10 Interesting Points About the Differences Between Russian and Ukrainian Languages

I come from a mixed family, where my father’s family is Ukrainian and my mother’s family is Russian. I grew up in both traditions in a Spanish speaking country. Among the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) my friends asked me if Russian and Ukrainian are the same language or similar languages. I heard also the question whether Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian. Do Ukrainians speak Russian or do they understand this language? If somebody speaks Russian, can they then understand Ukrainian?

There are good reasons for those FAQ’s. Both Russian and Ukrainian have a common ancestor: Old East Slavic (Btw, Belorussian comes also from this same language). The history of both countries can be traced back to the times of Kievan Rus’. Ukraine and Russia share common borders, a common history, and there are many common traditions. Most Ukrainians living in Ukraine have been exposed to Russian language for a long time and a high percentage of Ukrainians can speak both languages (recent studies stated that approx 24.9% of residents in Ukraine speak actively both languages and approx 48.2 % speak only one of them). Only 0.2% do not speak any of them. We still have a quarter of population of Ukraine that most probably still know both but do not use them actively. However, both languages are different. I am posting here 10 brief points where I expose some differences between both languages.

1.- According to the lexicography, 62% of Ukrainian lexicon is common with Russian. At the same time, Ukrainian shares 84% with Belorussian. If we take the common grammar rules, there are 29 common characteristics between Ukrainian and Belorussian and only 11 with Russian. This makes Belorussian the closest language to Ukrainian. But if you ask the same question about Russian, to get an accurate answer is more difficult. I was researching different sites, and I got different answers, where languages like Belorussian, Rusyn, Bulgarian and Ukrainian were mention. The cases of Belorussian, Ukrainian and Rusyn were considered mainly because they are all east Slavic languages. Bulgarian, like Russian, kept close relations with Church Slavonic language.

2.- Both languages use Cyrillic script. But there are important differences between them. Both alphabets have 33 letters. But in Ukrainian we have the letters Ґ, Є, І, Ї, that do not exist in Russian. In Russian, we have the letters Ё, Ъ, Ы, Э, that do not exist in Ukrainian. The letters Г, Е, И, although they are common in both languages they do not have the same pronunciation. 

3.- For people who learn Russian, including Ukrainians who were not exposed to this language in early school, the letter “Г” can be quite tricky. It is supposed to represent the hard sound of a “G” letter. But there are exceptions: when used in genitive case, adjectival endings “-ого” and “-его” or in the possessive pronoun “his” = его (yevo) it is pronounced as “V”; We have the special case of words like Сегодня (Seevodnya) = Today, Ничего (Nicheevo) = Nothing; There are cases when this letter is pronounced as “kh”, like in Бог (Bokh)= God, Лёгкий (Lyokhkij) = Easy. In Ukrainian, this same letter is pronounced like an “H”. There is separate letter, “Ґ”, to make the hard “G” sound, but very few words use it.  Here are some cognates in both languages and their pronunciation:

- Гора: Mountain (Ukr: Hora, Rus: Gora)

- Нога: Leg (Ukr: Noha, Rus: Noga)

- Галактика: Galaxy (Ukr: Halaktyka, Rus: Galaktika). Note the difference with “И”

4.- Most of non Native speakers of those languages would believe that the equivalent letters “Е – Э” and “И – Ы” have the samepronunciation, but they don’t. The Ukrainian “Е” is in IPA: e (Like in French: année) while the Russian “Э” is in IPA: ɛ (like the word bed). “И” in Ukrainian is in IPA: ɪ (like i in the word city) while “Ы” is in IPA: ɨ (no equivalence found in other European languages). But what about “O” that exist in both scripts: In Ukrainian is: ɔ (like in French botte) but in Russian it is more complicated: When stressed it is o (like in French beau), but when unstressed it can be a (like in French lac, example the word она [ana] = she) or it can be a schwa ə (like a in about).  

5.- Both languages have the same case system. Those cases are: Nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, instrumental and locative. There are small differences when we decline similar words. But in Ukrainian there is a seventh case not existent in Russian: Vocative (used in addressing or invoking someone or a thing).

6.- The present tense of the verb To Be in Russian, Быть (Byt’), is omitted. Exists a third person form: есть (yest) rarely used. In Ukrainian, the verb To be is Бути (Buty) and the present tense independent of the pronoun is є (ye). In informal speech is often omitted.  

7.- To translate the verb to have each language has different paths:  in Russian you follow this path: У меня есть + nominative case.  Here are 3 examples:

- I have a house = У меня есть дом (U meenya yest’ dom)

- He has a daughter = У него есть дочка (U nyeevo yest’ dochka)

- We do not have a dog = У нас нет собаки (U nas nyet sabaki) [genitive case for negative phrases]

In Ukrainian you can use the same pattern that will look like: У мене є + nominative case. But you can use directly the verb “to have”, мати (maty) + accusative case. Here the same 3 examples:

- I have a house = У мене є дім (U mene ye dim) or Я маю дім (Ya mayu dim)

- He has a daughter = У нього є дочка (U nyoho ye dochka)  or він має дочку (vin maye dochku).

- We do not have a dog = У нас немає собаки (U nas nemaye sobaky) or Ми не маємо собаки (My ne mayemo sobaky) [Use genitive for negative]

Ukrainian also adopted the verb to have as a modal verb for saying: I have to. The phrase: Я маю це зробити (Ya mayu tse zrobyty) means: I have to do it! 

8.- The names of the months are far from being similar. In Russian the names came from Latin, while in Ukrainian we still use vernacular Slavic names for them. Here is the list of the months in both languages with their Latinize pronunciation:

Month	Russian	Pronunciation	Ukrainian	Pronunciation
January	январь	yanvar	січень	sichen’
February	февраль	feevral	лютий	lutyj
March	март	mart	березень	berezen’
April	апрель	apryel	квітень	kviten’
May	май	mai	травень	traven’
June	июнь	eeyoon	червень	cherven’
July	июль	eeyool	липень	lypen’
August	август	avgoost	серпень	serpen’
September	сентябрь	seentyabr	вересень	veresen’
October	октябрь	aktyabr	жовтень	žovten’
November	ноябрь	nayabr	листопад	lystopad
December	декабрь	deekabr	грудень	hruden’

9.- Future tense in both languages can be simple future or perfective and compound or imperfective. Future simple is formed adding a prefix. It is called perfective because it is completed or it has a time limit. The compound future uses the verb to be as auxiliary verb (in Russian, Быть and in Ukrainian, Бути) + infinitive. This is used for uncompleted action. In Ukrainian there is a third form of future tense, that is also imperfective but without using auxiliary verbs. Here is an example with the verb писати (pysaty), to write: Я писатиму (Ya pysatymu), ти писатимеш (ty pysatymesh), він писатиме (vin pysatyme)... 

10.- Both languages have separate literature traditions and literary standards. The modern Russian literature started during the 18^th century and had its greatest expression in the works of the Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin. Other writers that represent the best of Russian literature are Mikhail Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol. The foundations of the Ukrainian literature were set at the end of the 18^th century and had its greates expressions in the works of the Ukrainian poet and writer Taras Shevchenko. Other writers that represent the best of Ukrainian literature are Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Ivan Kotliarevsky and Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko. Btw, Nikolai Gogol was Ukrainian and he also had contributions to Ukrainian literature. It is a fact that Taras Shevchenko was admired in Russia as well, but his readers in that part of the world needed to read the translations of his works into Russian. 

This article is dedicated to my friends who ask questions about Russian and Ukrainian languages, their differences and relations.