Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Ukrainian |
UkrainianNoun1. The Slavic language spoken in the Ukraine. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Ukrainian" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1869. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Geography | Inhabitant of Ukraine. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Ukrainian is an East Slavic language closely related to Russian but with some regular differences. The most close language to Ukrainian is Byelorussian. Russian o often corresponds to Ukrainian i, as in pod/pid "under". This also happens when Ukrainian words are declined, such as rik (nom):rotsi (loc) "year". Also, Russian g corresponds to Ukrainian h, which is written with the same letter. (A modified form of the letter is used for g, but not universally. In borrowed words g is regularly transformed to h.) (Russian has no h sound but uses g in such words as gipnotizirovat. Czech also has h corresponding to Russian g. This alternation is old in Slavic.)
Ukrainian case endings are somewhat different from Russian, and the vocabulary includes a large overlay of Polish terminology. Russian na pervom etazhe "on the first floor" is in the prepositional case. The Ukrainian corresponding expression is na pershomy poversi, which to the Russian ear is a mishmash. -omy is the standard locative (=prepositional) ending, but variants in -im are common in dialect and poetry, and allowed by the standards bodies. The x of Ukrainian poverx has mutated under the influence of the soft vowel i (k is similarly unstable in final positions).
The Ukrainian language is currently emerging from a long period of disuse. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including roughly 38-39 million in Ukraine (three-quarters of the total population), only in western Ukraine is the Ukrainian language commonly spoken. In Kyiv and central Ukraine Russian is the language of nearly all city-dwellers, although there is a shift towards Ukrainian; in eastern Ukraine, Russian is dominant and a Russified Ukrainian spoken in some circles, while in the Crimea Ukrainian is almost absent. Use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine can be expected to increase, as the rural population of Ukraine (still overwhelmingly Ukrainophone) migrates to Ukrainian cities and the Ukrainian language enters into wider use in central Ukraine.
Ukrainian is also spoken by a large emigre population, particularly in Canada. The founders of this population primarily emigrated between the World Wars, some from territories then occupied by Poland. Their vocabulary reflects somewhat less Russification than the modern language of independent Ukraine -- for "store/shop" they might prefer kramnytsya to mahazyn (cf. Russ. magazin, orig. French), whereas in Ukraine mahazyn is much more common and kramnytsya somewhat self-conscious.
Ukrainian language has 6 vowels (a, e, i, y, o, u) and one semi-vowel (j). The combintion of the semi-vowel with each of the vowels produces a new sound (ja, je, ji, jy, jo, ju). jy is used in certain dialects only. This soound as well as jo do not have separate letters in the alphabet and are rendered by two letters.
Most of the consonants come in 3 forms: hard, soft and long, for example, l, lj, ll or n, nj, nn. In writing the vowels change the preceding consonant from hard to soft or vice versa. In special cases, for example, at the end of the word a special soft sign is used to indicate that the consonant is soft. Apostrophy is used to indicate the hardness of the sound in the cases when normally the vowel would change the consonant to soft. The letter is repeated to indicate that the sound is long. Ukrainians tend to pronounce long sounds where the letters are double in other language, English or Russian, for example.
Sounds dz and dzh do not have dedicated letters in the alphabet and are rendered by two letters. Yet, they are single sounds rather than two sounds d z and d zh, pronounced separately. dzh is like English g in huge, dz has no English equivalent, it is pronounced like Japanese z in kamikaze.
Ukrainian alphabet is almost phonetic with the exception of the three sounds that do not have the dedicated letters and complex but intuitive (for a native) rules of the change of softness or hardness of the consonants by the following vowels.
Ukrianian language has 3 tenses: present, past and future. All verbs in Ukrianian fall in either of two categories: perfect or imperfect. In order to express the idea that the action is finished one has to use a perfect verb, an imperfect verb does not have a perfect form and vice versa.
For example, the verb pysaty (write) is an imperfect verb. For the perfect form there exist a number of related verbs each expressing slightly different aspect of have written : napysaty, zapysaty, perepysaty, prypysaty, dopysaty, spysaty, etc.
Verbs are inclined according to the person, number and gender (in the past tense).
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Ukrainian."
Crosswords: Ukrainian |
| English words defined with "Ukrainian": Crimea. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Ukrainian Dance (1943) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Ukrainian girls working with hoes in a field. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | A Ukrainian girl prepares a meal for her family on a make shift stove in a concentration camp at Salzburg, Austria / Signal Corps photo. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Ukrainian women at a political meeting. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Ukrainian Proverb | When the flag is unfurled, all reason is in the trumpet. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | These cards are new products to the Ukrainian market. (references) | |
Advertising is the main source of revenue for these Ukrainian TV broadcasting companies. (references) | ||
To expand the local market for Internet services, ISPs have created the Ukrainian backbone network. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Ukraine | Citizens of other countries must demonstrate renunciation of foreign citizenship one year after they acquire Ukrainian citizenship. (references) |
Belarus | At year's end, the Pentecostal church was fighting a court battle to overturn the denial of the Ukrainian pastor's permission to preach. (references) | |
Ukraine | The press reported in July assertions by RFE/RL Ukrainian Service chief Roman Kupchinsky that SBU agents warned him against seeking to reenter the country, a charge the Government denied. (references) | |
Economic History | Ukraine | Direct marketing is a concept new to the Ukrainian market. (references) |
Ukraine | In 1999-2001, three major Ukrainian refineries were privatized. (references) | |
Slovakia | Languages: Slovak (official), Hungarian, Ruthenian, and Ukrainian. (references) | |
Human Rights | Slovak Republic | In November 2000, the Bratislava district court ruled to halt the criminal prosecution of Ukrainian citizen Oleg Tkhoryk for the killing due to lack of incriminating evidence. (references) |
Moldova | The OSCE participates in the Joint Control Commission--which includes Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian, and Transnistrian members--that reviews violations of the cease-fire agreement. (references) | |
Czech Republic | A government-sponsored Council for Nationalities, which advises the Cabinet on minority affairs, is composed of three representatives of each of Slovaks and Roma; two representatives of Poles and Germans; one Hungarian representative; and one Ukrainian representative. (references) | |
Minorities | Slovak Republic | Ruthenians disagree that they are Ukrainians, and that their language is only a Ukrainian dialect. (references) |
Ukraine | The killing sparked protests and prompted a national debate over the use of Ukrainian and Russian languages. (references) | |
Ukraine | In May 2000, a popular folk singer was killed at a cafe in Lviv, allegedly by Russian-speakers who objected to his singing Ukrainian songs. (references) | |
Political Economy | Moldova | Moldova remains divided, with the separatist Transnistrian region along the Ukrainian border controlled primarily by ethnic Slavs. (references) |
Ukraine | The hard work of translating that consensus into law is one of the most important challenges facing the Ukrainian political system today. (references) | |
Ukraine | The course of political reform was reasserted with the Ukrainian parliament's (Verkhovna Rada) June 28, 1996 passage of a new Constitution. (references) | |
Political Rights | Moldova | Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Gagauz minorities are represented in Parliament, with deputies elected from nationwide party lists rather than local districts. (references) |
Trade | Ukraine | Both Ukrainian and foreign entities pay their taxes on a quarterly basis. (references) |
Ukraine | Foreign banks service both their multinational clients and Ukrainian blue chips. (references) | |
Travel | Ukraine | Direct air service between Ukrainian cities, other than from Kyiv, is unavailable. (references) |
Ukraine | Business cards, printed in English and Ukrainian or Russian, are de rigueur, with a firm handshake to open and close a meeting. (references) | |
Ukraine | Some useful Ukrainian vocabulary to remember is DOBRIY DEHN (hello, good day); DYA-KOO-YOU (thank you); BOOD LASKA (please/you're welcome). (references) | |
Worker Rights | Turkey | Russian and Ukrainian organized crime groups reportedly are the primary trafficking organizations. (references) |
Georgia | There were reports of Russian and Ukrainian women being sent to beach resorts in the summer months to work as prostitutes. (references) | |
Georgia | There also was evidence that Russian and Ukrainian women have been trafficked through Georgia to Turkey, sometimes using fraudulently obtained Georgian passports. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Ukrainian" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 97.81% of the time. "Ukrainian" is used about 457 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 97.81% | 447 | 12,980 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.53% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (singular) | 0.66% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 457 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "Ukrainian": ukrainian-born, ukrainian-populated, ukrainian-russian. | |
Ending with "Ukrainian": non-ukrainian. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "Ukrainian"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaans | Oekrains, Oekrainer. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | ukrainisht, ukrainas. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | الأوكراني, أوكراني أحد أبناء أوكرانيا. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asturian | Ucranianu. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | украински език, украинец. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cebuano | Ukrenyano. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 乌克兰 (Ukraine, Ukranian). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | ukrajinský, ukrajinka, ukrajinec, ukrajinština. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | ukrainer. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | Oekraïens. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | ukraino, ukraina. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | اهل اوکرانی درکشورشوروی . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | ukrainalainen. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | ukrainien. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | Oekraynsk. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | ukrainisch, Ukrainerin, Ukrainer. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | Ουκρανός, ουκρανόσ, ουκρανικόσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | ukrán (Ukrainian woman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | ucraino. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | Ookraanish, Ookraanagh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ainianukray ucraniano. (various references) ucrainian. (various references) ucrainean, limba ucraineanã. (various references) украинский язык, украинский, украинец. (various references) ukrajinski, ukrajina. (various references) ucranio. (various references) ukrainare. (various references) ukraynalı, ukraynaca, ukrayna. (various references) український, українець. (various references) người U-kren tiếng U-kren. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Ukrainian" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Eukronia, Kranidion, Ukania, ukanian, ukrainain. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-i-i-k-n-n-r-u" | |
-3 letters: anuran, anuria, unakin, urania. | |
-4 letters: inurn, kauri, kinin, knaur, naira, ruana. | |
-5 letters: airn, akin, anna, arak, aria, aura, inia, kain, kana, karn, kina, kirn, knar, knur, kuna, naan, nana, nark, raia, rain, raki, rani, rank, rink, ruin, unai. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
