево (Ukrainian)
Рука (Russian) = Рука (Ukrainian)
Слово (Russian) = Слово (Ukrainian)
2)Many words which differ in one or two letters, some letters can alternate or dissapear:
Солнце (Russian) - Сонце (Ukrainian)
Рассказать (Russian) - Росказати (Ukrainian)
Позволить (Russian) - Дозволити (Ukrainian)
3)The latter contains many words which are absolutely different in Russian, and not all of them are easily understood by a Russian speaker:
Всегда (Russian) - Завжди (Ukrainian)
Ответ (Russian) - Вiдповiдь (Ukrainian)
Безупречно (Russian) - Бездоганно (Ukrainian)
На самом деле - Насправдi
Любить (Russian) - Кохати (Ukrainian)
Везде (Russian) - Скрiзь (Ukrainian)
2007-02-20 23:49:06 · answer #6 · answered by Marinika 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋
No, they´re not the same language.
2007-02-20 21:11:06 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
No. They're not too different, but there are even different letters, words, etc. They cannot understand each other easily all the time, just in rather simple statements.
2007-02-20 20:59:06 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋