Ukrainian pronounces the “o” as “o” whereas Russians pronounce it typically as an “a.” The Ukrainian “И” and “Е” have different pronunciations compared to their Russian equivalents, “Ы” and “Э”. The Russian language doesn't have a sound for “Г г.” Ukrainian is a mostly phonetic language.
According to Wilson, surveys that are sensitive to dual identities suggest that some 27 percent of Ukrainian citizens identify themselves as both Ukrainian and Russian.
Grammatically and morphologically Ukrainian is closer to Russian: they both have common East Slavic features. However, lexically Ukrainian is closer to Polish and Slovak. Many people say that this is because of big amount of borrowed West Slavic words. However number of borrowings from Polish is usually overestimated.
Ukrainian-Russian mixed language, or surzhyk, is not unique. However, Bilaniuk explained that defining surzhyk as simply a language mix of Ukrainian and Russian is oversimplified, as it includes several varied phenomena. According to Bilaniuk, language ideology is key to understanding surzhyk in contemporary Ukraine.
Russian is also 85% mutually intelligible with Belarusian and Ukrainian in writing. However, Russian is only 74% mutually intelligible with spoken Belarusian and 50% mutually intelligible with spoken Ukrainian.
Ukrainians often know Russian, but Russians don't often know Ukrainian. So while Ukrainian and Russian are distinct linguistically, there is an important asymmetry to be aware of: even though most Russians don't know or understand Ukrainian because it's a different language, most Ukrainians know and understand Russian.
Ukrainian and Belarusian are the closest languages, as together with Russian they form the East Slavic group of languages. These three languages have an 86% lexical similarity; that is, they share 86% of the same words.
Genetic studies show that Russians are closest to Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians and to other Slavs as well as to Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Hungarians.
The most popular phrase is “pryvit” – which is the equivalent of “hi” or “hello” in Ukrainian.
Ukrainian and Russian are both part of the Slavonic (or Slavic) language family. This group of related languages in central and eastern Europe also includes Polish, Czech and Bulgarian.
Poles and Ukrainians both say “tak” for “yes”, while Russians say “da”.
Many historic documents prove that the Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian state, appeared earlier than the Russian ones. Russian comes from the Old Slavonic language, which was introduced by Kyivan colonizers to Muscovites, who were essentially Finno-Ugric.
The Ukrainian language is easier to learn than Russian, as Russian has more complex grammar. Learning Ukrainian also makes it easier to learn other Eastern European languages, as it is closer to Czech, Slovak, and Polish.
Historical sources tell us that the Ukrainian Cossacks came from a variety of nationalities and social groups. Their ancestors came from Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Tatar territories, and migrated at great risk to the southern steppes to hunt, fish, gather honey, and make handicraft goods.
As of 2022, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 85% of Ukrainians identified as Christians. 72% identified themselves with Eastern Orthodoxy, 9% to the Catholic Church (8% Eastern-rite, 1% Latin-rite) and 4% adherents of a Protestant Church or other Christian movement.
In Russia, authority figures and elders are carefully extended courtesy in public life, including formality of address. As such, you should never use privyet (pree-vyet), the Russian version of “hi” or ”hey, there” with anyone but intimate friends or family members.
An Informal “Hello” in Russian – Привет (Privyet)
Officially it is considered an informal way of saying hello. Before you start using this greeting, make sure you are on pretty familiar terms with a person. You can say it to friends, family, and even casual acquaintances.
Ukrainian men greet each other with a warm handshake with direct eye contact and sometimes a brief hug with a pat on the back. Women friends kiss each other three times on the cheek in greeting. When meeting for the first time, a person's whole names is repeated.
The Ukrainian gene-pool includes the following Y-haplogroups, in order from the most prevalent: R1a (43%) I2a (23%) R1b (8%)
There are a number of traits that distinguish Russians from other ethnicities, but by and large, they reflect common characteristics of other Europeans, including fair skin, blond hair, blue eyes, thin lips, and a rounded nose.
The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes, one of the largest wetlands in Europe.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Is Russian and Polish Mutually Intelligible? Russian is East Slavonic and Polish is West Slavonic. While the two share a similar grammar system and some vocabulary words, Polish and Russian aren't mutually intelligible. If a Russian person lands in Warsaw, nobody would understand him if he only spoke Russian.
Russian is the most geographically widespread language in all of Eurasia, and it's the most popular native language in Europe. Russian speakers number roughly 138 million in Russia, followed in popularity by Ukraine (14.3 million), Belarus (6.9 million), Poland (6.9 million) and Kazakhstan (3.8 million).