Editing Ukrainian language (section)

==History of the spoken language==
{{See also|History of Ukraine}}
[[File:Триодь постная Петра Могилы 1646 new.jpg|thumb|"Lenten Triodion" of Kiev Metropolitan [[Petro Mohyla]], 1646 ]]

===Rus' and Kingdom of Ruthenia===
{{see also|Ruthenian language}}
The era of [[Kievan Rus']] ({{circa}} 880–1240) is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as the language of much of the literature was purely or heavily [[Old Slavonic language|Old Church Slavonic]]. Some theorists{{which?|date=June 2024}} see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here, calling it Old Ruthenian; others{{which?|date=June 2024}} term this era [[Old East Slavic]]. Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus' to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. However, according to Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak (2012), people from the [[Novgorod Republic]] did not call themselves ''Rus{{'}}'' until the 14th century; earlier Novgorodians reserved the term ''Rus{{'}}'' for the [[Principality of Kiev|Kiev]], [[Principality of Pereyaslavl|Pereyaslavl]] and [[Principality of Chernigov|Chernigov]] principalities.<ref name="About Russian Language History"/> At the same time as evidenced by contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes and kings of [[Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia|Galicia–Volhynia]] and Kiev called themselves "people of Rus{{'}}" (in foreign sources called "[[Ruthenians]]"),{{cn|date=June 2024}} and Galicia–Volhynia has alternately been called the Principality or Kingdom of Ruthenia.{{sfn|Jakubowski|Miszczuk|Kawałko|Komornicki|2016|p=6}}

Also according to Andrey Zaliznyak, the Novgorodian dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus during the 11th–12th century, but  
started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorodian dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus, whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way.<ref name="About Russian Language History"/>

===Under Lithuania/Poland and Muscovy/Russia ===
[[File:Peresopnytske Gospel 04.jpg|thumb|upright|Miniature of [[St Luke]] from the [[Peresopnytsia Gospels]] (1561)]]

After the fall of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then [[Crown of the Polish Kingdom|Poland]]. Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old East Slavic became the language of the chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 [[Union of Lublin]] that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural [[Polonization]] and visible attempts to [[colonization|colonize]] Ukraine by the Polish nobility.<ref name="Mywebpages.comcast.net">{{cite web |url=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mdemkowicz1/dobra/poloniz.html |title=The Polonization of the Ukrainian Nobility |publisher=Mywebpages.comcast.net |access-date=2012-05-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020602145938/http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mdemkowicz1/dobra/poloniz.html |archive-date=2002-06-02 }}</ref>

Many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language and converted to Catholicism during that period in order to maintain their lofty aristocratic position.<ref name="Mywebpages.comcast.net"/> Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the [[Union of Brest|Union with the Catholic Church]]. Most of the educational system was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Polish has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in [[Western Ukraine]]). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are [[Dialect continuum|transitional]] to Polish.<ref name="Hull">Geoffrey Hull, Halyna Koscharsky. "[http://miskinhill.com.au/journals/asees/20:1-2/lexical-divide-ukrainian.pdf  Contours and Consequences of the Lexical Divide in Ukrainian] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130516033533/http://miskinhill.com.au/journals/asees/20:1-2/lexical-divide-ukrainian.pdf |date=16 May 2013 }}". ''Australian Slavonic and East European Studies''. Vol. 20, no. 1-2. 2006.  pp. 140–147.</ref> As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from [[Tatar language|Tatar]] and [[Turkish language|Turkish]] occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in the sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the predecessor of the modern [[Kyiv-Mohyla Academy]]), founded by the [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox]] [[Metropolitan bishop|Metropolitan]] [[Peter Mogila]], was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of the Orthodox church spoke Ruthenian.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

The 1654 [[Pereiaslav Agreement]] between [[Cossack Hetmanate]] and [[Alexis of Russia]] divided Ukraine between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. During the following century, both monarchies became increasingly intolerant of Ukrainian own cultural and political aspirations.<ref>{{cite book|last=Magocsi|first=Paul Robert|title=A History of Ukraine|date=1996|publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]]|page=293|quote=}}</ref> Ukrainians found themselves in a colonial situation.<ref>{{cite AV media|first1=Timothy|last1=Snyder|first2=Arne|last2=Westad|title=The Making of Modern Ukraine. Class 21. Comparative Russian Imperialism|minutes=5|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWRXLrJhqA0|quote="Even though these areas, these countries are close to the imperial centers, Ireland and Algeria, their evolution has been an evolution driven in the 20th century by decolonization. And what I'm indicating here, of course, is that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is in many ways similar – in character, not in every context of those relationships."|access-date=21 September 2023|archive-date=2 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702085119/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWRXLrJhqA0|url-status=live}}</ref> The Russian centre adopted the name ''Little Russia'' for Ukraine and ''Little Russian'' for the language,<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Michael S.|last1=Flier|first2=Andrea|last2=Graziosi|title=The Battle for Ukrainian: An Introduction|journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies|volume=35|year=2017–2018|pages=11–30|url=https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/the-battle-for-ukrainian-an-introduction|access-date=5 September 2023|archive-date=5 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230905073704/https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/the-battle-for-ukrainian-an-introduction|url-status=live}}</ref> an expression that originated in Byzantine Greek and may originally have meant "old, original, fundamental Russia", and had been in use since the 14th century.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kohut|first=Zenon Eugene|title=The Development of a Little Russian Identity and Ukrainian Nationbuilding|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036271|journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies|year=1986|volume=10|issue=3/4|pages=559–576|jstor=41036271|quote=The reasons for choosing the terms remain obscure. They might simply have reflected that the Galician metropolitan had fewer eparchies than the Suzdal one, or they might have come about due to an ancient Greek practice of denoting the homeland as “minor” while the colonies were labelled as “major” (e.g., Megalê Hellas, or Magna Graecia in Latin, for the Greek colonies in Italy). Whatever the conceptual underpinnings, the terms gained acceptance in ecclesiastical circles and entered the political sphere by the 1330s. <...> As a political designation “Little Rus”” faded with the demise of the Galician Principality (1340), but it continued to be important in the expanded battles over the Rus’ metropolitanate.|access-date=13 November 2023|archive-date=27 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230527193501/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036271|url-status=live}}</ref> Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. 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.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

=== In Austrian Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918) ===
After the 1772 [[First Partition of Poland]], when the lands annexed by the Austrian [[Habsburg monarchy]] were reorganised as the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]], the Habsburg administration was initially surprised to find out that, apart from Poles, there were a lot of other people living in it whom they began calling ''Ruthenen'' ("Ruthenians" or "Rusyny").{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=88}} They differed from the Poles in that the vast majority of them adhered to the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church|Greek Catholic faith]] (organised as the [[Ruthenian Uniate Church]]) rather than Roman Catholic, and that their liturgical language was [[Church Slavonic]] rather than Latin.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=88}} Most of them had not received much education; they used Ruthenian only as a spoken language, few could read or write, and those who did more often used Polish or (increasingly) German instead.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=88}} As Empress [[Maria Theresa]] had introduced a general compulsory education (''Allgemeiner Schulzwang'') in 1774, and enacted it in newly-acquired Galicia and Lodomeria in 1777, the decision was made to produce Polish and Ruthenian textbooks that were used in elementary schools for those language communities.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=88}} 

{{Quote box
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 |source = – Ivan Mohylnytsky, ''Information on the Ruthenian Language'' (1829)<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/applet?mimetype=image%2Fx.djvu&sec=false&handler=djvu_html5&content_url=%2FContent%2F113939%2Findex.djvu |title=Jan Mogilnicki. Rozprawa о ięzyku ruskim // Czasopism Naukowy Księgozbioru Publicznego imienia Ossolińskich. – Rok 2. – Zeszyt 3. – Lwów, 1829. – S. 56-87 |accessdate=23 December 2024 |archive-date=29 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729200556/http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/applet?mimetype=image%2Fx.djvu&sec=false&handler=djvu_html5&content_url=%2FContent%2F113939%2Findex.djvu}}</ref>{{rp|56}}
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Although some Ruthenian parish schools were established in some villages, and some printed primers and catechisms in Ruthenian were distributed there, the effects of Ruthenian-language education achieved very little until 1815.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=88}} That year, {{ill|Ivan Mohylnytsky|uk|Могильницький Іван|pl|Iwan Mohylnycki}}, a [[Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Przemyśl–Warsaw|Przemyśl eparchy]] [[Canon (title)|canon]] who contributed to the establishment of a strong network of Ruthenian parish schools and a teacher training school, published a catechism at the Royal University of Buda entitled ''Christian Learning in the Case of the Common Catechism for Parish Children''.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=88–89}} He followed this up in 1823 by a ''Grammar of the Slovene–Ruthenian language'' (never published), and in 1829 by his treatise ''Information on the Ruthenian Language'' (published both in Polish as ''Rozprawa o ięzyku ruskim'' and in Ruthenian as "Відомість о руском языці"), which represents the first scholarly study arguing that Ruthenian was a language in its own right, separate from Polish, Russian, and Church Slavonic.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=88–89}} On the other hand, new educational regulations in 1818 determined that schools that were exclusively attended by children of Greek Catholic parents were to receive instruction in Ruthenian, whereas schools attended by children of both Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic parents had Polish as the [[medium of instruction]].{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=89}} Nevertheless, pupils at Ruthenian-instruction schools had to learn Polish as a second language as well.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=89}} In higher education, Ruthenian was not valued as an equal language, and students were expected to learn and use Latin and Polish instead.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=89}} Students training to become Greek Catholic priests at the [[University of Lviv]] did receive instruction in Ruthenian in the so-called "Studium ruthenum" according to Austrian regulations between 1787 and 1809, but it was not a fully-fledged course; instead, it was regarded as a temporary measure for students who did not yet know Latin.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=89}} Both its professors and alumni received only half the salary of their counterparts from the "Studium latinum", the number of students steadily decreased over the decades, and in 1809 the Ruthenians themselves requested the "Studium ruthenum" to be abandoned.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=89}}

In the first few decades of the Austrian period in Galicia, there was also confusion amongst both the Habsburg administration and educated Ruthenians about which variety of written Ruthenian to use: late Church Slavonic, literary Russian, traditional written Ruthenian, or something close to how Ruthenian was actually spoken in Galicia at that time.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=89–90}} The Habsburg Imperial censor for Slavic publications, [[Jernej Kopitar]] (himself from Slovenia), encouraged Ruthenian authors to base their written language on the Ruthenian vernacular, and from December 1833 onwards, to write [[Ukrainian Latin alphabet|Ruthenian in a Latin alphabet]] rather than Cyrillic.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=90}} This initiated a discussion on Ruthenian identity, later called the [[Alphabet War|"First Alphabet War" or "Blizzard"]].{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=90}} Although most Ruthenian intellectuals did respond by increasingly basing their writings on spoken Ruthenian, the majority of them defended the use Cyrillic over concerns of Polonisation.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=90}} Nevertheless, they could not agree on various standardisation issues; three different Ruthenian grammars were published between 1834 and 1848, and none of them was widely adopted.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=90}} Before 1848, no Ruthenian dictionaries were produced, no Ruthenian-language periodical press existed within Habsburg Galicia, and Ruthenian played no role as language of administration.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=90}}

[[File:Galicja language.png|300x300px|Prevalence of Polish or Ukrainian language in Galicia in 1910|alt=Prevalence of Polish or Ukrainian language in Galicia in 1910|thumb]]
The [[Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire]] changed everything: the native languages of most populations in the Empire, including Ruthenian, were accorded official status, and all laws in the Danubian monarchy would be published in these languages from 1 October 1849 onwards.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=91}} Ruthenian would henceforth to be used in local administration in the ''Landesgesetzblätter''.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=91–92}} From 1849 onwards, various official periodicals were established in Ruthenian, and the Interior Ministry stipulated in July 1849 that street signs in Lviv had to include Ruthenian versions.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=92}} In October 1852, the Ministry of Justice also decreed that Ruthenian could be used by parties involved in legal issues in their communication with the courts of law, although it would take until 1861 to allow these letters to employ ''skoropys'' Cyrillic rather than Latin script (or the Muscovite ''graždanka'' variety of Cyrillic).{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=92}} In the post-1848, there were some contradictory developments, some of which countered Polonisation in the sphere of education, while others stimulated further Polonisation in the sphere of administration.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=94–95}} Similarly, [[Galician Russophilia]] or Moscophilia strived towards ever greater assimilation of Ruthenian towards the so-called "Great Russian" language as used in Moscow that still heavily leaned on Church Slavonic, while both the Habsburg administration and Greek Catholic Church raised concerns that these were "barely comprehensible" to the common people of Galicia and hampered the "development of the Ruthenian language", adding that Orthodox Imperial Russia was a threat to the overwhelmingly Catholic Habsburg realm.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=92–94}} 

Matters once again came to a head in May 1859, when the Polish governor of Galicia [[Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski|Gołuchowski]] recommended Czech linguist [[Josef Jireček]]'s proposal for a Ruthenian Latin alphabet, leading to the [[Alphabet War|"Second Alphabet War" or "Blizzard"]].{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=94}} Ruthenian intellectuals almost unanimously rejected the proposal for fear of Polonisation, leading the government to overreact by banning the "Russian script" (meaning the Muscovite ''graždanka'') in July 1859, which Ruthenian writers generally ignored.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=94}} By March 1861, the Habsburg State Ministry essentially conceded defeat by stating that the Ruthenians themselves were responsible for developing their own language, and that it was not up to the government.{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=94–95}} Around the same time, however, Ruthenian intellectuals became acquainted with the writings of Ukrainian intellectuals from "Little Russia" in the Russian Empire, such as poet [[Taras Shevchenko]] (died 1861), who was fiercely anti-Russian and [[Ukrainophilia|Ukrainophile]], leading many earlier Galician Ruthenians to abandon their Russophilia.{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=95}} In between the pro-Polish and pro-Russian tendencies, the Ruthenian language in Galicia would gradually develop into an independent literary and intellectual written language in the second half of the 19th century, when it was increasingly called "Ukrainian".{{sfn|Moser|2017|pp=95–97}}

=== In the Russian Empire ===
During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire [[Dnieper Ukraine]] and Austrian [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]]. The [[Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius]] in Kyiv 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.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

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 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools.<ref name=schools/> In 1811, by order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

In 1847 the Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year [[Taras Shevchenko]] was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 [[Pavlo Chubynsky]] was exiled for seven years to [[Arkhangelsk]]. The Ukrainian magazine ''[[Osnova]]'' was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister [[Pyotr Valuyev]] proclaimed in [[Valuyevsky Ukaz|his decree]] that "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language".<ref name="Valuyev">[[s:ru:Валуевский циркуляр|Валуевский циркуляр]], full text of the Valuyev circular on [[Wikisource]] {{in lang|ru}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media|first=Timothy|last=Snyder|title=The Making of Modern Ukraine. Class 22. Ukrainian Ideas in the 21st Century|minutes=4|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz6MSiGZQCU|access-date=27 August 2023|archive-date=21 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821123224/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz6MSiGZQCU|url-status=live}}</ref>

Although the [[name of Ukraine]] is known since 1187, it was not applied to the language until the mid-19th century.<ref name="Flier,Graziosi">https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/the-battle-for-ukrainian-an-introduction {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230905073704/https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/the-battle-for-ukrainian-an-introduction |date=5 September 2023 }} "It was during this period that elites on both sides of the border began to apply the term Ukrainian to the varieties formerly called Ruthenian and Little Russian."</ref> The [[linguonym]] ''Ukrainian language'' appears in [[Yakub Holovatsky]]'s book from 1849,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/golovatsky1849/page/n33/mode/2up | title=Розправа о язиці южноруськім і його наріччях | date=5 January 2024 }}</ref> listed there as a variant name of the ''Little Russian language''. In a private letter from 1854, Taras Shevchenko lauds "our splendid Ukrainian language".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpcjAAAAMAAJ&q="наш+прекрасний+український+язик |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230904201454/https://books.google.com/books?id=PpcjAAAAMAAJ&dq= |archive-date=4 September 2023|page=269 | title=Istorii͡a ukraïnsʹkoï literatury | date=1954 }}</ref> Valuyev's decree from 1863 derides the "Little Russian" language throughout, but also mentions "the so-called Ukrainian language" once.<ref name="Valuyev" /> In Galicia, the earliest applications of the term ''Ukrainian'' to the language were in the hyphenated names ''Ukrainian-Ruthenian'' (1866, by [[Paulin Święcicki]]) or ''Ruthenian-Ukrainian'' (1871, by [[Panteleimon Kulish]] and [[Ivan Puluj]]), with non-hyphenated ''Ukrainian language'' appearing shortly thereafter (in 1878, by [[Mykhailo Drahomanov]]).{{sfn|Moser|2017|p=103}}<ref>https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/7615/file.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221128082130/https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/7615/file.pdf |date=28 November 2022 }} p.97: "...а також і дльа неукрајінських читачів, котрим не можна давати книги на украјінськіј мові, поки не буде словника тіјејі мови."</ref>

A following ban on Ukrainian books led to [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]]'s secret [[Ems Ukaz]], which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned the printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://litopys.org.ua/ohukr/ohu14.htm |title=XII. СКОРПІОНИ НА УКРАЇНСЬКЕ СЛОВО. Іван Огієнко. Історія української літературної мови |publisher=Litopys.org.ua |access-date=2012-05-22 |archive-date=5 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305214746/http://litopys.org.ua/ohukr/ohu14.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia.{{Sfn|Luckyj|1990|pp=24–25}}

For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in [[Halychyna]] and [[Bukovina]], where Ukrainian was widely used in education and official documents.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vesna.org.ua/txt/subtelny/istukr/17.htm#6 |title=Вiртуальна Русь: Бібліотека<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=28 January 2006 |archive-date=17 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070517081804/http://www.vesna.org.ua/txt/subtelny/istukr/17.htm#6 |url-status=live }}</ref> The suppression by Russia hampered the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

By the time of the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917 and the [[Austro-Hungary#Dissolution of the Empire|collapse of Austro-Hungary]] in 1918, Ukrainians were ready to openly develop a body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]], shortly joined by the [[West Ukrainian People's Republic]]). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved.<ref name=UkrGrammar30 />

====Speakers in the Russian Empire====
[[File:Ukrainian in Russian Empire 1897.png|thumb|upright=1.35|Ukrainian speakers in the Russian Empire (1897)]]
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 (''Русскій'') was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, '[[Little Russian]]'), what is known as Russian today (Великорусскій, '[[Great Russian]]'), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, 'White Russian').{{cn|date=June 2024}}

The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language (''"по родному языку"'') in 1897 in [[Russian Empire]] governorates (''[[guberniya]]s'') that had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php |title=Демоскоп Weekly – Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей |publisher=Demoscope.ru |access-date=2012-05-22 |archive-date=4 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204034344/http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
{{Clear}}
{| border=1 cellpadding=2 style="text-align:right; white-space:wrap; border:0 none transparent; border-collapse:collapse;" summary="Speakers of Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish languages in the entire Russian Empire, by rural/urban split, and broken down by 23 guberniyas."
|- style="border-bottom:3px double #999; vertical-align:bottom;"
!
! style="width:20%;"| Total population
! style="width:20%;"| Ukrainian speakers
! style="width:20%;"| Russian speakers
! style="width:20%;"| Polish speakers
|- style="background:#eee;"
| {{em|[[Russian Empire|Entire Russian Empire]]}}
| 125,640,021
| 22,380,551
| 55,667,469
| 7,931,307
|-
| [[Urban area|Urban]]
| 16,828,395
| 1,256,387
| 8,825,733
| 1,455,527
|-
| [[Rural]]
| 108,811,626
| 21,124,164
| 46,841,736
| 6,475,780
|- style="border-top:1px solid #999; background:#eee;"
| {{em|Regions}}
| colspan=4 |
|- style="vertical-align:bottom;"
| "[[European Russia]]" <br />incl. Ukraine & Belarus
| 93,442,864
| 20,414,866
| 48,558,721
| 1,109,934
|-
| [[Vistula Land|Vistulan guberniyas]]
| 9,402,253
| 335,337
| 267,160
| 6,755,503
|-
| [[Caucasus]]
| 9,289,364
| 1,305,463
| 1,829,793
| 25,117
|-
| [[Siberia]]
| 5,758,822
| 223,274
| 4,423,803
| 29,177
|-
| [[Central Asia]]
| 7,746,718
| 101,611
| 587,992
| 11,576
|- style="border-top:1px solid #999; background:#eee;"
| {{em|Subdivisions}}
| colspan=4 |
|-
| [[Bessarabia]]
| 1,935,412
| 379,698
| 155,774
| 11,696
|-
| [[Volhynia|Volyn]]
| 2,989,482
| 2,095,579
| 104,889
| 184,161
|-
| [[Voronezh Oblast|Voronezh]]
| 2,531,253
| 915,883
| 1,602,948
| 1,778
|-
| [[Don Host Oblast]]
| 2,564,238
| 719,655
| 1,712,898
| 3,316
|-
| [[Yekaterinoslav Governorate|Yekaterinoslav]]
| 2,113,674
| 1,456,369
| 364,974
| 12,365
|-
| [[Kyiv Governorate|Kyiv]]
| 3,559,229
| 2,819,145
| 209,427
| 68,791
|-
| [[Kursk Oblast|Kursk]]
| 2,371,012
| 527,778
| 1,832,498
| 2,862
|-
| [[Podolia]]
| 3,018,299
| 2,442,819
| 98,984
| 69,156
|-
| [[Poltava Governorate|Poltava]]
| 2,778,151
| 2,583,133
| 72,941
| 3,891
|-
| [[Taurida Governorate|Taurida]]
| 1,447,790
| 611,121
| 404,463
| 10,112
|-
| [[Kharkiv Oblast|Kharkiv]]
| 2,492,316
| 2,009,411
| 440,936
| 5,910
|-
| [[Kherson Governorate|Kherson]]
| 2,733,612
| 1,462,039
| 575,375
| 30,894
|-
| [[Odesa|City of Odesa]]
| 403,815
| 37,925
| 198,233
| 17,395
|-
| [[Chernigov Governorate|Chernihiv]]
| 2,297,854
| 1,526,072
| 495,963
| 3,302
|-
| [[Lublin Voivodeship|Lublin]]
| 1,160,662
| 196,476
| 47,912
| 729,529
|-
| [[Siedlce Voivodeship|Sedletsk]]
| 772,146
| 107,785
| 19,613
| 510,621
|-
| [[Kuban|Kuban Province]]
| 1,918,881
| 908,818
| 816,734
| 2,719
|-
| [[Stavropol Krai|Stavropol]]
| 873,301
| 319,817
| 482,495
| 961
|- style="border-bottom:3px double #999;"
| [[Brest Voblast|Brest-Litovsk district]]
| 218,432
| 140,561
| 17,759
| 8,515
|}

Although in the rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in [[Odesa]] (then part of the Russian Empire), at the time the largest city in the territory of current Ukraine, only 5.6% of the population said Ukrainian was their native language.<ref name=George>[https://books.google.com/books?id=2oqThmrFCfwC&dq=Nikolayev+Ukrainian+language&pg=PA12 ''Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR 1923–1934''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406080213/https://books.google.com/books?id=2oqThmrFCfwC&dq=Nikolayev+Ukrainian+language&pg=PA12 |date=6 April 2023 }} by George O. Liber, [[Cambridge University Press]], 1992, {{ISBN|978-0-521-41391-6}} (page 12/13)</ref>

Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kyiv, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917.<ref name=George/>

===Soviet era===
[[File:Soviet UA class union.gif|thumb|A Ukrainian-language poster reading "The social foundation of the [[USSR]] is an unbreakable union of the workers, peasants and [[intelligentsia]]"]]

During the seven-decade-long [[Soviet era]], the Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the [[Ukrainian SSR]].<ref name=life>[https://books.google.com/books?id=iU0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA120 The Ukraine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211062252/https://books.google.com/books?id=iU0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA120 |date=11 February 2023 }}, [[Life (magazine)|''Life'']], 26 October 1946</ref> However, practice was often a different story:<ref name=life/> Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to de facto banishment.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

Officially, there was no [[state language]] in the Soviet Union until the very end when it was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language was the all-Union state language and that the constituent [[Soviet republics|republics]] had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm |title=Law on Languages of Nations of USSR |publisher=Legal-ussr.narod.ru |date=1990-04-24 |access-date=2012-05-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508201331/http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm |archive-date=2016-05-08}}</ref> Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, [[Uzbek language|Uzbek]] would be used in the [[Uzbek SSR]], and so on.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} However, Russian was used as the [[lingua franca]] in all parts of the Soviet Union and a special term, "a language of inter-ethnic communication", was coined to denote its status.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

====Stalin====
{{see also|Ukrainianization}}
{{expand section|date=October 2023}}
<!--[[File:UkrSchool.jpeg|right|thumb|Anti-russification protest. The banner reads ''"Ukrainian school for Ukrainian kids!"''.]]-->

====Khrushchev thaw====
[[File:Rouble-1961-Paper-1-Reverse.jpg|right|upright=1.15|thumb|While Russian was a de facto official language of the Soviet Union in all but formal name, all national languages were proclaimed equal. The name and denomination of [[Soviet rouble|Soviet banknotes]] were listed in the languages of all fifteen [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republics]]. On this 1961 1&nbsp;Rbl note, the Ukrainian for "one rouble", один карбованець (''odyn karbovanets`''), directly follows the Russian один рубль (''odin rubl`'').]]

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]] era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages at the local and republic level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era, as well as [[transfer of Crimea]] under Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained).{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the "oppression" or "persecution", but rather the ''lack of [[linguistic protectionism|protection]]'' against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

The number of students in Russian-language in Ukraine schools was constantly increasing, from 14 percent in 1939 to more than 30 percent in 1962.<ref>{{cite book|first=Serhii|last=Plokhy|author-link=Serhii Plokhy|title=The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine|page=304|year=2015|publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-141-98061-4}}</ref>

====Shelest period====
The Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, [[Petro Shelest]], pursued a policy of defending Ukraine's interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

====Shcherbytsky period====
The new party boss from 1972 to 1989, [[Volodymyr Shcherbytsky]], purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification was lessened only slightly after 1985.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

====Gorbachev and perebudova====
[[File:Map12 b.png|thumb|Fluency in Ukrainian (purple column) and Russian (blue column) in 1989 and 2001]]
The management of dissent by the local [[Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine|Ukrainian Communist Party]] was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] reforms [[Perestroika|perebudova]] and [[Glasnost|hlasnist’]] (Ukrainian for ''perestroika'' and ''glasnost''), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In [[Donetsk]] there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/eternalrussiayel00stee/page/216 <!-- quote=1804. --> Eternal Russia:Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and the Mirage of Democracy] by [[Jonathan Steele (journalist)|Jonathan Steele]], [[Harvard University Press]], 1988, {{ISBN|978-0-674-26837-1}} (page 218)</ref>

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the [[Holodomor|artificial famine]], [[Great Purge]], and most of [[Stalinism]]. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

===Independence in the modern era===
[[File:Ukraine census 2001 Ukrainian.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|Percentage of people with Ukrainian as their native language according to 2001 census (by region)]]
[[File:Inf board metro.JPG|thumb|upright=1.35|Modern signs in the [[Kyiv Metro]] are in Ukrainian. The evolution in their language followed the changes in the language policies in post-war Ukraine. Originally, all signs and voice announcements in the metro were in Ukrainian, but their language was changed to Russian in the early 1980s, at the height of Shcherbytsky's gradual Russification. In the [[perestroika]] liberalization of the late 1980s, the signs were changed to bilingual. This was accompanied by bilingual voice announcements in the trains. In the early 1990s, both signs and voice announcements were changed again from bilingual to Ukrainian-only during the [[De-Russification|de-russification]] campaign that followed Ukraine's independence.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} Since 2012 the signs have been in both Ukrainian and English.]]

Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine, and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

In the [[Ukrainian Census (2001)|2001 census]], 67.5% of the country's population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/general/language/ |title=About number and composition population of UKRAINE by All-Ukrainian population census 2001 data |access-date=11 April 2021 |archive-date=24 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924081100/http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/general/language/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For many Ukrainians (of various ethnic origins), the term ''[[native language]]'' may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language ''native'', including those who often speak Russian.<ref name=2001ukrcensusKievLang/>

According to the official 2001 census data, 92.3% of Kyiv region population responded "Ukrainian" to the ''native language'' (''ridna mova'') census question, compared with 88.4% in 1989, and 7.2% responded "Russian".<ref name=2001ukrcensusKievLang>{{cite web |url=http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/general/language/Kiev/ |title=About number and composition population of Kiev Region by data All-Ukrainian census of the population 2001 |access-date=11 April 2021 |archive-date=11 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411075657/http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/general/language/Kiev/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 

In 2019, the [[law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language"]] was approved by the parliament, formalizing rules governing the usage of the language and introducing penalties for violations.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.Kievpost.com/ukraine-politics/parliament-passes-ukrainian-language-bill.html?cn-reloaded=1|title=Parliament passes Ukrainian language bill|author=Oleg Sukhov|date=25 April 2019|newspaper=Kiev Post|access-date=2 May 2019|archive-date=8 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308204648/https://www.Kievpost.com/ukraine-politics/parliament-passes-ukrainian-language-bill.html?cn-reloaded=1|url-status=live}}</ref>