Russian and Ukrainian

[ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET]

At 02:39 PM 12/9/2008, you wrote:
>Paul Gallagher wrote:
>
>>Since the Russians and Ukrainians are from the same stock, the question
>>becomes irrelevant if we go back far enough. The critical question is
>>whether the Russians and Ukrainians already constituted separate ethnic
>>(if not political) groups in Vladimir's/Volodymyr's time. If not, you
>>can call them anything you like and you'll be right.
>
>>Would you say the Russians are an offshoot of the Ukrainians, or that
>>the Ukrainians are an offshoot of the Russians? Or would you simply say
>>that two equal peoples diverged and one was (ÞÚÐ×ÐÛáï) more successful
>>geopolitically over the next thousand years?
>
>The situation in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus is 
>more of a convergence than of a divergence. As 
>the chronicles point out, the area of modern 
>Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, was populated by 
>different Slavic tribes (Poljane, Drevljane, 
>Krivichi, Vjatichi, Slovene, etc.). At some 
>point later they were unified for political and 
>economical reasons. So linguistically it is 
>impossible to say that either Russian or 
>Ukrainian is an offshoot of the other. These 
>languages developed from originally different 
>dialects. (This view is, of course, contrary to 
>the traditional view that there was one East 
>Slavic language that later broke up into 
>Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian. This view, 
>however, is favored by several linguists and Slavists nowadays.)

Not to mention that each of the groups absorbed 
non-Slavic substrata--Baltic, Finnic, Turkic, 
etc., in different proportions.   I suspect that 
the non-Slavic genetic material (if that phrase 
means anything) is quite large, (as small as the linguistic material may be).
Jules Levin
Los Angeles

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