Southeastern Ukrainian dialects

Southeastern Ukrainian dialects
Південно-східне наріччя
RegionCentral, Eastern, and Southern Ukraine
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologeast2270
Modern Ukrainian dialects. Southeastern Ukrainian is shown in yellow.
  Middle Dnieprian (4)
  Slobozhan (5)
  Steppe (6)

The Southeastern dialects (Ukrainian: Південно-східне наріччя, romanized: Pivdenno-skhidne narichchia), sometimes referred to as the Eastern or Central-Eastern dialects, are one of the three dialect groups of the Ukrainian language, alongside the Southwestern and Northern dialect groups. The borders of the Southeastern dialects reach from the south of Kyiv and Sumy oblasts to the Black Sea and from the northern or western parts of Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, and Odesa oblasts to Ukraine's eastern border. They are also spoken in Crimea as well as in Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, and Voronezh oblasts of Russia.[1]

The Southeastern dialects form the literary standard of Ukrainian. Phonetically, its closest relatives are the Podolian [uk] and southern Volhynian [uk] dialects, while its simplified syntax, morphology, and vocabulary are closer in nature to the Northern dialects.[2] In contrast to other dialects of Ukrainian, which historically used the /ɡ/ sound in foreign loanwords prior to the Ukrainian orthography of 1933, the Southeastern dialects have consistently used /ɦ/ both natively and in loanwords. According to a 1969 study by Valentyna Perebyinis [uk], ⟨ɡ⟩ is one of the least-used sounds in the Southeastern dialects alongside /dʒ/ and /dz/, at a usage rate of 0.013.[3]

Origins

The exact origins of the Southeastern dialects is a matter of some debate. Vsevolod Hantsov [uk] and Olena Kurylo argued that they originated from speakers of the other two dialects during the Ukrainian settlement of the Wild Fields [uk], while Leonid Bulakhovskyi [uk] and Fedot Zhylko [uk] have asserted that the Southeastern dialects directly descend from the Polanians. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine rejects the latter hypothesis.[2]

Classification

Southeastern Ukrainian comprises three dialects: Middle Dnieprian, spoken in Dnieper Ukraine;[4] Slobozhan, spoken in Sloboda Ukraine;[5] and the Steppe dialect, spoken on the Wild Fields.[6] The Slobozhan and Steppe dialects are both relatively young, having emerged from Middle Dnieprian no earlier than the 16th century.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Південно-східне наріччя" [Southeastern dialects]. Izbornyk (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  2. ^ a b "Southeastern dialects". Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  3. ^ Danylenko, Andrii (January 2005). "From g to h and again to g in Ukrainian between the West European and Byzantine tradition?". Die Welt der Slaven. 50 (1): 36 – via ResearchGate.
  4. ^ a b "Говори південно-східного наріччя" [Speaking the Southeastern dialects]. Fonofond (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  5. ^ Hush, Yuliia (23 August 2021). "Слобожанський діалект: Чи існують особливості та специфічно харківські слова" [Slobozhan dialect: Are there individualties, and, specifically, Kharkiv words?]. Depo,Kharkiv (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  6. ^ Korol, O. S. (2014). "Степовий говір південно-східного наріччя української мови" [The Steppe dialect of the Southeastern dialects of the Ukrainian language]. Development Management (in Ukrainian) (12): 116 – via National Library of Ukraine.