Differences between Eastern and Western Ukrainian

[Graham Wilkins]

Grover,

I don't know of much in the way of academic analysis into the situation, but
having lived in Ukraine for 2 years, I feel that I have some level of
knowledge on the subject.  It is primarily a geographic tendency.
 Historically, places in the West have been under different spheres of
influence than in the East.  Lvov (or Lviv) has been under Polish rule at
times, etc.

Ukrainian language is in between Russian and Polish, maybe a little closer
to Polish (personal opinion on the closeness, could be way off there).

Most of the country, with the exceptions of some beds of Ukrainian or
Russian nationalism speak a unique blending of the two languages called
суржик.  In my experience it, the range of the blend depended on where you
were - certain versions were slanted towards more Ukrainian, others to more
Russian - I very rarely, if ever, heard pure Russian or pure Ukrainian.

As far as politically, it tends to match the situation
linguistically/geographically.  You can look at any electoral map and see
for yourself.  A quick google search gave me this example:
http://www.shekhovtsov.org/misc/img/Ukrainian_Presidential_elections_2010.jpg

The Western most exception is likely due to Mukachevo, a more traditionally
Russian-leaning area.

Hope this helped somewhat.

Graham

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Grover Furr <furrg_nj at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Dear fellow listmembers:
>
> Some 20+ years ago I was struggling to read some WW2-era Ukrainian
> materials, with a dictionary, etc.
>
> It seemed to me that I could perceive differences between Eastern and
> Western Ukrainian. Names of the months, for example.
>
> Western Ukrainian tended towards Polish and away from Russian (maybe "away
> from Russian" was the point?). Eastern Ukrainian seemed more Russian --
> easier to read, for me (I can read Russian well).
>
> Now I wonder what's going on in today's Ukraine, where the Eastern /
> traditionally Orthodox / closer to Russia and the Western / traditionally
> Uniate / closer to Poland has become an important cultural and political
> issue.
>
> What resources are there -- books, articles, even specifically linguistic
> analyses -- that study the differences between Eastern and Western
> Ukrainian?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Grover Furr
> Montclair SU
>
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