Digenis.org

I said I’d post some quick observations on the Ukrainian language. All I have time for now:

• I mentioned in the last post that it can be humorous for Russian-speakers to see and hear Ukrainian. When walking down the streets and seeing signs that read продукти, пошта, and Ñ�лухай it’s easy to think you’re in a country of poor spellers.
• One thing that you’ll notice quickly about Ukrainian is that, unlike Russian, it lacks o in closed syllables. For example, when you enter the metro you’ll see the word вхід on the door. “Oh, вход becomes вхід.â€� I thought to myself. Of course, I was a little confused when I saw немає входу (no entrance). When I saw a few more examples, like він, вона, and воно (he, she, and it) and рік and році (nominative and locative year) it became clear to me that the o can come back when the noun is declined. Interesting.
• One of the first words I picked up in Ukrainian was Ñ�мачно, which means ‘tasty’. I’m guessing it came through Polish smak from German schmack (flavour). In Russian there’s the word вкуÑ�но/вкуÑ�ный for tasty, but there’s also the more colloquial variant Ñ�мачный and the verb Ñ�маковать, which means to savour or relish something . Also, youth these days use the slangish Ñ�мачно to mean cool.
• Україно моÑ� мила! Ukrainian is the only East Slavic language to have retained the vocative case

My curiosity is certainly sparked. I’ll be taking a look at Ukrainian language (but no, I’m not attempting to learn it; my hands are full with Russian) and grammar in the next few weeks. It’s disputed history is of great interest to me.