Due to political events and the opening of economies, more communities, professionals, and schools are coming in contact with the Ukrainian language. We put together information on Ukrainian speech and language development to help teachers and speech language pathologists identify consonants and vowels of the language, the phonotactic constraints, and how having Ukrainian as a first or home language with influence the development of English.
Within the Ukrainian language, there are 27 million native speakers. In individuals who identify as Ukrainian as being their second language, there are 5.8 million speakers. The Ukrainian language is primarily spoken in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
The writing system used within the Ukrainian language is Cyrillic, which was developed in the 10th century. The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters, representing 40 phonemes. In the Ukrainian alphabet, it is composed of the Indo-European language family. Within this language family, there are four subfamilies. These are known as Balto-Slavic, Slavic, East Slavic and Ukrainian.
Countries in which the official Ukrainian language is spoken is in Ukraine, Republic of Crimea and Transnistria. Aside from the primary information about the language, there are four main dialects. These include Balachka, Canadian, Pokuttia-Bukovina, and Hutsul.
Interesting Facts About Ukrainian Speech and Language Development
Despite having been spoken since the 10th century, Ukrainian was not considered a real language until the 18th century! It is also interesting that for how late the language was developed, it is considered one of the most widely spoken languages. Specifically, it is the 26th most spoken language. The language is spoken regularly by 81% of the Ukrainian population in their personal life.
- Ukrainian is an old language dating back to the 9th Century but is a relatively new written language with the earliest written texts coming from the end of the 18th Century
- In a census, 67.5% declared Ukrainian as their native language whereas 29.6% declared Russian as their native language. Surzhyk is spoken mostly in rural areas and is a combination of Ukrainian and Russian.
- Ukrainian has really long words, many over 30 letters: “Нікотинамідаденіндинуклеотидфосфат”
Ukrainian Speech and Language Development
Ukrainian Consonants in Comparison to English
| Ukrainian Consonants Not Shared with English | /nʲ/ /tʲ/ /dʲ/ /t͡s/ /d͡z/ /t͡sʲ/ /d͡zʲ/ /t͡ʃ/ /d͡ʒ/ /sʲ/ /zʲ/ /x/ /ɦ/ /ʋ/ /lʲ/ /r/ /rʲ/ |
| Consonants Shared With English | /m/ /n/ /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /ɡ/ /f/ /s/ /z/ /ʃ/ /ʒ/ /w/ /l/ /j/ |
| English Consonants Not Shared with Ukrainian | /v/ /tʃ/ /dʒ/ /h/ /ŋ/ /ð/ /θ/ /ɹ/ |
Ukrainian Vowels in Comparison to English
| Ukrainian Vowels Not Shared with English | |
| Vowels Shared With English | /i/ /u/ /ɪ/ /ɛ/ /ɔ/ /a/ |
| English Vowels Not Shared with Ukrainian | /ɚ/ /o/ /ʌ/ /ʊ/ /e/ /æ/ /ə/ |
The Use of Phonotactic Constraints in Ukrainian Speakers
There are several specific speech patterns that are common form Ukrainian speakers who are speaking English.
- Within the Ukrainian language, the stress falls under the final vowel of the stem or the initial vowel of the inflection.
- The pattern of nouns is similar to adjectives but does not differ between singular and plural. Within verbs, stress falls on the syllable in the stem.
- This can differ between the perfective and imperfective aspects, considered shifting stress. Aside from this, the stress remains on the same syllable for all inflections.
- Within numerals, the stress placement may differ between ordinal and cardinal forms. The Ukrainian language has six vowel phonemes, all of which do not have distinction between long and short vowels. Unstressed vowels are shorter and tend to be more centralized.
- Most harmonic segments are syllable peaks. Every segment of the input has a correspondent in the output which prohibits phonological deletion. Every segment of the output has a correspondent in the input which prohibits phonological epenthesis.
- Syllables may not have codas and onset syllables must have onsets. The sonority of segments must decrease towards the edges of the syllable. Common clusters of two obstruents in word-initial onsets are such as: stop + stop, fricative + fricative, fricative + stop, stop + fricative. A voiced segment cannot be further away from the nucleus than a voiceless segment.
- Prosthesis applies before rounded vowels /u/ and /ɔ/. It is the bilabial approximant /ʋ/ for which is a considerable variant throughout the Ukrainian language. This can affect the insertion of a rounded glide before a rounded vowel with a later change of the glide into the approximant.
- In the class of obstruents, word-medial clusters of consonants at least one is sonorant.
Language Specific Differences Between English and Ukrainian
Ukrainian and English exhibit some similarities in word order, though Ukrainian has a lot more flexibility in word order than English. Both sentence word order and adjective-noun order are similar between Ukrainian and English most of the time. A big distinction between Ukrainian and English is that Ukrainian does not have definite and indefinite articles, while English does.
| Feature | Ukrainian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Sentence Word Order | Subject Verb Order used most of the time but word order is free | Strict Subject-Verb Object order |
| Adjectives/Noun modifiers | Most often adjective-noun order in gender, case, number but flexible | Adjective-Noun order |
| Possessives | Most have form of adjectives, these do not: His, her(s), its | Marked with morpheme ‘s for singular nouns and s’ for plural nouns Possessive adjectives (i.e. my, their) and pronouns (i.e. mine, theirs) also exist |
| Possessive Pronouns | I, we, you (singular informal), he, she, it, they | Mine, yours, his, hers |
| Verb inflection | I, you (singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural), they | 2 present tense forms: I eat You eat He/She/It eats We eat They eat |
| Pronouns | Exist | Exist |
| Pronoun Gender | He, she it | He, She, It |
| Subject of Sentence | Subject stated or with pronouns | Subject stated specifically or with pronouns in each sentence. |
| Regular Past Tense | Agrees with subject in number and gender | One form (-ed) |
| Irregular Past Tense | Some verbs have present tense stems: Goes | Exist |
| Negatives | Not (always used with a verb, not on its own) | “not” follows the copula, precedes any other verb |
| Double negatives | Two negations in same clause do not cancel each other | Not allowed |
| Question formation | Add modals and pronouns | Add modals (i.e. do, have) Use subject-verb inversion |
| Definite Articles | No articles | the |
| Indefinite Articles | No articles | a, an |
| Prepositions | Link nouns, pronouns and phrases | Specific words that precede a noun and its article Must be included Used for various functions (time, space, quantities, direction, etc.) but there are no standard rules on use |
| Present Progressive Verb Form | Exists same as English | Exists |
| Modal Verbs | Can, may and need | Exist (I may be late). |
| Copula/”To Be” Verb | Used with nouns and adjectives | Used with nouns and adjectives (I am a boy. I am hungry.) |
| Auxiliary Verbs | Exist | Exist |
| Passive Voice | Does not exist | Object precedes the verb and stating the subject is optional (His hair was cut by the woman) |
| Direct Object Pronouns | Does not exist | |
| Conjunctions | Link two or more simple sentences (and, neither, but) | Conjoins ideas with a conjunction word (and, but, or) |
| Plurals | Gender of a noun and ending of a stem Add -s | Add -s (–es to nouns ending in s, ch, x, z) and some irregular plurals (i.e. children) Uncountable nouns are singular (i.e. information) |
| Subject-Verb Agreement | Required | Required |
| Grammatical Case and Gender | Masculine, feminine and neuter | Nouns do not have a case system. Personal pronouns have 3 cases: nominative (subject pronouns), accusative (direct object pronouns) and genitive (possessive pronouns). Gender is only specified in personal pronouns and in some natural gender nouns (i.e. mother is feminine) and some noun suffixes (i.e. chairman, waitress) Verbs, adjectives and adverbs do not carry gender information |
| Negation | Negative verb with negative words (no one, nothing, nobody’s, none) | “Not” follows the copula, precedes any other verb “Not” comes before an auxiliary verb Contractions (i.e. isn’t, aren’t, hasn’t, don’t, haven’t) Double negatives not allowed |
| Verb Tense, Aspect and Mood | Three basic tenses: past, present and future | 2 tenses: Present, 2 inflections (add –s to 3rd person singular only) Past, 1 inflection (suffix –ed and irregular verbs) Future tense is expressed through modal verbs (i.e. will, shall) 4 aspects: simple, progressive (copula to be + present/past participle), perfect (copula to have + present/past participle), perfect progressive (to have + to be + present/past participle) Present participles add suffix –ing Past participles add suffix –ed (i.e. studied), -en (i.e. taken), or use stem change (i.e. begun) |
| Habitual/Continuative State | Expressed through adjectives | Expressed through adverbs (i.e. the laughing boy) and inflected forms of the verb to be (i.e. The boy is laughing.) |
| Verb Voice | Active and passive | 2 voices: active and passive In passive the voice object precedes the verb and stating the subject is optional (i.e. His hair was cut by the woman.) Different forms are used for active and passive meanings |
| Pronouns | I, we, you, he, she, it, they | Replace noun with pronoun (noun or pronoun is always required) Personal pronouns include subject, object, and reflexive. Masculine, feminine and neutral pronoun used 2nd person plural pronoun doesn’t exist No differentiation in gender for 3rd person plural pronoun Indefinite (i.e. each, somebody), demonstrative (i.e. this, those), interrogative (i.e. who, what), possessive (mine, his) and relative pronouns (i.e. that, which), are also used |
| Relative Pronouns | Not exist | Used to connect a clause or phrase to a noun or pronoun (who, whom, whose, which, that) |
| Adverbs | Adverbs of manner have endings of -e or -o | Adverbs occur in various positions according to rules |
| Comparative and Superlative | Usually end in -ше, -ще | Uses –er with comparative and –est with superlative More (comparative) and most (superlative) are used with adjectives of more than two syllables Irregular forms (i.e. worst, furthest) |
Additional Slavic Languages
This is just one of the Slavic languages featured in the World Language Library. Click below to explore closely related languages like Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian/Croatian, and others spoken across Eastern and Central Europe.
Sources:
10.1 - introducing The present tense. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-a).
12.6 - thinking negative. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-b).
14.3 - expressing the passive with -ся. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-c).
18.4 - possessive pronouns. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-d).
19.2 - coordinating conjunctions. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-e).
20.5 - word order. UkrainianLanguage.uk. (n.d.-f).
Czaplicki, B. (2007). Syllable structure of Ukrainian. an OT perspective. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 43(2).
Future continuous in Ukrainian grammar. TalkPal. (n.d.).
Grammatical terms. Read Ukrainian! - Grammatical terms. (n.d.).
Inna, B., 10 interesting facts about Ukrainian language – “speak Ukrainian.” Speak Ukrainian.
“Lesson Four: Gender of Nouns. Singular and Plural Nouns.” Lesson Four: Gender of Nouns. Singular and Plural Nouns, www.ukma.edu.ua/eng/ufl/lesson4.htm. Accessed 29 May 2024.
Looijen, B. M. (2022, December 16). Can, May, and need: Modality in ukrainian – “speak Ukrainian.” Speak Ukrainian.
Ukrainian grammar - present tense irregular verbs. Ukrainian Grammar - Present tense Irregular verbs. (n.d.).
Ukrainian Lessons. (2023a, April 9). Питальні слова - question words in Ukrainian
Ukrainian Lessons. (2023b, April 10). Займенники - pronouns in Ukrainian (with
Ukrainian Lessons. (2023c, April 13). Множина іменників - plural of nouns in Ukrainian
(with illustrations and audio).
Ukrainian prepositions. Learn. (n.d.).
Verb voice: Active / passive - learn Ukrainian at talkukrainian. Home - Learn Ukrainian at
Voitsekhovych, I. (2023, May 2). Double negatives or double negation in Ukrainian: 3
main rules. Ukrainian Lessons.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, September 28). Languages of Ukraine. Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2023a, July 20). Zero copula. Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2023b, September 14). Ukrainian grammar. Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2023c, October 7). Ukrainian language. Wikipedia.
Contributors:
A special thanks to Lauren Fox with Concordia University - Wisconsin for data compilation and research that went into this article!
