Interesting facts about the Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a very beautiful and quite old language. According to the scientists’ opinion, it is considered to be the oldest one among the Slavic languages. In this article you can find other interesting facts about the Ukrainian language:

1. The 9^th of November is a Day of the Ukrainian language.
2. Ukrainian is one of the most spread languages in the world. It ranks 26^th place by several native speakers. 41-45 million people speak Ukrainian around the world.
3. There are more than 256 thousand words in the modern Ukrainian language. And it belongs to the languages which are developing with new words continuously.
4. There are 33 letters, 38 sounds, and an apostrophe in the Ukrainian language.
5. The most prevalent Ukrainian letter is P and the rarest is F.
6. The longest Ukrainian word consists of 30 letters and you probably can’t read it on the first try.
7. The first ABC book was printed by Ivan Fjodorov in Lvov in 1574.
8. In 1934 the Ukrainian language ranked second place in the list of the most beautiful languages. In the international contest of languages, linguists learned phonetics, the structure of the sentences, a wealth of vocabulary and phraseology.
9. Ukrainian has more diminutive forms than any other language.
10. The first mention of Ukrainian words is dated back to 448. At that time Byzantine historian Prisk has written two words “honey” and “dish” during his stay in the Attila Hun camp in the territory of modern Ukraine.
11. In different historical periods, the Ukrainian language had different names – Prostyj, Russian, Russinskiy, Cossack, etc. By the way, it was named as the Russian language until the middle of the XIX century.
12. The Belarusian language is the closest to Ukrainian according to genealogy.
13. Concerning vocabulary, the closest to the Ukrainian language are Belarussian (84% of common vocabulary), Polish (70 % of common vocabulary), Slovak (68% of common vocabulary) and Russian (62% of common vocabulary).
14. The modern Ukrainian language has three dialects – north (Polissya region), south-west and south-east.
15. Surzhik is referred to as a non-normative speech of Ukrainian people with the elements of the Russian language, mostly lexicological ones (phonetics and grammar remain Ukrainian). In other words, it is a mix of Ukrainian and Russian languages.
16. Ukrainian has become the official language of the country only in 1989.
17. The Ukrainian language has semi-official status in the USA, in Cook Country, Illinois. The population of this district is 5,5 million people and Ukrainian had been chosen as one of the most used in the region.
18. The Ukrainian language is among 39 languages of Vatican Radio.
19. The Ukrainian language has tree forms of the future tense. Besides, the future tense can be imperfective and perfective.
20. In 1918-1920 Ukrainian was the official language of the People’s Republic of the Kuban, which is situated in Russia.
21. The most popular Ukrainian poem is “The testament” by famous Taras Shevchenko. It was translated into 147 languages.
22. The most used Ukrainian noun is “hand”, “to be” is the most popular verb, the most widely used adjective is “big” and “he” is the most commonly used pronoun.
23. Speaking Ukrainian had become trendier from year to year.

Welcome to Ukraine and listen to one of the most beautiful and melodic languages of the world, which will charm you from the first minute!