Talk:Surzhyk
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Someone had earlier written that Surzhyk does not exist in western Ukraine. While the language of this region no doubt contains fewer elements of Russian than the language of other parts of Ukraine, this does not mean that it was unaffected by over four decades of Soviet rule. Obligatory service in the Soviet army and the settlement of the area's cities with Russian-speakers were two important elements of Russification. L'viv in particular has a large number of Russian- and Surzhyk-speakers.
What interests me is, to what extent is Surzhyk a settled language spoken as a native language by large coherent communities and to what extent it is a mere contact language, being used between Russian and Ukrainian speakers but not by the rural Ukrainians themselves? And er.. of course all Ukrainian has been affected by Russian, but a few loan words are not innuf to call the result a mixed language. Caesarion 19:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
- Rural Ukrainians? Ukraine is actually very highly urbanized, even for Europe. And it is not really in loan words (both languages have common roots, therefore, similar vocabularies), it is in pronounciation and (often - conscious) mixing of syntax, tone, and national colour. It's used by bilinguals naturally in everyday speech to various levels of extent. Even urban eastern Ukrainians raised in a Russian-speaking environment will freely sprinkle in Ukrainian terms or syntax. It's really a free-form Eastern Slavic dialect that isn't fully Ukrainian or Russian, but also not the proto-language both came from, rather - the result of various levels of migration, contact, and relations between Russia and the Ukraine over the centuries. Also, note that places like Kursk, on the Russian side of the border, speak in a similar language (although most of them consider it to be just Russian). 128.195.186.63 20:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)Adieu
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- PS: Also to be noted is that Ukrainian is often said to have a humourous, colloquial ring to native speakers of Russian. Therefore, Ukrainian words or syntax are often used for a subtle shift of tone, mood, or to spice up oral speech. Characters using Ukrainian/Surzhyk are a plot device in Russian film and literature (Ukrainian is mostly understandable to anyone with a grasp of Russian), and their effect is similar to that of a Texan accent in English. Since the Ukraine had the best soil in the Soviet Union, the (partly false) perception has been that Ukrainians are more blunt, cheerful, optimistic, simpler, more straightforward, full of folk wisdom, but also more cunning than urban Russians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.195.186.63 (talk) 20:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
No offense to the original writer of this article, but his/her command of English is rather limited. I don't know Surzhyk and its history well enough to do anything but give the article a native speaker's proofread, but I'd like to see it expanded. (Szfski 20:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
[edit] Interesting work in English
I do not know if it relevant to include this as reference in the article. Just came across. Also I do not know if the copyright is OK. If anyone has time to read and decide: http://www.diva-portal.org/diva/getDocument?urn_nbn_se_su_diva-6792-2__fulltext.pdfKKonstantin (talk) 12:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
