Translations 428, Specific Language Focus 5, Ukrainian / An overview of Ukrainian and 15 idioms in Cryllic, transliterated, translated, observations

Specific Language Focus 5, Ukraine

Ukraine is a beautiful country and its people are desperately fighting to stop the Russian incursion into their sovereign territory. The Ukrainian language still prevails in Western Ukraine and in the rural areas. Below from the University of Illinois I copied some supplementary material included for students in their first year of studies of the Ukrainian languages. Note the beauty of the capital above, Kiev, Ukaine.

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This was included in the supplementary materials for students in the first year of Ukranian language study at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 2019.

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?After this introduction, you are being treted to fifteen Ukranian idioms written both in the Cryllic alphabet and transliterated followed by the literal translation of each idiom and then the actual or semantic translation. All of this was done for your benefit by Olga Dvorova who is earning her Master’s Degree at McMaster University in Social Justice and Gender. She is a polyglot and a translator in ?English, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, and Crimean Tatar.

After each idiom based on the translations provided by Ms Dvorova I made an observation as a mnemonic device for remembering their meaning.

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Overview of the Ukrainian Language

Ukrainian (укра??нська мо?ва, ukrayins'ka mova, [ukra?jin?s?ka ?m??a]) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Ukrainians use a Cyrillic alphabet. It shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Belarusians, Polish, Russians and Slovak.

The Ukrainian language traces its origins to the Old East Slavic language of the ancient state of Kievan Rus'. The language has persisted despite the two bans by Imperial Russia and political persecution during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ukrainian has survived mainly due to its broad base among the people of Ukraine, its folklore songs, kobzars, prominent poets like Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

The Ukrainian language is currently emerging from a long period of decline. Although there are almost fifty million ethnic Ukrainians worldwide, including 37.5 million in Ukraine (77.8% of the total population), only in western Ukraine is the Ukrainian language prevalent. In Kiev, both languages are spoken, a notable shift from the recent past when the city was primarily Russian speaking. The shift is caused, largely, by an influx of the rural population and migrants from the western regions of Ukraine but also by some Kievans' turning to use the language they speak at home more widely in everyday matters. In northern and central Ukraine, Russian is the language of the urban population, while in rural areas Ukrainian is much more common. In the south and the east of Ukraine, Russian is prevalent even in rural areas, and in Crimea, Ukrainian is almost absent.

Use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine can be expected to increase, as the rural population (still overwhelmingly Ukrainophone) migrates into the cities and the Ukrainian language enters into wider use in central Ukraine. The literary tradition of Ukrainian is also developing rapidly overcoming the consequences of the long period when its development was hindered by either direct suppression or simply the lack of the state encouragement policies. (Source:Ukranian101)

History of Ukrainian Language

Under Lithuania/Poland, Muscovy/Russia, and Austro-Hungary

After the fall of Halych-Volhynia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania, then Poland. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. Polish rule, which came mainly later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. The Polish language has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (and on Belarusian). As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Ukrainian was also the official language of Ukrainian provinces of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kiev-Mogila Academy), founded by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla), was the most important.

In the anarchy of the Khmelnytsky Uprising and following wars, Ukrainian high culture was sent into a long period of steady decline. In the aftermath, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian, in the territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian widely.

There was little sense of a Ukrainian nation in the modern sense. East Slavs called themselves Rus’ki ('Russian' pl. adj.) in the east and Rusyny ('Ruthenians' n.) in the west, speaking Rus’ka mova, or simply identified themselves as Orthodox (the latter being particularly important under the rule of Catholic Poland). Ukraine under the Russian Empire was called Malorossiya (Little or Lesser Rus' or Little Russia, where the inhabitants spoke the 'Little Russian or Southern Russian language', a dialect of the Russian literary language.

But during the nineteenth century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identity manifested itself in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia. The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kiev applied an old word for the Cossack motherland, Ukrajina, as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins’ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village, but suitable for literary pursuits.https://ukrainetrek.com/images/ukraine-language-picture-4.jpg

However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted, for fear that a self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the Empire. In 1847 Taras Shevchenko was arrested and exiled, and banned from writing and painting, for political reasons. In 1863, tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language". A following ban on Ukrainian books led up to Alexander II's secret Ems Ukaz, which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores. A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia. (Luckyj 1956:24–25)

For much of the nineteenth century the Austrian authorities favoured Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Galicia and Bukovyna, where Ukrainian was widely used in education and in official documents.[1] The suppression by Russia retarded the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnieper Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Galicia, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.

The name Ukrajins’ka mova 'Ukrainian language' became accepted by much of the Ukrainian literary class during the late nineteenth century under Russia and in the early twentieth in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, the former 'Ruthenians' or 'Little Russians' were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, to institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and to form an independent state, named Ukraine (the Ukrainian People's Republic, shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People's Republic).

Ukrainian speakers in the Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of the Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census's terminology, the Russian language (Russkij) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Malorusskij, 'Little Russian'), what we know as Russian today (Vjelikorusskij, 'Great Russian'), and Belarusian (Bjelorusskij, 'White Russian').

Soviet era

During the seven-decade-long Soviet era, the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR. However, practice was often a different story: Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards the Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to discouragement and, at times, suppression.

Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union. Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR, and so on. However, Russian was used in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, "a language of inter-ethnic communication" was coined to denote its status. In reality, Russian was in a privileged position in the USSR and was the state official language in everything but formal name—although formally all languages were held up as equal. Often the Ukrainian language was frowned upon or quietly discouraged, which led to the gradual decline in its usage. Partly due to this suppression, in many parts of Ukraine, notably most urban areas of the east and south, Russian remains more widely spoken than Ukrainian.

Soviet language policy in Ukraine is divided into six policy periods

1. Ukrainianization and tolerance (1921–late-1932) 2. Persecution and russification (1933–1957) 3. Khrushchev thaw (1958–1962) 4. The Shelest period: limited progress (1963–1972) 5. The Shcherbytsky period: gradual suppression (1973–1989) 6. Gorbachev and perestroika (1990–1991)

Sources

https://guides.library.illinois.edu/ukrainian_language

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Following is the list prepared for us by Olga Dvorova. We are very thankful to her for preparing this list. She is earning her Master’s Degree at McMaster University in Social Justice and Gender and if you would like to get in contact with her, this is her link on Linkedin: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/olga-dvorova. Her e-mail address is [email protected].

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The observations after each idiom are mine.

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1.?????????? як сн?г на голову

(yak snih na holovu)

[as a snow on the head]

unexpectedly; out of the blue

Observation: This seems logical. You never know when snow is going to fall on you, so when it happens it is unexpected.

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2.?????????? вивести на чисту воду

(vyvesty na chystu vodu)

[to bring it to the clean water]

to learn that someone was behaving unfairly

Observation: When you bring something to the clean water, then you can see what happened clearly since dirty water is often not transparent. And, apparently, when something is hidden in the dirty water it implies that someone’s behavior was unfair.

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3.?????????? як з гуски вода

(yak z husky voda)

[like water off a goose]

to not react to someone/something

Observation: Water coming off a goose is no big deal; to the contrary, this is regular That is why when used the listen or reader does not react to the person or thing since this is anticipated.

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4.?????????? як у Бога за пазухою

(yak u Boha za pazukhoiu)

[as in God's bosom]

to live very happily and lucky

Observation: Of course, if you are living in God’s bosom you are very happy and very lucky indeed.

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5.?????????? вогнем ? мечем

(vohnem i mechem)

[by fire and sword]

brutally; without mercy

Observation: If a person or people attack others by fire and sword, that is a brutal, merciless attack.

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6.?????????? багато води утекло

(bahato vody uteklo)

[a lot of water has flowed away]

a lot of time has passed

7.?????????? аж за вухами лящить

(azh za vukhamy liashchyt)

[it even makes a sound behind the ears]

to eat with appetite

Observation: When your hunger goes into overload, in addition to smelling and testing food, you can even hear it.

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8.?????????? ведм?дь на вухо наступив

(vedmid na vukho nastupyv)

[a bear stepped on the ear]

have no musical ear at all

Observation: No doubt if you have a mutilated ear because a bear stepped on it, there is no way you are going to distinguish sounds with that ear

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9.?????????? кум королю

(kum koroliu)

[a godfather of the king’s children]

to be in winning position

Observation: Whoever is the godfather of the king’s children is in a very privileged position and therefore since the king has the ultimate say, it would be surprising if he did not win.

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10.??????? кусати л?кт?

(kusaty likti)

[to bite the elbows]

to regret

Observation: If you have to bite your own elbows, it is impossible to do unless you are a contortionist. Thus, if you need to do so, you will certainly feel regretful.

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11.??????? хоч ти лусни

(khoch ty lusny)

?[even if you burst]

to be impossible to do something

Observation: You cannot just burst, so that means this is impossible.

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12.??????? пройти ? Крим, ? Рим, ? м?дн? труби

(proity i Krym, i Rym, i midni truby)

[to go through Crimea, Rome, and copper pipes]

to be everywhere and to see everything; to be tested

Observation: What a curious saying! Crimea is a region and has suffered from Russian aggression. Everything going through Rome is a well-known? phrase.

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13.??????? купити кота в м?шку

(kupyty kota v mishku)

[to buy a cat in the bag]

to buy something without knowing it’s qualities; to buy a pig in a poke

Observation: buy something offered in such a way to hide is real value or worth, that is, buy a pig in a poke

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14.??????? велике цабе

(velyke tsabe)

[the great goat]

very influential person; this is always said ironically

Observation: Since this is always used ironically, imagine saying to a goat, “Yes, you’re master” and you can see how absurd and ironic this is.

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15.??????? с?м п’ятниць на тиждень

(sim piatnyts na tyzhden)

[seven Fridays a week]

someone who quickly changes intentions, moods, ideas

Observation: Since obviously there is only one Friday a week, somebody that calls every day Friday obviously is all over the place, be it with their intentions, moods or ideas.

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Source:

Olga Dvorova [email protected]

Supplementary study materials from first year Ukrainian language studies at the University of Illinois used in 2019.