Russian vs Ukrainian: what makes them different?

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What makes Ukrainian different from Russian? In this video I will show you how I differentiate between spoken and written Russian vs Ukrainian. These languages sound similar to people who don't speak Slavic languages, but while all East Slavic languages have characteristics in common, there are numerous differences which allow us to determine which language is which by just reading or listening to a few words. Enjoy this linguistic commentary and analysis!
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#Russia #Ukraine #Ukrainian
00:00 Intro
01:55 Written language
05:58 Pronunciation
16:05 Key words
18:56 Test: can you tell which is which?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

To try everything Brilliant has to offer - free - for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/polyMATHY . The first 200 to sign up will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription. The thumbnail is from a linguistic map of self-reported speakers of Ukrainian, Russian, Surzhyk, and other languages as studied in 2011: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Slavic_languages#/media/File:Lenguas_eslavas_orientales.PNG It is not a political map. I have drawn the correct political boundaries on the maps in the video. Слава Україні.

[@TheChislo12]

Ukraine❤️

[@MordykKateryna]

Героям Слава!

[@ramankravets]

@@IgorYentaltsev no it's not

[@ramankravets]

@@IgorYentaltsev the slogan first appeared and began to be actively used during the existence of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917-1920

[@CunnyRape]

Слава великой России.

[@vaniayura]

I'm native ukrainian speaker. You don't have an accent in ukrainian but you have an accent in russian! You're well done! I'm shocked!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую 🕊🔱

[@nathanhiggers4606]

@@larysab.2436 Remember the Ukrainian joke - "I've even learned Ukrainian language!!!" (unbelievable)

[@MrCr00wn]

welcome to the flat accent country club :) PLUA

[@ethelg.1182]

@@larysab.2436хто як говорить, знаєте. В мене Київ дуже и-шний :)

[@ethelg.1182]

​@@polyMATHY_Luke And also, to you, author, unlike literary Ukrainian, that uses що, among people, especially in central Ukraine it is barely used at all. We all are шо speakers)) Thanks for the video!

[@modmaker7617]

As a Polish-speaker, I understand Ukrainian if I listen very closely but it's very limited. Slavic languages are very similar but different as a whole.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well said

[@MCKevin289]

That’s how I am with the Scots language in Scotland.

[@modmaker7617]

@@MCKevin289 The Scots language is the only way English-speakers can experience this linguistic phenomena that Slavic & Romance language speakers experience because of how much English has diverged from its language family Germanic due to borrowing French vocabulary.

[@rollout1984]

When I lived in the Chicago area there was a large Polish community. I wrongly assumed it was all Polish when I heard a Slavic tongue. Turns out there was also a large Ukrainian presence as well.

[@rollout1984]

@@modmaker7617 brilliantly said.

[@BlackBirdOni]

In ukrainian you can also simply use "бо" for "because", "тому що" is more formal and mostly used in literature, than in spoken language.

[@Vshmarov]

Адже, оскільки, так як

[@ChainikVlad]

Чесно кажучи, "тому що" використовую (та й інші люди використовують) навіть і в звичайній речі, не бачив щоб прям відрізняли ці слова.

[@Vshmarov]

@@ChainikVlad Пане Чайнику, плюсую

[@ijnfrt]

@@ChainikVlad я Вас не критикую, але напевно Ви на українську перейшли ( я так думаю "в звичайній речі"), "тому що" це більш офіційне словосполучення, в розмовній мові зазвичай використовують форму "того шо".

[@ChainikVlad]

​@@ijnfrt так, я з Одеської області, де більше суржиком балакав, це тільки-но вже рік намагаюся без слів-паразитів та кальки розмовляти. Але все ж таки в побутовій мові - "тому що" частенько використовую, як і "бо".

[@kittkillward9014]

It is very fun that you study Russian and pronounce Russian words with a strong English accent, but Ukrainian words without any accent.

[@linass3565]

I have some friends from South Korea and some of them studied rusian, others ukrainian. They had a strong accent in rusian but ukrainian pronunciation was really good too😅

[@thekraken215]

While russians have accent in Ukrainian xD

[@0815Snickersboy]

Probably because the Ukrainian writing is very phonetic. Most words are spoken as they are written.

[@maxkho00]

@@linass3565 It's those soft consonants that always trip the foreigners up. Ukrainian has way fewer of those, so it makes sense that it would be easier for foreigners.

[@dariiagaycheva2853]

It may be because Ukrainian is easier to pronounce because its vowels are more straightforward sounding unlike in Russian where they always alter if not under a stress sign (for example: letter O sound more in between O and A or even almost like an A while in Ukrainian it’s always O) The comment from @maxkho00 is also very true Also, people who told you that you’re crazy for thinking that Ukrainian and Russian sound very similar are weird… They do even to native speakers, to me personally (as a native Russian speaker and fluent in Ukrainian) all Slavic languages sound very similar

[@Blastnikov]

Excellent video! I’ve been learning Ukrainian for three years now. It’s my fifth language and my first Slavic language. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed learning a language more than I have with Ukrainian. Дякую за відео, друже! Українська мова є гарна й неймовірна!

[@optovolokno2211]

Чому серед усіх слов'янських мов ви обрали саме українську?

[@Blastnikov]

@@optovolokno2211 Бо для мене, українська звучить найгарніше! 😊 Бережіть себе, пане Андрію!

[@b0zhuk]

Оо дякую ! Успіхів в подальшому вивченні !💗🌻

[@innarozum8864]

💙💛

[@anastasiiaserheiko8659]

👏💙💛

[@funki4896]

In fact I've never seen a non-ukrainian guy who knows Ukrainian and Russian as well as you. You seem to make a lot of research for your videos as well. Thank you for your high-quality content!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s very kind. I just started studying Ukrainian a few days ago, but I’ve known some basic Russian for years. I’m sure there are huge numbers of better qualified experts than I. Але дякую, и спасибо.

[@Olymus]

Я з Росії але розуміти українську мову все ж можу, може і не повністю однак усяко більш його

[@DonnieKreyden]

Lang Focus has released a video about Ukrainian as well! A very good one

[@GuzelKyrim-Ukraine]

Nothing unusual! I am Ukrainian Turk with the knowledge of fluent Ukrainian and Russian. There is a lot people like me!

[@vladzioadenauer943]

@@Olymus если ты это без переводчика написал, то очень хорошо получилось

[@svgkasor]

I speak both Ukrainian and Russian and this video was really interesting for me. I'm from Moldova. We are also mostly bilingual here. Russian is my first language and I speak Romanian as well Ukrainian is my 4th language. Because Moldova is situated between Romania and Ukraine I had an aportunity to watch Ukrainian tv from childhood and at age 12 I started slowly learning Ukrainian and three ears ago being 19 I got really obsessed with this language. Now I'm pretty good at speaking and understanding Ukrainian.

[@user-sc6pm9fy7b]

W moldovan

[@e.s.6275]

Well done , keep it up! What's your 3rd language, the one you didn't mention? English I assume?

[@yaroslavprotsenko4116]

No way!

[@theluckyone4536]

​@@e.s.6275I assume it's Moldovian

[@e.s.6275]

@@theluckyone4536 to my best knowledge, there is no Moldovian language in existence: in Moldova they speak Romanian as native language. Think Austria and German language they speak.

[@dariakolesnyk9218]

That’s interesting that Ukrainian seems to be comfortable to the English-speaking mouth. As a Russian-speaking Ukrainian I can hear the strong accent when you speak Russian, but very clear Ukrainian. That’s pretty cool

[@Gambol_25]

"russian-speaking Ukrainian"...

[@sviatoslav0309]

@@Gambol_25, yes some of us(especially east and south ones) are speakig russian as a result of being constantly affected by russians. Fortunately, we are getting rid of that language.

[@Gambol_25]

@@sviatoslav0309 нема "російськомовних українців", а є зрозійщені українці. Але дууже приємно знати, що адекватні люди позбуваються цієї бридоти

[@sviatoslav0309]

@@Gambol_25, згоден, так краще.

[@dariakolesnyk9218]

@@Gambol_25 з думкою згодна, але, на жаль, не змогла підібрати англійською мовою аналог слова «зросійщені». Да і все ж таки, не бачу нестачі логіки у виразі. Мала на увазі те, що я українка, котра розмовляє вільно російською. Розумію що таке зараз всіх дуже триггерить по зрозумілим причинам. Але нічого навіть стосовно «ущімлєнія русскагаварящіх» я не казала. Не дуже розумію чому повинна відчувати сором за знання мови.

[@YyaYye]

Wow! As Ukranian, I can surely tell you have brilliant pronunciation. Best I've heard from a foreigner

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую

[@ivan4ikok]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Навзаєм

[@justinemot2282]

Absolutely true! Even г & и sounds. & i also discovered the different в sounds. I didnt realise that

[@mbwp3481]

Ukrainian and russian are very different. I am a polish language native speaker, and even I don't know how to speak russian or ukrainian, but when I'm listening to someone speaking ukrainian I can understand about 80% of it, and when someone is sepaking russian maybe 30% of it. The vocabulary beetwen Polish and Ukrainian is very simular. Edit: Sorry, I actually listened to Ukrainian a bit (and studied on Duolingo), a little bit earlier, but even before that I understood lot of from it.

[@yeahimatrollandiluvit8704]

No they are very similar. It’s just that Ukrainian gained a lot polish loanwords.

[@mbwp3481]

@@yeahimatrollandiluvit8704 That's why they aren't similar.

[@Pidalin]

For me as Czech, Ukrainian is mostly easier to understand, but not always, it's more random, something is more understandable in Ukrainian and something in Russian, it's very hard for me to distinguish between these 2 langauges, but generaly, Ukrainian is probably more close. When I look on word, it's very often similar even in Russian, but I don't understand it becuase of their schwa sounds and vowel reductions which is something what doesn't exist in Czech. But even Ukrainian accent is hard to understand for me, especially when they speak English, it's almost impossible to understand it and when they work here and can speak some Czech, they still have very strong accent even after many years. But it's probably same vice versa, it's very hard to pronounce things like Russian or Ukrainian when you are Czech, it's just completely different accent.

[@gregorygogolev5707]

I'm not surprised to hear that as the Western part of Ukraine was under the Polish occupation for centuries and now the Ukrainian language is full of Polish words! As to the Russian, it was pretty much somilar before the 17 century (the Old Russian), when it started getting too much influance from many Europian languages with political reformations of Peter The Great, the first Emperor of Russia. Before that time the two languages were very much closer to each other, if not the same.

[@danylo7201]

@@gregorygogolev5707 again Russian propaganda. Look for historical information about the negotiations between Peter the Great and Stephen Mazepa. In moscow, translators were needed to understand the Ukrainian language. If they were almost identical (I repeat, this is not true) then there would be no need to ban Ukrainian. Or you need to be reminded of the oppression of the Ukrainian language en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Ukrainian_language_suppression.

[@erviatangerine5108]

I'm native Ukrainian/Russian speaker, and I can tell you've done such a good job! Also funny thing about lexical similiarity: Ukrainians and Belarussians can commuticate with each other if one gonna speak Ukrainian and another Belorussian))) We can understand each other languages without learning them))) But it doesn't work with Russian.

[@magnusio5292]

So it is kinda similar to us Scandinavians, where Norwegians and Swedes just pretend to know what the danes are saying xD

[@NechytailoRoman]

Тому що російська це по факту майже болгарська мова.

[@2Hot2]

That's very interesting because the other night Lukashenko said on CNN: "Of course we support Russia, we are the same people/Volk (odin narod), but Iingustically, at least, Belarus seems much more closely related to Ukraine, right?

[@erviatangerine5108]

@@2Hot2 Not only linguistically, but historically as well. Territories of both countries were in Kievan Rus, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and so on. Only a small part of modern Russia were also a part of those old countries.

[@Cunning_Trout]

@@NechytailoRoman That's stereotyping in it's purest form. One is Eastern Slavic originated in Old Ruthenian, other is Southeastern Slavic, much more dependant on Old Church Slavonic. Quite the different.

[@chanleymuir6469]

As a Scot, we have the same issue here in Scotland with people thinking/claiming the Scots language is a dialect of English or slang, when it is in fact its own language, with numerous dialects of its own. Sister languages are common (Slavic, Baltic, Scandinavian, Iberian, Celtic) and this video does a great job of highlighting that similarities & mutual intelligibility can occur, but that doesn’t mean each language isn’t distinct!

[@--galina--6820]

Так,ми точно,розуміємо шотланців ,а ви -нас ! Маємо схожі проблеми !Дякуємо за підтримку !😘Процвітання і миру вашій чудовій країні!💞

[@uamurphy]

The interesting thing is that it's can be more difficult to see the difference between Russian and Ukrainian when Zelenskyi is speaking, since he's originally a Russian speaking person, and has started to speak Ukrainian better just when became a president, so you can hear a lot of Russian accent in his Ukrainian. He definitely says a lot of Russian "е" sounds instead of Ukrainian "e", sometimes he says a lot of "a" sounds where he needs to put "o" sounds. It's just for information from a native Ukrainian & Russian speaker! Thanks for your video, some things were actually new to me :) 💙💛

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую. 🔱🕊

[@uamurphy]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Будь ласка :)

[@someonesomewhere9878]

I'd say there are common features for Kyiv speakers. Not because they are russificated or whatever, just the accents of the region, so Zelensky sounds pretty Kyivan to me :D

[@uamurphy]

@@someonesomewhere9878 But he's from Kryvyi Rih :) I don't think it's just Kyivan accent, since I'm from Kyiv too, and people around me usually don't speak like that. I feel like it can be like that, because a lot of people speak Russian in everyday life, so that's how their Ukrainian sounds. But that can be just my personal impression, of course

[@someonesomewhere9878]

@@uamurphy hmm, he lives in Kyiv for many years and interacts with people from Kyiv a lot. What about the accent, my aunt is Kyivan and sometimes she transforms o into a, or softens some sounds. Same with a Kyiv blogger I know, it's Ragulivna, some musicians like Ницо Потворно, 5 vymir and smth else if I may be able to come up with more names

[@lothariobazaroff3333]

The hard /g/ is also present in Ukrainian, but it's quite rare and used mostly in foreign loanwords and proper names. It's spelled Ґ, e.g. ґрант (grant), Ґренада (Grenada), Ґодзілла (Godzilla).

[@alleythetoaster8401]

There are some Ukranian words that use this letter. Like ґанок.

[@waapec]

ґанок(porch), ґудзик(button in clothes), ґрунт(soil), ґаздиня(hostess), аґрус(gooseberry), ґатунок(variety), дзиґа(whirligig) and many more :)

[@gegi4577]

to all those answers other users gave i can also add ґринджоли

[@MiriamFishmanArt]

@@gegi4577

[@wilhelmu]

not just kiev! my family, who came from belarus, also always says hard h instead of g

[@odrylove7829]

Дякую вам за вашу працю 🇺🇦

[@alakirl2714]

Зачем я смотрю это в 4 часа ночи? Когда и так всё это знаю, еще и на работу утром вставать...

[@user-po6tg9rg6v]

:))

[@user-gz9cy2ex6q]

Мені треба конспекти писати, але я дивлюсь оце

[@ivanmatveyev13]

Затѣмъ что твоя жизнь пуста и ​безсмысленна​ и ты пытаешься заполнить эту пустоту мусоромъ. Но можетъ дѣло и въ ​чѣмъ​-то другомъ.

[@lidiarapp7232]

Аналогично🤣

[@laserad]

As a Czech speaker, I can tell the difference between Ukrainians and Russians speaking my native tongue, there is a noticible difference between their accents... different phonological struggles I suppose. Nice video, Luke. Děkuji

[@bowrudder899]

We were always taught that Ukrainian was an East Slavic language, but the more I learn about it, the more it looks like a West Slavic language. Very cool about non-word final devoicing in Ukrainian too.

[@swanan1]

If accent is important, then american and biritish english are toodifferent languages. moreover, scottish or irish accent made different language inspite english, isn't it?

[@laserad]

@@swanan1 they are all englishes, just regional variations, miniscule dictionary differences and accent dont make a different language

[@swanan1]

@@laserad right. same thing with ukranian and russian

[@laserad]

@@swanan1 if so why dont russians understand ukrainian? this is not just an accent thing

[@janvernet]

It's very interesting that you made a comparison with catalan, and mentioned some of its linguistic features. As a catalan native speaker, I understood immediately the relation between russian and ukrainian you wanted to explain. For mentioning my language, here's my like!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Moltes gràcies!

[@sbclaridge]

On a similar note, after studying some French and Spanish, I find that I can understand some written Catalan, Occitan, and Italian, without formally studying those languages. I think I’ve occasionally found myself understanding some spoken Italian too. English sure is an oddity in not really having any languages with a degree of mutual intelligibility close to it (aside from Scots). It has diverged enough from other Germanic languages while not acquiring enough French/Latin/Romance characteristics to permit mutual intelligibility with languages in that family. With some formal study, other Germanic languages (especially Dutch and Scandinavian languages) and the Romance family are fairly-accessible to native English speakers with cognate-based “shortcuts.”

[@fabiolimadasilva3398]

Eu entendo você, amigo.

[@watchit3746]

@@sbclaridge The more neolatin languages you'll study, more you'll understand that all of them are just dialects of a broader single neolatin language...french can be a little bit harder because of phonetics and words wrote differently to how they sound...the only real exception to this rule is romanian, which is a beast of its kind, still remaining not that intellegible for all the other neolatin speakers. Anyway English has Frisian as close relative.

[@MegaWunna]

@@sbclaridge me speaking a scadnavian north germanic language and actually being a native Swedish speaker, I mostly understand norwegian without any learning, danish is easy to understand when written but sometimes hard to understand spoken. Funny how languages work.

[@qermitorium]

Thank you for your support that you've elegantly weaved into the video by deliberate choosing of the live speech samples

[@JakubBojanowski94]

Luke, your example of a reduced в in Ukrainian gave me an epiphany about the language continuity across Slavic lands. Ukrainian “Вони” in Polish is “oni” (similar to Russian “Они” but with an unstressed O) but there is also a colloquial pronunciation associated with the southeast and rural parts of Poland that uses the “W” sound at the beginning of the word. Crazy how the standardisation of language made us less communicative with close neighbours!

[@Galenus1234]

The loss or non-loss of w at the beginning of words can be seen in Germanic languages too: Nordic "Odin" vs Woden/Wotan, ormr vs worm, ulfr vs wolf

[@totneznakto]

As a native speaker of Ukrainian, I have to say that I did learn something new about my language through interesting perspective without any hint of sarcasm. 👍

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую.

[@matejkazbunda4769]

I'm Czech and I've been learning russian for like 12 years now. When it comes to Ukrainian I would have trouble speaking since I haven't learned the language exclusively but when I hear it either my russian skills help me or I even pick up a lot of things that are different in russian but are used in my own native language.

[@bowrudder899]

We were always taught that Ukrainian was an East Slavic language, but the more I learn about it, the more it looks like a West Slavic language. Very cool about non-word final devoicing in Ukrainian too.

[@LordDamianus]

@@bowrudder899 LMAO. You'd wish. Why are Ukrainians such West Slavic wannabes?

[@bowrudder899]

That's one theory. And then Ukrainian features would have spread from there into all of the other West Slavic languages?

[@DarkGhostandMoscow]

@Boba Dokutowitsch

[@obmanmaycry]

I'm ukrainian and I am very surprised that a non-native speaker could correctly pronounce our sound "щ"))) I can speak English and German, I traveled a lot, talked with Europeans, Americans, for them it is a real test to pronounce ukrainian correctly "щ" or "и". You really well outlined the problems of similarities and differences between Ukrainian and Russian, well done!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for your kind words

[@JG-nm9zk]

I struggle with и. I think its a joke Ukrainians have to confuse people. They say its pronounced one way then go and use it another.

[@user-qc6pg6ef6h]

I mostly hear the correct "shcho" in media or western Ukraine. Most Ukrainian speakers use the simplified "shio", at least here in Kyiv.

[@user-mc3de1ry8c]

​@@JG-nm9zk You are right. This sound is extremely difficalt for forighners, becouse it does not exist in eny other tongue, exept ukrainians. Russians can not spell it neither. That's why ukrainian servisemen, while catching russin solgers in sivilian dress, force them to say the word "palyanutsya" (паляниця). Noone of russians can pronounce it correctly!

[@danyloprystupa9841]

As a Ukrainian-speaking person, I must admit that you have a good pronunciation of Ukrainian

[@wingedhussar1117]

As a Polish speaker, I find it much easier to listen to Ukrainian than to Russian

[@sjoc6162]

for me as south slavic speaker i can understand partially both but for my ear ukrainian has more polish influence. Thank you for this video, is amazing 👏

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks

[@sjoc6162]

like for exsample Bulgarian/Macedonian are more closer to Russian or oposit way but on the other side Serbo/Croatian is closer to Slovak/Czech/Polish. Mabey i am wrong ill say again but this is just for my ear.

[@domrogg4362]

@@sjoc6162 Not exactly. The similarity in vocabulary between Bulgarian/Macedonian and Russian is due to influence from OCS in formation of modern Russian. Without this influence the difference would be substantial. Grammar on the other hand is quite different. My native is Croatian and the closest non South Slavic language to Croatian speakers is Slovakian, than Czech, Ukrainian, and Russian. Polish in spoken form is very strange for us. It's like, we know it's Slavic, but most of it sounds like gibberish. The thing is - geographic proximity is the key!

[@dvv18]

@@domrogg4362 In fact, Bulgarian experienced a very strong reverse influence from Russian during the XIX century.

[@domrogg4362]

@@dvv18 Yes, during "deottomanization" of language from Ottoman Turkish words, but it's not comparable to influence of OSC on Russian.

[@victoriakyivua6929]

So thankful for this video🙏🏻 I used to work in company where a lot of my coworkers were from USA. And it felt really good when instead of learning russian they have started to learn Ukrainian. True also that all ukrainians speak both languages and in bigger cities English is the third one

[@--galina--6820]

Привіт ! Вибачте, не правда,що всі українці розмовляють російською!Старше покоління -так,ми вчили в школі,інститутах,говорили російською в різних закладах,а зараз молоді майже не вчать російську,розуміючи,що краще приділити більше часу для вивчення англійської,іспанської чи іншої європейської мови!🧐

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

10:00 i really love how excited he sounds talking about the differences in vowel quality. it's so admirable and i love it!!

[@insane5375]

There's also the apostrophe that is used in Ukrainian to connect vowels and the consonants in the words in some cases. You did a great job! It is nice to see an unbiased opinion about the Ukrainians. Thank you!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Слава Україні.

[@insane5375]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Героям слава!

[@virshyk]

П'ятниця, зв'язав, здоров'я, любов'ю, в'язниця

[@bohdansatchuk1611]

The video is highly accurate. You've surely done a whole lot of research! Here are some interesting things I'd like to add: - As you said on the example of letter B, in Ukrainian many letters actually have a wide variety of different pronunciations which depend completely on the mood/region of the speaker - The И in Ukrainian sounds really weird if pronounced as Russian ЬІ, and also occurs in positions, where it's difficult to pronounce for Russians. Which is why there are jokes about identifying Russian spies/saboteurs by asking them to say "паляниця" (a woman on Russian state TV tried to say it, but failed) - The letter Щ is also pronounced very differently from one speaker to another, it can vary from soft ɕː to ʃ (sh) or ʃt͡ʃ (shch). The last one is a formal pronunciation, I guess - In daily Ukrainian speech I'd say that it's 1:1:1 of words "Так", "Да" and "Та", though "Так"is the only formal word - In Ukrainian, if it's not a formal conversation, you also usually use intonation a lot, which makes Ukrainian conversations sound a bit like Italian to me - If you come to Ukraine and listen how native people speak, you will most certainly hear суржик, which is a mix of Ukrainian (usually a dialect of Ukrainian) and Russian (you mentioned it). So to understand it you probably have to know both languages well, because many words used in суржик are actually Russian words with Ukrainian grammar or phonology, or even some weird combinations of words from both languages. Moreover, it has its own unique sounds, which usually come from the dialect on which the суржик is based. There are no rules of суржик and it's phonology and vocabulary only depends on the speaker and environment. It is most commonly spoken in Eastern and Central regions (official data is ~22%, but I think it's actually 30-35%). It is still spoken, but not so commonly (3-5%) in Western Ukraine, where it changes to a mix of Ukrainian and Polish/Hungarian/Romanian. Here's an example of sentence in суржик: Він балака по тіліфону, а жінка йму каже "возьми лучче води чуть-чуть і добав до тіста". Try to figure out the meaning! Thank you for your amazing work! I'm an old fan of your channel and I was glad to see you are interested in my language. Your pronunciation is not ideal, but surely good and quite authentic! P.S. thank you as well for telling about the political situation in my country. International support is extremely valuable for us. It's good to understand we are not alone in this. Мир і свобода!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую! Героям слава.

[@jey3770]

Щодо так-да-та, то ви ж розумієте, звідки "да" взялося? Та і "та" ще недавно мало вельми обмежений реґіон уживання й поширилося через сильний вплив Галичини. Тому я б на вашому місці не легалізував би так одкрито ці три слова, бо ж теперішня ситуація склалася не природнім шляхом і треба старатись говорити правильно. Слава Україні!

[@bohdansatchuk1611]

@@jey3770 Насправді я не "легалізую" жоден з варіантів, а просто написав реальний їх вжиток, принаймні в моєму оточенні. Щодо "да", я б не став обов'язково казати про запозичення - воно може бути цілком автентичним в південно-східних говірках. А те, як ми його зараз інтерпретуємо - то вже інша справа.

[@unmei42]

"Та" в сенсі "Так"? Оо Не заперечую, що таке може бути, просто мені не траплялось. Я "та" тільки як аналог "і" використовую, просто)

[@bohdansatchuk1611]

@@unmei42 можливо, від регіону залежить. Я знаходжуся в Києві, але ще контактую з багатьма людьми з західних областей, і "та" в значенні "так" чую і використовую дуже часто. Проте не пригадаю вже, коли і де саме його підхопив. Сам з Запоріжжя, там не чув, щоб його вживали.

[@axbx7139]

About mutual understanding. Most of Ukrainians are bilingual now, so it's very easy for them to understand Russian (they know it). Yet most of Russians do struggle with understanding Ukrainian. And what's interesting, most of Ukrainians don't know Belarussian, and vice verca, yet Ukrainians and Belarussians have a very good mutual understanding. Also: Ukrainians usually use Ukrainian or very close phonetics when speak Russian (they rarely pronounce г as Russians do for example), but Russians don't know and don't understand Ukrainian phonetics. So they easily recognize Ukrainian Russian-speaker. P.S. more simple way to say "because" in Ukrainian is "бо" (bo), it's use kinda depends on tone and words around

[@borysovskaulyana9053]

Thank you 💙💛 I am a native Ukrainian speaker, and your Ukrainian is great. I am so happy that you showed the difference between our languages and many videos that describ what russions bring to our beautiful land.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую. Слава Україні.

[@user-eb3wf4sl3n]

Украине сала

[@_juan.joao_]

To me, Ukranian and Russian are like Portuguese and Spanish - mutually intelligible in some extend but definately not the same language.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Quite

[@highgroundproductions8590]

No, Portuguese and Spanish are more different especially in phonology. More like Spanish and Catalan.

[@bogjesrbin484]

Ukrainian and Russian are just dialects of the same language

[@dinos9607]

Yep, that is true but one needs to understand that the Ukrainian you talk about is the language spoken in the west. In the East that language was never spoken, in the South it was also unheard, none knows it to this day, and even in the center most people spoke intermediate layers which could only be seen as dialects of Russian rather than as dialects of Ukrainian. Ukrainian thus was the language of a minority of people which post-independence was imposed on the majority, often with quite a lot of coercion.

[@_Lumiere_]

@Bog je Srbin with their phonetic differences and 60% lexical similarity, I really don't think you can call them dialects of the same language. Ukrainian leans quite a lot towards the west slavic language family.

[@songyani3992]

I honestly believe “western” categorization of my own language than the official national one. As a mandarin speaker I'm suppose to believe Cantonese or Wu or Mandarin are all dialects of the same language is the most ridiculous thing ever to me.

[@thorodinson6649]

Right

[@erickchandra3771]

是的 🤣🤣🤣

[@gsmiro]

Yue, Wu, Min, Mandarin and many other are all dialects of the same language or different spoken languages of the same language family. The categorization can be different, but there's no denying that all are Chinese spoken languages. And they all traces back to the historical development of the Chinese spoken language. The older English way for these are called "tongues" or spoken langues 語 or 言. They are all different tongues in the Chinese/Han ethnic group. They developed from various stages throughout the Chinese history and they diverged at different point. They became very different from each other due to geographical reasons. However, they are still all Chinese tongues. The written language 文 however, is the defining unifying factor for all the Chinese spoken tongues and for the Chinese (Han) nation/people. So we may not be able to use Western ideas of "languages" to truly define Chinese tongues that all shared the same written form and style 文.

[@lamaahruloma4270]

Everybody does so. I would recommend learning Russian or Ukrainian language and try to understand. Same with Lusatian + Czech, Slovak CZECH and Slovak Macedonian vs. Bulgarian Maybe Moldavian and Romanian Balkán languages. China has at least ideograms that even I can understand.

[@minsekfau3218]

@@gsmiro Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese are all derived from Latin. All of them use the Latin alphabet. In written form, they are partially intelligible. However, they are all classified as different languages. Isn't that the same case as the Chinese languages?

[@maxmathers7792]

You have a very good pronunciation of Ukrainian words. It feels like a Ukrainian is making a video for an English-speaking audience. I would like to add and clarify for your viewers that indeed all Ukrainians are bilingual by birth. Also, as a Ukrainian, I can say that we understand 80-90% of the Belarusian language. Belarusian and Ukrainian are very similar, and if necessary, we can communicate in our languages ​​without problems, and understand almost everything. Ukrainians can understand Polish if they listen very carefully and find many words similar. Belarusians are also bilingual and understand Russian. Russians do not speak any language. Neither Belarusian nor Ukrainian. Thank you for your work. Great job, it was interesting!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую. Слава Україні.

[@maxmathers7792]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Героям Слава! 💙💛

[@tetisummer]

As a Ukrainian native speaker I can disagree, we are not all bilingual by birth. For me Russian is a foreign language and I learned it at school a bit and due to its prevalence on television and in the media. And it's the case for many Ukrainians, especially in the Western Ukraine. The only reason that we have so many people speaking both languages hides in the centuries-old history of the planting of Russian language and Russification of Ukraine

[@maxmathers7792]

@@tetisummer Let's clear this up a bit. No child is a native speaker of any language. Language is imposed on a person from birth to old age. Likewise, language is imposed by society. In Ukraine, based on my experience, there is a very small percentage of people who speak only Ukrainian. As a rule, a second language is always present in a Ukrainian. Be it Russian, Polish, Hungarian, English etc. As for me, it is a huge advantage to have an understanding of a second language from childhood.

[@tetisummer]

@@maxmathers7792 of course, based on your experience, but your experience isn't absolute. I can agree that knowing more languages is great, but we always have to look at the reason why Russian is so popular and spread in Ukraine. For example I would rather not know Russian, but as many people in Ukraine I didn't have a choice, but learn it. My conclusion is that there are many people in Ukraine who speak two languages, but not all. And they know these two languages usually not because of some similarities or out of their own desire, but because of Russian influence through our history.

[@Thelaretus]

As a Brazilian polyglot, I'd say Portuguese, German and Russian are related to Spanish, Dutch and Ukrainian, respectively, in a very similar manner.

[@SamAronow]

From the perspective of someone who speaks neither language, Ukrainian sounds to me vaguely like if Russian was actually pronounced as spelled. Almost as if it's an older, more conservative version of East Slavic. Sort of like European Portuguese. Incidentally, Russian did used to have "i," but they got rid of it after the October Revolution.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That is true

[@Philoglossos]

Woah, interesting to see you here haha

[@JesusFriedChrist]

Yes I do remember reading about many different letters in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet that either got changed, fell out of use over time, or were arbitrarily removed. The “i” being one of them.

[@sergesutulo1301]

That old Russian I had absolutely the same pronunciation as И but was used in front of vowels as tradition. There was no sense to keep it.

[@MarkRosa]

Blame the Greeks for the confusion; they're the ones who started pronouncing eta (which led to Cyrillic И) the same as iota (which led to Cyrillic i) 😀

[@syn_ukraiiny]

3:50 Ukrainian also have letter " ґ " - "g". "Ґрунт (grunt)"- soil, "ґрати (graty)" - lettice, "ґедзь" (gedz') - gadfly... Ukrainian Ґ = russian Г (phonetically). In Ukrainian you can also find "w" sound, written as "в" before next non-vocal letter and in the end of the word. So Ukrainian also have sound as belorussian, only without special/unique letter for it. For example: "впав" - wpaw, "винив" - vynyw, "бігав" - bihaw, but "везти" - vezty, "воля" - "vol'a".

[@yuriydee]

I kind of wish we added a new letter in Ukrainian for that "w" sound. It occurs so often yet we have a single letter for both "v" and "w" sounds.

[@007ShaolinMonk]

This is one of the reasons that Ukrainian often changes "в" to "у" at will. Like, some people sometimes can say Вкраїна instead of Україна. Or the preposition "в" in Russian corresponds to Ukrainian "в" or "у" which are chosen according to phonetics of the neighbouring letters.

[@yuriydee]

@@007ShaolinMonk Yep when I speak fast, I would often say "Вкраїна", or at least similar to that. In that specific use case both sounds are used and kind of morphed. But there are words like wolf, вoвk (pronounced "woke") for example that very clearly use a different "в" sound. Like I said, wish we had a letter for it in Ukrainian :(

[@guseletov]

Indeed, there is even a page : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghe_with_upturn

[@CapybaraKingUa]

Thank you so much for this video and for paying attention to the topic.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Слава Україні

[@mamai_eth]

Your work is super cool in the start, but at the end I was speechless, thank you!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s very kind. My favoritism for Ukraine in the current war is clear. Perhaps I was too subtle.

[@justoliver2635]

I do get the confusion too when I listen to both, sounding similar but different from each other from the same family. Thank you Luke for enlightening us once again.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for the comment and for watching. I’m glad if it’s helpful.

[@andrewshepitko6354]

Ukrainian is not from the same family with russian because russian is not eastern slavic, is just dialect of bulgarian.

[@waragque]

@@andrewshepitko6354 С таким же успехом украинский можно назвать диалектом польского.

[@andrewshepitko6354]

@@waragque d'après quoi?

[@DonnieKreyden]

Greetings from a Latvian with a mixed east slavic background! I speak Russian natively and understand Ukrainian very well, better than our Russian neighbors, so be sure that you did a great job :)

[@danielmalachi8793]

Excellently put together, Luke. You inspire me to keep on learning, so thank you... Your content goes from strength to strength, so much so that I recommend you to my students. Grazie, fratello

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Molto gentile, grazie

[@gnke]

This video deserves a great praise, because not only author informed English speaking people on differences between languages and how to distinguish one from another (especially since a lot of people tend to see them as "the same language"), he did it while informing people of horrors that currently occur in Ukraine. On top of that author added historical reference on why Ukrainian sound like Russian in some cases (suppression of Ukrainian during Russian Empire and USSR). One letter you did not cover (although not common) is Ukrainian letter "Ґ ґ" - this letter is unique to Ukrainian (as far as I know) and sounds Russian letter "Г г". Examples are: Ґава (Gray crow); Ґанок (Porch); Ґвалт (Ruckus/loud noise); Ґазда і Ґаздиня (host and hostess) etc. Truth be told - it is unlikely that you will hear/see this letter in use as modern Ukrainian language almost never uses it because there are synonyms in use that cover all those words and used much more frequently. As a Ukrainian individual and from our nation as whole we are very thankful for spreading this information. Since the Revolution of Dignity we are trying to separate ourselves (not to show that we despise everything that is Russian, but to show that we have our own culture) and videos like this help a lot with it. This rabbit hole goes very deep and if you want to know more about Ukrainian language there is a channel named "Ідея Олександрівна" where they talk about history and dialects of Ukrainian language (i.e. letter "Ф ф" is was not a letter in Ukrainian up until Soviet Union and in place of it the diagraph "Хв" was in use). Those videos are in Ukrainian, but from what I hear and see it is not a problem for you as your Ukrainian is quite good! Дякую! Слава Україні! Мир і свобода! 💙💛

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Героям слава.

[@faryafaraji]

Honoured by the shout out Luke, thanks alot! Something that annoys me in that perceptual difference topic is the persistent habit among people to take for granted that any geopolitically “smaller” language is necessarily a dialect of geopolitically “bigger,” ones, like in that video you made about dialects. Many people will hear the similarity between Ukrainian and Russian, and jump to to the conclusion that the former can only be a dialect of the latter. As a native Mazandarani speaker, a northwestern Iranian language, I always have to argue to prove that it’s not merely a dialect of Persian, which is a southwestern one. Then having grown up in the Languedoc region of France, it’s the same with Occitan in regards to French, and Catalan in regards to Spanish as you mentioned. My Venetian and Sicilian speaking friends can add even more to the subject hehe. In any case, thanks for the indepth overview of the subject!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well said. Thanks for the comment, my friend.

[@belle3679]

I’m italian and Sicilian e Venetian are, in fact, italian s dialect, but grew farther from the national and original language with time, becoming so different from it to create new languages.

[@faryafaraji]

@@belle3679 Our dear Luke has made a video about the subject: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIbPf5upbdd9lck Now I might have gotten my own information wrong about Sicilian since I mostly studied Venetian, so feel free to correct me if you know of any sources proving what I'm about to say wrong, but Venetian and Sicilian, in their histories, both descend directly from Latin. They did not emerge out of the Italian language of Tuscany and Florence, but instead reach back to Latin by themselves, and developed in parallel alongside Italian, not from Italian. Venetian and Sicilian reach back directly to Latin and developed from that root--their direct mother root is the Proto-Romance dialects of their territory. If we define a dialect as a form of speech that evolved from another language, then the term dialect does not apply to Venetian and Sicilian in relation to Italian.

[@belle3679]

@@faryafaraji hi, I studied this is in school some years ago so it's completely possible I have made some mistakes! yes, I meant by Italian the language that was used at the time (a VERY rough latin, Latin wasn't used by normal people at the time). I erroneously used the word Italian to mean that, presuming you didn't study that, in a attempt to make myself clearer, but its truly marvelous to see non Italian are curious about the origins of our language! I really admire you! So, siciliano and veneziano are considered both languages and dialects. With time is it got so difficult to non-sicilian and non-venetian to understand it that it became a totally different thing. Italian wasnt a national language until some centuries ago, but there were tons of dialects in every small country, especially closed ones. (an example in napulitan from naple, a city, or abruzzese, from Abruzzo, a region near Naple, whose sounds completely different from the modern Italian but similar to each other). Modern Italian, is a produit of fiorentin dialect, used in "promessi sposi", a masterpiece of literature that united all of the country under an extremely cured dialept , and it's relatively recent.

[@greatsarmatae]

Only somebody with complete absence of minimum linguistic knowledge could say that Ukrainian has something to do with being dialect of Russian, considering that Ukrainian is authentic, initial and original language of Rus population ("southern Rus" if to look at it as at empire with northern etc lands), and "Russian" is only late tongue of population of Moscovian territory, consisted of great Church Slavic impact. For Muscovy "Russian" identity is politonym. For Rus-Ukraine - "Rusin" has always been an ethnonym. "Russian" is equivalent to Romanian - it has nothing to do with Rome, unlike Rus/Ruthenian (Ukrainian) language, tongue of Rus-Ukraine. And besides, there never has been "East Slavic language" too, it's proven fact. By huge scientists like Y. Shevelyov, K. Tyshchenko, V. Nimchuk and others. Only chaotic local dialects existed, which lived to shape 4 universal tongues for Rus (Ukraine), Kryvia (Belarus), Muscovy and Novgorod.

[@manuelapollo7988]

My wife is ukrainian and I can tell you a few things: -ukrainian for part of its vocabulary is closer to polish (in both language yes is tak, in russian da) and in general it seems more autenthically slavic (the names of the months are all slavic, in russian they are similar to ours because they use the latin etymology). Russian underwent some europification taking some vocabulary from french (like floor that is етаж in russian like french, but in ukrainian it's a slavic name) -part of the vocabulary has an influence from turkish due to the proximity with the crimean kaghanate, for instance watermelon is kavun both in ukrainian and turkish, while in russian is arbuz, like in polish; coffe is kava both in ukrainian and turkish, while it's кофе in russian. You will have fun studying ukrainian 🙂 -in the case system, ukrainian possesses the vocative, russian doesn't

[@user-hb9mz2hp2g]

French was very popular in Russian elites as lingua franca of XIX century Europe.

[@dvv18]

There is a certain pattern here: the Slavic people who predominantly used Latin as their liturgical language, or the people who had long been under heavy influence of the former, use Slavic names for the months. Eastern Orthodox believers, OTOH, tend to use Latin names. The most striking example of this phenomenon is Serbian and Croatian. I would say that it's the closeness of the liturgical language to the everyday one that facilitated the acceptance of church terminology in the everyday language.

[@samspade2657]

In North India the word for watermelon is ""tarbuj" which is very close to Russian "arbuz." I suspect it is of Arabic or more likely Persian origin.

[@samspade2657]

@@user-hb9mz2hp2g I would say not. It was popular in the 18th century especially with Catherine the Great who actively corresponded with Voltaire. But after the French revolution and invasion of Russia by France it fell out of favor in the 19th century.

[@dvv18]

@@samspade2657 According to the great Max Vasmer, Persian. It came to the Slavic languages via the Turkic tribes of the Pontic steppes though.

[@bodamat]

Great video and perfectly explained the difference between the languages, which in my opinion is very important, especially as a Ukrainian native speaker :) Thanks a lot for your support 💙💛 Also, we have the unique letter 'ґ' sounds 'g' :) Yeah is confusing and completely different than 'г' :) Good luck :D

[@nextstop1228]

As a Ukrainian native speaker, I can say that you have a good pronunciation, it has been written already:) Thank you for showing the difference. In general, I think that Ukrainian and Russian belong to different phonetic groups. Not in the subject, but an interesting fact (as for me) that Ukrainians and Belarusians understand each other's languages very ​​well. Polish too about 70%, if get used to the frequency of hissing sounds. At the same time, Russians in most cases don't understand our languages well. Someone from them says that Serbian language is more clear for understanding to Russians.

[@mairepashaieva6705]

it is logical that the Russian language is more similar to Serbian, since the Croatian priest Yuri Krizhanich created the Russian language (as you know, Croatian and Serbian used to be one language, only now they have begun to be separated as they have gone down different paths. But basically they are identical)

[@DarkGhostandMoscow]

@@mairepashaieva6705 You idiots. Serbian and Russian are not similar. And Ukrainian is understandable to Russian due to syntax, even if the word is different - a lot is clear from the context. It won't work that way with Polish. Language is not only words, but, first of all, syntax - the construction of sentences.

[@MarceloRodrigues1]

There is a fun detail about Russian spoken in Ukraine: the "г" in Ukrainian-Russian is commonly colloquially pronounced as /ɣ/ like in the Ukranian "г". One would assume that is a direct influence of Ukrainian, but it also occurs in Russian dialects that are part of what would be the areas of a dialect continuum between the languages. Also, I have noticed less vowel reduction in some speakers of russian in Kiev with the "O' being pronounced with a full "O" where it would be expected an schwa sound. I am only counting the people I know speak it as their first language. I am not a native speaker of russian and my knowledge of it is limited, but one might wonder if that is not part of an ancient language continuum to some extent. Nice video! Thanks for making it. :-)

[@moropikkuu]

I was gonna make a similar comment, but I saw yours! There was a viral video a few days ago of a Ukrainian disturbing an Israeli news anchor in Kyiv, and talking in Russian. For me, the dead giveaway was when he said помогать… his o sounds were much less reduced than they would be by a native Russian standard dialect speaker, and the г wasn’t realised as a hard g sound…

[@MarceloRodrigues1]

​@@moropikkuu Exactly. It is a very nice accent! Though I am probably not impartial since the little russian I know I learned it in Kyiv so it just became standard pronunciation. :-) I remember the first time I realized that the "г" was being pronounced as a /ɣ/. The word was горизонт and I was confused... looking for something starting with a "х", stuck on the first syllable, not being able to find it. :-) It took me a while to understand what was happening with the "г" sounds. :-)

[@giuliocusenza5204]

When the boy says помогать it sounds like he does the first thing you mention

[@MarceloRodrigues1]

@@giuliocusenza5204 He does and though then he pronounces it as a hard "g" on the next word "героям" I am pretty sure another speaker could have pronounced it as /ɣ/ as well. Sometimes it would happen that I would ask for the person to repeat the word and then suddenly the /ɣ/ would get its standard pronunciation as a hard "g" so it's not that regular either.

[@giuliocusenza5204]

@@MarceloRodrigues1 Might be likelier to happen in intervocalic environment

[@user-uo5ro9xh9n]

Great analysis! Even as a bilingual Ukrainian/Russian speaker who lived in Ukraine for 12 years, I have never noticed some of the pronunciation nuances that you observed. A few small mistakes: 2:33 The stress in the word іграшка is on the first syllable 20:47 России/Росії is a genitive form, the word in its nominative form is Россия/Росія

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую и спасибо. Yes, I’m aware of the accent mistake now. At 20:47 this isn’t a mistake; it I heard correctly, President Zelenskyy is using the genitive form, and that the form I am discussing.

[@vitaliibruelov9490]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Zelenskyy's native language is Russian (he is ethnic Jew), and his Ukrainian pronunciation is not perfect.

[@goombacraft]

@@vitaliibruelov9490 Yes, he has many times where he says а instead of о (оканье) and sometimes є instead of е

[@tikhontarnavsky3988]

All in all, thank you for the video. It's very interesting and informative.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thank you for watching!

[@advokatarkadiya3274]

Thank you for this awesome video! Great job. These languages really different. And it was much more different years ago. Before reformation in USSR (At least Language reformations 1933. You can read about it in internet if you want), which really changed Ukrainian language closer to russian. They wanted to erase Ukrainian identity

[@DanDjurdjevicplus]

Thanks for that Luke. As an ethnic Serb, I can understand most spoken Russian - especially once you get over the different stresses. The fact that “shto” is realised as something sounding like the Serbian and Croat “shta” etc. helps. Account for a whole lot of palatalisation (not common in the Ekavian that I speak) and you’re sorted. But Ukrainian… sounds almost like Polish to my ear! Certainly very different! I love both languages and cultures. And I hope this war ends soon - with Ukraine keeping its sovereignty. Слава Україні!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

🕊🔱

[@dvv18]

Well, in real life, Russians do the full spectrum of shto/cho/sho, so watch out 😉

[@xxxxxx400]

As a Polish native speaker I hear that Ukrainian sounds eastern like Russian but is hard in pronunciation like Polish. Is just in beetween. But there is much difference in sounds beetween western and eastern dialects.

[@bhami]

@@dvv18 As a native English speaker and student of Russian, listening to various Russian speakers across KZbin, it seems like they almost never distinguish between Ш and Щ.

[@dvv18]

@@bhami Not sure what you're talking about. As a native Russian speaker, I clearly hear the difference between the two sounds in, say, щепотка and шепоток. And how my, uhm, _vocal apparatus_ works when I articulate them.

[@PLkamil1982]

I'm from Poland. Over the past month, I have learned to distinguish between these two languages ​​flawlessly. Previously, it seemed impossible to me, although I was aware of the difference.

[@andrewshepitko6354]

Can't distinguish? How can it be possible ? You're even polish! Russian sounds like some children language and so funny. When ukrainian sounds different

[@PLkamil1982]

@@andrewshepitko6354 Maybe this is surprising for you, but for most Poles at first impression, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian sounds the same. But now I'm glad I can tell them apart.

[@e.s.6275]

@@PLkamil1982 good progress, keep it up, bro

[@imaginedragon3659]

@@PLkamil1982 kinda bizarre you know , my poles mates hear the difference between russian and Ukrainian languages

[@konstanzekubick5503]

The German example showed the noun „Weg“, which has a long vowel but the pronunciation was for the adverb „weg” which is short. Thanks for your videos!

[@user-mw2ne7db5i]

As a Belarusian, who speaks Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian, I'd like to say that Belarusian and Ukrainian are VERY similar lexically (though pronunciation differs a lot). Belarusian and Ukrainian native speakers 99% understand each other when speaking slowly. Before 19 century they were the same language with some pronunciation features. While Russian is not so close to Belarusian and Ukrainian. Russian has a lot in common with Bulgarian, and has fewer loanwords from Western languages

[@DennisMelentyev]

That’s because Russian originated from artificial Church Slavonic, while Ukrainuan and Bielorussian from actual spoken language od Rus.

[@goombacraft]

@@DennisMelentyev while this is true, and really an interesting topic, calling Church Slavonic "artificial" isn't really true. It was a conservative prestige dialect that developed differently than the vulgar (common) varities of Rus. It was not thought up one day, but is not dissimilar to how RP dialect in English (which people say is artificial) is actually a seperate prestige dialect, used by upper classes. Same in medieval Rus.

[@DennisMelentyev]

@@goombacraft nope. Church Slavonic was created by Cyril and Methody based on south slavic languages specifically for baptizing of Moravians. Altogether with glagolica alphabet. This happened couple centuries before baptising Rus. It was not spoken in Rus and was adopted as an legislation language since Rus had no written form of own language. Just try to ask a russian-only speaker to understand Serbian or even modern Bolgarian language and then - Ukrainian or Bielorussian. It would be much easier for them to go with southern languages. While Ukrainians and Belorussians will find Slovakian and Polish languages much easier to comprehend. So no, Church Slavonic and actual language of Rus were not high/low dialects, but two completely different languages. The same way as was Latin vs languages of Franks, Germanic and many other Catholic European tribes/countries.

[@MarekKowalczyk]

At 22:56 you can hear the boy say "папа будет помогать" ("dad will be helping") pronounced with a distinctive Kiev accent, where instead of the 'g' sound in the word "помогать" of standard Russian you can clearly hear the 'h' sound ("помахать" - same as "to wave", like in "wave your hand"). Interestingly, native speakers of Russian from Kiev tend not to notice the substitution of 'g' with 'h' and will strongly deny the existence of the phenomenon.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s fascinating. Thanks for the observation

[@xxxxxx400]

@@polyMATHY_Luke he speaks russian but with distinct ukrainian accent.

[@zoefiasco4904]

Then there's the Belarussian g>h as in Grodno > Hrodno.

[@MarekKowalczyk]

BTW, as a native Polish speaker, albeit with half a dozen years of (compulsory) Russion instruction back in the 1980s and 1990s, I understand little spoken Ukrainian but spoken Russian reasonably well. So much for the similarity of Ukraininan and Polish :) Also, Ukrainians sounds to my ear a bit harsh in contrast to the soft and rounded sounds of Russian.

[@FarfettilLejl]

​@@MarekKowalczyk "I learnt Russian for years and understand it better than Ukrainian. Therefore Ukrainian is not as similar to Polish". Because logic

[@vysheslavuzumati1269]

I wondered this since I first began learning Russian a few years ago. A russian language partner I had told me it sounded like "backwards russian" others have explained it to me by telling me Ukrainian isn't as palatalized and has 0 vowel reduction and no consonant voicing/devoicing. Some sounds are similar but have different quality (like "Ч". Unlike in Ukrainian, this letter in Russian is always palatalized; etc.)

[@helenahennes112]

You certainly mean the sound „e“?

[@dumupad3-da241]

Yes, from a Russian perspective, Ukrainian sounds as if the 'palatalising vowel letters' are replaced with the 'non-palatalising' ones: 'э' instead of 'е', 'ы' instead of 'и'. And on top of it all the letters are a little 'opposite', too: the letter 'e' is pronounced as non-palatalising in Ukrainian, in contrast to Russian, whereas the actual Ukrainian palatalising letter looks more like the non-palatalising Russian 'э' (albeit reversed). Similarly, the Ukrainian letter 'и' is non-palatalising, in contrast to Russian, whereas the actual Ukrainian palatalising letter is 'i', which looks more like the last part of the Russian non-palatalising letter ы). So they do have the Russian 'и'-sound (which they spell 'i') - except that it corresponds to Russian 'ё' or, quite remarkably, to 'o'! For example, Russian кот 'cat' is actually кiт in Ukrainian (which sounds exactly like Russian кит 'whale').

[@slav5700]

Respect for using those videos as examples!

[@2Hot2]

Great job, again! BTW, the general rule for three consecutive O's in Russian (e.g., xorosho) is X + schwa + R + A + SH + O. That kind of inconsistency makes Russian much more unpredictable than Ukrainian (O/O/O), but not nearly as unpredictable as English!

[@2Hot2]

P.S. I guess they're both very inconsistent since you said the same Ukrainian speaker can pronounce the same sound three different ways and there are so many mixed dialects.

[@ShellRobin]

When people ask me to explain the difference (I am Ukrainian, know both languages) I tend to say, that Ukrainian is much "softer". We tend to have a lot of soft consonants.

[@ShellRobin]

@@IgorYentaltsev I'm not a specialist, but I'd assume that number of palatalised consonants does not equal frequency of their usage in normal speech.

[@plrc4593]

Much softer? Nah. Quite the opposite. Russian is much softer - Ukrainian (almost?) always has е where Russian has е, the difference is that е in Ukrainian doesn't palatalize a preceeding consonant. The same with и.

[@advokatarkadiya3274]

Ясно що нічого не ясно

[@andrewshepitko6354]

The next time say ukrainian is east slavic, russian is just a dialect of bulgarian influenced by finnish

[@bearwithme7113]

In Russian palatalized (soft) consonant sounds occur much more frequently than in Ukrainian.

[@StagArmslower]

Being Polish American and speaking and understanding some Russian I can understand Ukrainian and read subtitles watching videos from the war what gives me more information available than in media here. The 70% similarities definitely help

[@MrDen-lv5uj]

These languages are different like, for example, Spanish and Portuguese, or Danish and Swedish. And the rules of reading in Ukrainian are much easier, though the grammar is not. But it is not easy in all Slavic languages 🙂 By the way, when Zelensky speaks Russian, he is addressing the people in Russia and makes it easier for them to understand him. He speaks Ukrainian much more often now.

[@williammorris7279]

Really fascinating, and for me, very timely. I have very basic Russian, and recently decided to brush it up while starting Ukrainian, and was very surprised to find how different they are. To be honest, I was feeling a bit disheartened, so this was extremely useful and motivating. I will definitely watch the other videos mentioned.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for this comment.

[@SviatoslavKaverin]

'Так' also means "this way (method)" in Russian. I'm quite used to confirm something with "да, так" (yes, this way).

[@SviatoslavKaverin]

Oh well, "so" does mean "this way", too. That was not immediately obvious to me.

[@Medievalwarrior89]

Well what can I say, "humans". I didn't know this, but it's pretty similar to the latin/romance world. Late latins used three ways to say yes, which were "sic est", "hoc (est)", "hoc ille (est)", roughly meaning "(it) (is) this way/this/that", from which modern "sì" and "oui" come from.

[@FarfettilLejl]

More like from tak jest (it is so, just like Latin

[@SviatoslavKaverin]

@@FarfettilLejl You are right. We have just dropped "to be" in Present tense, but it's meant there. In some phrases another verb is put to emphasize existence or being.

[@Kvothe1994]

It also has this meaning in Polish, "tak" means "yes", but also in another sentence can mean "this way". This second meaning is a reply to the question "jak?" "how?"

[@Meevious]

These drone shots are superb! What a fantastic collection of architecture and so majestically captured.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

They’re all from a subscription website where you can pay to have access to such footage. It’s worth every penny .

[@danarzechula3769]

Great! Just what I've been trying to find.

[@user-hr8qn8rg8s]

As a native speaker of both Russian and Ukrainian, I can tell that you don't have an accent in Ukrainian (the only exception is the word іграшка - toy), while you do have an English accent in Russian (especially the letter "Е"). I was really shocked with your Ukrainian pronunciation this made my day! P.S. Thank you for this Video 💙💛. It's really important for people to understand how different we are even in languages (to say nothing about culture and mentality).

[@Sevkai]

wow, your ukrainian sounds like native! One more probably fun fact for you - in ukrainian we have few words - "паляниця, нісенітниця" - that can be easily spelled by russian speaking ukrainians but under no circumstances spelled by russians :) We use them to spot russian sabotage groups from the first days of war.

[@user-uu6qc8ho3q]

Так як для росіян важко вимовити "ця" для білорусів важко вимовити "ться".

[@plrc4593]

What's the problem with паляниця?

[@Anuclano]

@@plrc4593 Russian speakers cannot pronounce soft ц. In Russian ц is always hard, in Ukrainian can be both hard and soft.

[@plrc4593]

@@Anuclano Really can it be soft in Ukrainian? :O

[@Anuclano]

@@plrc4593 Yes, and this word is used to detect Russians in the current war as they cannot pronounce it.

[@whyukraine]

I've lived in Ukraine more than 2 years, and have noticed the same things you bring up. Great job integrating & supporting Ukraine.

[@the_Y0r]

Thanks for this video, was interesting for your opinion about differences. Good job and perfect pronunciation of Ukrainian words.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую

[@dimazepam]

thx you a lot for clarifying these differences

[@charliesandoval9277]

I wondered how close these two languages were when we all learned about Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Thank you for this timely presentation and the beautiful pictures of Ukraine. Sadly, so much has been destroyed.

[@andrewshepitko6354]

They're not close. Say to russian to understand ukrainian

[@helenahennes112]

The word „bratErstvo“(brotherhood), on the other hand, is stressed on the SECOND syllable. The robot´s Ukrainian is very imperfect. I mean the one that reads the Declaration of Human Rights.

[@user-gl5hp4ew6j]

I am so impressed with this in-depth video. as a Serb, this talk about Slavic languages has me thinking about one of the more notorious rules in Serbian (& Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin!) which states: "Write as you speak. Speak as you write." This was established in the 19th century in the reform that merged the spoken and written language into one. This means that all letters make the same sound wherever they are in a word. This doesn't really apply to vowels as they do have varying length and stress, but consonants follow it in virtually all cases. I was always curious about whether other languages also had anything similar. Just saying this as it could make an interesting topic for a future video!

[@jgiomaxjgio7263]

I like your Щ , good job , nice pronunciation . Great video as well!

[@tbirdparis]

Thank you for finally helping me understand why the Ukrainian family friends I grew up with always pronounced the name of the city they came from as Lviu instead of Lviv as it's written.

[@EAGauss]

Thank you for your video and raising the topic. However, you forgot to mention the Ukrainian language reform performed in the soviet union when Ukraine was under russian occupation. So, most of the unique words and even letters were removed from Ukrainian to make it much more similar to Russian, therefore the occupation government tried to assimilate Ukrainians with russians. What I want to say is there are loads of absolutely unique Ukrainian words that Ukrainians still use in both official and spoken styles of Ukrainian. For example, "zdOrava" or "kharashE" (good or well) are mostly russian, whereas Ukrainians would rather say "dObre", "chudOvo", "hArno", "fAyno". Our president switches from Ukrainian to the plain russian language when he addresses to the people of the russia to stop the russian military aggression. The evacuated boy from Kyiv was speaking russian but you could clearly hear the Ukrainian sounds "h~" and "sh~", instead of russian "g`" and "ch`". And the last thing is that russians cannot pronounce Ukrainian words properly, I don't even say they can't understand them. The most popular example is "palyanYtsia" (sweet festive bread). You can find many videos on the internet where Ukrainian soldiers arrest russian occupation army and force russian prisoners of war to pronounce the word. And it's so funny to hear them unsuccessfully trying to spell the word by syllables. Their funny attempts "pa-la-NI-ta" and "pa-la-MI-ta" are nothing close to the Ukrainian "pa-lya-NY-tsya". Yeah, and regarding the understanding, even the propagandists on the official russian TV channels, that constantly produce fake news and hate speech, mix up Ukrainian words. They were really thinking that "palyanYtsia" (sweet festive bread) which they tried to pronounce like "po-lo-NI-tsa" is a Ukrainian word "po-lu-NY-tsia" (strawberry). That was so hilarious and provoked a lot of memes in Ukrainian society.

[@donniemyers192]

Нащо ти розкриваєш військовц таємницю, невже тиине розумієш, що рускій солдат можливо прямо зараз читає твій пост і вчить вірно вимовляти кодове слово

[@taholatheshaman]

@@donniemyers192 ага, звісно, у нас же тільки одне таке складне для росіян слово 😁

[@donniemyers192]

@@taholatheshaman тссс!!!! Не здавайте все й одразу))

[@gonzalo_rosae]

woowww i really liked this video, could you do more on this? about distinguishing pairs if similar languages? 💯

[@novvog.w]

I’m learning Russian and Ukrainian! They’re very pretty languages! Thank you for your work! 🇺🇦🇷🇺

[@Checkmate777]

How did you become so articulate. Your voice and what you say is so impressive. Very good speaker

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s very kind. I actually think I have a lot to work on in order to improve. But by making these videos I get lots of practice

[@ark32323]

One point about "weg" in german: It has another pronunciation variant with a different meaning: weg (away) - vek, just as in the video Weg (way, path) - veeg, closed e, g stays g

[@paulsutton5713]

Almost :) First one is open and short [vɛk] and second is long and closed [ve:k]

[@ark32323]

@@paulsutton5713 Didn't bother with the IPA letters, so thats what the double e stands for, as it described best how it feels to pronoune it. Thanks for adding them!

[@thorodinson6649]

@@ark32323 the ipa is so that everyone can understand. Your specific opinion is different than mine

[@ark32323]

@@thorodinson6649 yep i agree, my description was germanocentric, that's how it feels to pronounce it as a german speaker. English speakers might get the idea that the double ee is meant to be pronounced very differently, which is wrong of course. So thanks to all people who bother to actually add the IPA letters, might help you understand if a german sends you away or on the way.

[@israellai]

Well, point is the g is always devoiced

[@very_Mad-very_Bad]

Good job 👌. It was interesting to listen.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую. Слава Україні

[@FREEONION]

I'm Ukrainian, and your video is enjoyable 👍👍👍 Need to confirm that Ukrainian language sounds very soft😊😊😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую

[@thecolormaster]

Звідучора чекаю на дівчину. Ґедзі гудуть понад ґа́нком. Really soft)))))

[@helenahennes112]

Dear Luke, you are great! As a polyglot, I have enjoyed your wonderful videos on „Scorpio martianus“ and „Polymathy“ for two years. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support for my country! Let me express my sincere admiration! I am a Ukrainian living in Germany.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дякую!

[@taha_bin_mehdi]

Hey, as a German I just wanted to comment on 13:16 - The word you used as an example for devoicing of final consonants in German was "Weg" which is, as you correctly said, the word for "way" as in a path. In this word we can observe devoicing of the [/g] to a [/k]. What you mixed up though was the vowel, which is not an short open e as in the trap-vowel, but rather a long closed e sound (which I think doesn't occur in RP or standard American English). What may have happened is that you thought about German "weg" with a lowercase 'g', which means "away" as in "I went away". In this case, your pronounciation in the video would be correct, here we do have a short open trap-vowel e. While we're at it, a cool note on the side: The devoicing of final consonants occured between old high German and middle high German. You can still see that in the spelling of MHG, for example the word for child, which is "Kind" in modern German, was written "Kint" in the 13th century Palästinalied ("daz ein Magt ein Kint gebar" which would be written "dass eine Magd ein Kind gebar" nowadays). Hope this helped :)

[@Ennocb]

As far as I'm aware, German doesn't feature any trap-vowels [æ] at all (maybe an exaggerated "Ä"). I think you are referring to a GenAm dress-vowel [ɛ]. These are distinct.

[@taha_bin_mehdi]

@@Ennocb ah yes you're right, I mixed them up. Thanks for the correction!

[@niklas5336]

I believe what happened is that he both said and meant 'weg'. Listen to him translate its meaning, he definitely says 'away', not 'a way' (even though I misheard it on my first viewing). So the only error is that he capitalized it, when he shouldn't have.

[@brumm3653]

As a Polish speaker who learned Russian in school, I used to find Ukrainian hard to understand when spoken, but quite easy when written (it's like Russian with many Polish-like words). But now after few weeks of watching Ukrainian news reports etc. I began to understand spoken Ukrainian with a bit of effort.

[@daniel1nagy]

I am a native Russian speaker and traveled to Lviv, Ukraine with a native Polish speaker friend. The way we understood written Ukrainian was me reading the Cyrillic and him understanding the meaning. Since then, I married a Ukrainian girl and learned enough Ukrainian to understand what my wife and mother-in-law say to each other. It's important!

[@Infodumptruck]

Try interslavic

[@MatPete]

That’s interesting. As a Pole who has studied Russian for many years I must admit that the main obstacle for us while trying to understand Ukrainian is the alphabet, however knowledge of Russian vocabulary is helpful too, Ukrainian is still an eastern Slavic language with only some lexical influence of Polish.

[@brumm3653]

​@@MatPetethere's also Ukrainian phonology which in some (not all) aspects is the odd one out, Polish and Russian being more similar to each other.

[@den4ikfem537]

Wow! Amazing video, thanks for your efforts

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching

[@KC-vq2ot]

Thanks for highlighting Ukrainian. Beautiful, yet often forgotten Slavic language.Couple of additional points of difference 1. The difference in pronunciation is not unlike that of Spanish and European Portuguese. Russian tends to highly reduce unstressed vowels to the point of complete deletion. Ukrainian doesn't do that to the same extent. But we have "assimilation", where we don't differentiate strongly between unstressed vowels in certain positions. For example, напишИ and напишЕ sound almost the same in speech, but mean completely different things: imperative of "to write" and inflected "he will write"/"he will have written" respectively 2. Vocabulary: Ukrainian retains much higher degree of Slavic roots in common use, while Russian got under superficial influence of French and thus has a lot more romance roots in common use. For example: ua лікар (likar) vs ru доктор (doktor) (a doctor), ua жахіття (zhakhittia) vs ru кошмар (koshmar (couchemare)) (a nightmare). Generally, in terms of loan words, Ukrainian took a lot more from German (directly or through Polish) and Turkish, while Russian took more from French. In general, 2 languages are not mutually intelligible. While well-versed Russian can understand Ukrainian as a lot of displaced Slavic roots still persist with meaning that is close enough to make an educated guess (for example "лекарь", which took the meaning "witch doctor" or more commonly used лечение "curing"), Ukrainians don't really understand Russian and are simply bilingual to certain extent. On the other hand, Russians lost their ability to understand other Slavs (except for Serbians to certain extent, but Serbian itself contains a lot of Italian (in other words Romance) roots). Ukrainians can easily read and communicate with Polish and Belarus peoples (though, speaking with a Poliak is something of a linguistic gymnastics and is not a common skill), while Russians can generally guess the topic correctly. If we put it in terms of levels, average Ukrainian is b1-b2 in "common Slavic" and Russian is a1-a2 There is even a joke, that plays on verb "to understand" and how Russians have their own word for that Ua: розуміти (rozumity) Bel: разумець (razumiets') Ru: понимать (ponimat')

[@worldoftancraft]

Yet average Ukraînian is, like other slavs, a1-a2 in Bulgarian, while Russian is b1.

[@e.s.6275]

@@worldoftancraft a fact, not a wonder. This is because Russian was historically developed as predominantly a written language rather than a spoken one. And that written language was originally borrowed as a church service language from the old Bulgarian (literally, Cyrillic). Therefore, Russian has well developed formal style language means, but lacks deep cultural roots.

[@worldoftancraft]

@@e.s.6275 You somehow divorce written language with spoken and imply that features of written language, somehow, made features of spoken to be «no more» :|

[@e.s.6275]

@@worldoftancraft do you understand what the term "predominantly" means in my first comment?

[@a.r.4707]

Serbian has Italian roots or romance? Care to elaborate? First time I'm hearing that.🤔

[@ingvarjensen1088]

Jesus, Luke, I as an East German had been learning Russian for eight years when I was a schoolboy. Your Russian pronounciation is much better than the one my teacher (who was East German like me) had to offer. You're a genius, you really are. I teached myself some lessons of Polish because I lived directly at the border to Poland. I have to confess I fell in love with Polish because of its beautiful sound, much more pleasant to my ears than Russian is. But even more pleasant is your voice ♥️ Greetings from Berlin!

[@gamermapper]

If you love Slavic culture and live in Germany, have you ever searched about Sorbs in Germany?

[@ingvarjensen1088]

@@gamermapper Oh yes, that's an interesting topic. I had an army officer who belonged to that small people when I was 19. I just asked him because his name was "Andrej", not "André". I knew he couldn't be Polish because the Polish form is Andrzej, neither could he be Czech because that's Ondrej. Since he spoke German without any accent him being a Sorb was the only answer that seemed right to me, and so it was.

[@MarekWoi]

Wow, nice to hear that somebody finds Polish pleasant to the ear. I have an impression, most people find it rather harsh/rustling.

[@ingvarjensen1088]

@@MarekWoi But it sounds much softer and melodious than Russian - and because of the nasal vowels ę and ą very interesting.

[@MarekWoi]

@@ingvarjensen1088 even though I'm Polish, I'd argue that Russian is more melodious, but this is of course very subjective. Respect that, as a Germanic language speaker, you had the guts to tackle Polish. It isn't easy. What was the most difficult part for you btw?

[@Akhrl]

I shed a tear when you said your last words - "peace and freedom" in both languages (ukraine and russian) Thanks for the video ❤️🇺🇦

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Слава Україні.

[@nob4076]

​@@polyMATHY_Luke"Glory to Ukraine" doesn't promote peace, it's a nationalist slogan.

[@mikolasambir4466]

I am from Ukraine , native speaker and this is amazing video! Thank you for explaining deffrence between our languages.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Дуже дякую. Слава Україні.

[@2005batman]

@@polyMATHY_Lukebtw, “slava ukraini!” is a slogan of nazi collaborators in WW2, so every time you use it…

[@AHAuwuOK]

From a Polish perspective: Ukrainian *sounds* like Russian, but unlike Russian, I can more or less understand it. Slava Ukraini

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

🕊🔱

[@AHAuwuOK]

btw 7:17 Silesian is not Germanic but it gives off a strong Austrian/German vibe + the map author forgot Wymysorys, an actual Germanic language spoken in a city near Silesia ;)

[@kacperwoch4368]

I know one Ukrainian who has lived in Poland for over 10 years and she gets by without speaking any Polish.

[@andrewshepitko6354]

Polish sounds like russian if we take out those sounds that makes it sound polish)

[@totneznakto]

Ukrainian as a language has its own dialect continuum, particularly it could be spotted in western mountain region which had less influence of Russian interference. Canadian diaspora from Ukraine has even more expressive form of that dialect. On the other hand the Russian also is not the same throughout its territory. People in Moscow don't speak the way the do in Volga region or up north.

[@Eugensson]

Well Ruthenian is even a language of its own (within the East-Slavic branch).

[@andremacko5408]

@@Eugensson Currently it's a cultural and political choice. My ancestors could technically have chosen Ruthenian as a linguistic identifier but as most people from their area they proudly chose and academically saw their linguistic choice as part of the Ukrainian linguosphere.

[@AngloSaks666]

I know Russian very well and am learning Ukrainian right now. It's long been possible for me to recognise when one is being spoken or the other (though maybe sometimes the odd very short phrase may mislead, because sometimes it's virtually the same), and generally if I listened to Ukrainian for a while I would be able to understand at least what is being talked about, and sometimes the gist or leaning of more specific points. But sometimes you can get utterly lost. And studying it now for a few weeks, using modern immersive methods focusing on mere comprehension to start with, I'm comprehending more and more quite quickly by mere exposure, and picking up many of the words based on the same roots or some of the similar grammar, etc., very quickly, but all the same there is a lot of difference. Many basic words, like 'very', 'but', 'always', etc., etc., are totally different. Plus there are quite a lot of 'false friends' where at least similarity to Russian words totally throws you, and shaking off those associations is very hard because the languages sound similar, the alphabet is almost the same, etc., etc. (there are some misleading elements there too, where the letters for similar 'i' sounds are mixed up compared to the other language, for example. But, yeah, definitely very, very distinctly different, plus any silly Russian nationalist idea that Russian is somehow more the valid one, and the real heir to any common native language, is definitely just wishful thinking. Interestingly a lot of what you encounter as common in modern Ukrainian tends to have more archaic and/or literary connotations or uses in Russian, suggesting the opposite. I'm sure I'll forever confuse the language, so I just hope at least to learn to properly understand Ukrainian. Hopefully after a year of serious regular engagement it'll come together.

[@Notarocketscientist]

I really appreciate the work you have done. It is a really nice explanation of the difference between those two languages. Even for me native Ukrainian language speaker, it was very interesting to listen to what differences you had found, because I can hear them, but I can't characterize them. I really appreciate how skilful you were able to show the difference. And I really like your video because it is very nicely shows the difference between this two languages to non Slavic language speakers, which is important to understand nowadays relationships and politics in "Eastern Europ".

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very kind of you. I’m just an amateur when it comes to these things, but I am glad if I have a fair representation. Слава Україні 🔱

[@Notarocketscientist]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Героям слава

[@Romanophonie]

I loved the linguistic pun part XD. Great video as always, Luke!

[@leporello7]

Such a wonderful video, Luke! Thank you so much! Not only was the information on the two languages most interesting, but you also managed to deliver the important context in a heartwarming and delicate way. And the closing credits have been the final pun: Someone somewhere (with a very long table) did not listen to Zauberflöte often enough.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I appreciate the comment and observations, thanks. I tend to agree: I use Die Zauberflöte for a number of reasons, and one is that the theme of the story and it’s music is peace and resolution through enlightenment and cooperation.

[@dragon28022000]

Wow, i am very impressed by the work, that you've done. As Ukrainian i have nothing to add. Perfect 👏