United States Assessment of the Downing of Flight MH17 and its Aftermath

[Igel]

50. Just to add a bit ...

Almost every place name and more than a few personal names come in two languages, and they freely translate between them.

Kyiv vs Kiev was pointed out. As was Luhansk vs. Lugansk.

The two languages started off as a series of dialects that were very, very similar. They've gone different ways in the last 1000 years or so. Sort of like Portuguese and Spanish. Different sounds from 800 AD give different results.

Russian g, Ukrainian h. Ru Gorlovka, Ukr Horlivka.

Russian i, usually Ukrainian y. (There were two i in 800 AD; they merged in Russian, stayed separate in Ukrainian). Ru Lisichansk, Ukr Lysychansk.

Russian e can be Ukrainian e or Ukrainian i. The rule is simple: If the Russian e, when stressed, stays e then it's a Ukrainian i. Otherwise it's a Ukrainian e. Ru Kiev, Ukr Kyiv. Ru Makeevka (pronounced ma-KE-yivka), Ukr Makiivka (pronounced ma-KI-yivka). Ru leto 'summer', Ukr lito.

Russian o sometimes comes out as Ukrainian i. This happens when there was an old e --> o change (see previous paragraph) in Russian, but also for most o that were in closed syllables. Ukrainian has pairs of words: doba 'day', dib 'of the days'. Ukr striy 'series, row' but stroyu '(in a) row'.

Then there are the bits that Russian has because it reborrowed words. Old short a > o in East Slavic languages like Russian and Ukrainian. But Russian "decided" to stay true to the Greek originals of names and reverted them to Greek, while Ukrainian stayed Slavic: Ru Andrei 'Andrew Ukr Ondrij. Ru Aleksandr, Ukr Oleksandr. Old sequences of o+r or o + l + consonant became "oro" and "olo" in E. Slavic. Russian sometimes reverts them. Ru gorod 'town' also has Stalingrad 'Stalinton'. Ru Vladymir is Ukrainian Volodymyr.

Central Russians--up Moscow way--tend to think of all of these as Ukrainian features, even if some are also Southern Russian. Some are easy to guess at if you're Russian, but they still make some mistakes; but to get others right requires knowledge of what Russian was like before about 1200-1400 when changes to how consonants were pronounced were reinterpreted as changes in the vowels. When the Ukrainian reports say that some fighters have a Russian accent, this is the kind of stuff they're talking about. You can sort of fake it, but it's like faking a Southern accent in the US. Even if you both speak the same language, they sound very different. In fact, Ukrainian was spoken widely enough that it's even altered how some Russian vowels and consonants in Ukraine's Russian are pronounced. Those are even more subtle and Ukrainian speakers have an easier time spotting them than monolingual Russian speakers do.

This didn't used to be political, and in most ways it isn't. The Ukrainian newspapers and media choose which is necessary depending on language. You'd never say "Kyiv" if speaking Russian, even if you're an ardent pro-union Ukrainian. For Ukrainians, personal language choice isn't a big deal except in official Ukrainian government use. For the separatists it is. In Crimea the new local government boasted that they wouldn't allow Ukrainian-language films to be shown, sparing them that "offensiveness." That is the view of only the most extreme Right Sector folk. In E. Ukraine, more Ukrainian speakers have been beaten and kidnapped for being traitors and spies just for speaking Ukrainian on the street in the last few months than Russian speakers in the rest of Ukraine for the last year.