Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 April 5

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 5

Difference between Russian and Ukrainian

The recent Russian-Ukrainian war got me thinking. Suppose I overheard someone on the train talking in Russian or Ukrainian. How could I tell which it was, Russian or Ukrainian? Keep in mind I don't actually understand either language. Are there some tell-tale signs to tell them apart? JIP | Talk 20:09, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Unless you can make a few words out, you'd struggle to. Both languages have similar stress patterns and prosody characteristic of the East Slavic group. There are some distinctive phonological features in each, e.g. Russian has akanje, which is absent from Ukrainian, and Ukrainian underwent an /o/ > /i/ vowel shift in closed syllables which makes it stand out among Slavic languages (compare Russian "noč", Polish "noc", Ukrainian "nič" = night). The easiest thing to listen for might be the consonant /ɦ/, which is /g/ in Russian, although some Russian dialects spoken in the south of Russia use /ɦ/ as well. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 21:02, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

An example of akanje is the pronunciation of хороший, the word for good, spelled the same in both languages. You are likely to hear this used in a conversation.

• Russian:   [xɐˈroʂɨj]
• Ukrainian: [xɔˈrɔʃei̯]

 --Lambiam 23:48, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Does that mean that while Finns have traditionally depicted the pronunciation of the Russian word for "good" as harosii, the pronunciation of the corresponding Ukrainian word would be more like horosei? JIP | Talk 09:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I think so. The Ukrainian [ɔ]s are actually very close to the Finnish [o]s.  --Lambiam 12:54, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

In terms of written language, the letters Ё, ъ, ы, and Э are present in Russian but not Ukrainian. Conversely, Ukrainian has Ґ, Є, І, and Ї, which Russian lacks. 70.172.194.25 (talk) 05:55, 10 April 2022 (UTC)