Talk:Surzhyk

Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone had earlier written that Surzhyk does not exist in western Ukraine. While the language of this region no doubt contains fewer elements of Russian than the language of other parts of Ukraine, this does not mean that it was unaffected by over four decades of Soviet rule. Obligatory service in the Soviet army and the settlement of the area's cities with Russian-speakers were two important elements of Russification. L'viv in particular has a large number of Russian- and Surzhyk-speakers.

What interests me is, to what extent is Surzhyk a settled language spoken as a native language by large coherent communities and to what extent it is a mere contact language, being used between Russian and Ukrainian speakers but not by the rural Ukrainians themselves? And er.. of course all Ukrainian has been affected by Russian, but a few loan words are not innuf to call the result a mixed language. Caesarion 19:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Rural Ukrainians? Ukraine is actually very highly urbanized, even for Europe. And it is not really in loan words (both languages have common roots, therefore, similar vocabularies), it is in pronounciation and (often - conscious) mixing of syntax, tone, and national colour. It's used by bilinguals naturally in everyday speech to various levels of extent. Even urban eastern Ukrainians raised in a Russian-speaking environment will freely sprinkle in Ukrainian terms or syntax. It's really a free-form Eastern Slavic dialect that isn't fully Ukrainian or Russian, but also not the proto-language both came from, rather - the result of various levels of migration, contact, and relations between Russia and the Ukraine over the centuries. Also, note that places like Kursk, on the Russian side of the border, speak in a similar language (although most of them consider it to be just Russian). 128.195.186.63 20:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)Adieu

PS: Also to be noted is that Ukrainian is often said to have a humourous, colloquial ring to native speakers of Russian. Therefore, Ukrainian words or syntax are often used for a subtle shift of tone, mood, or to spice up oral speech. Characters using Ukrainian/Surzhyk are a plot device in Russian film and literature (Ukrainian is mostly understandable to anyone with a grasp of Russian), and their effect is similar to that of a Texan accent in English. Since the Ukraine had the best soil in the Soviet Union, the (partly false) perception has been that Ukrainians are more blunt, cheerful, optimistic, simpler, more straightforward, full of folk wisdom, but also more cunning than urban Russians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.195.186.63 (talk) 20:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

No offense to the original writer of this article, but his/her command of English is rather limited. I don't know Surzhyk and its history well enough to do anything but give the article a native speaker's proofread, but I'd like to see it expanded. (Szfski 20:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC))

There is no such language! That is an invented name.Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Now, now, you can't make statements like this and expect the rest of us to accept them without anything resembling proof. --Strannik (talk) 06:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting work in English

I do not know if it relevant to include this as reference in the article. Just came across. Also I do not know if the copyright is OK. If anyone has time to read and decide: http://www.diva-portal.org/diva/getDocument?urn_nbn_se_su_diva-6792-2__fulltext.pdfKKonstantin (talk) 12:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Mixed Language?

Based on the description of Surzhyk in this article, it does not meet the technical definition of a mixed language. A language that keeps its grammar and core vocabulary and only incorporates lexicon from another language is not "mixed". (Taivo (talk) 02:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC))

Incorrect Taivo. See my comments at Talk:Maltese language. Most mixed languages don't mix their grammars. 78.149.205.194 (talk) 11:30, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong, anonymous IP. You overstate the case for Surzhyk as a mixed language just as you are overstating the case at Talk:Maltese language. Surzhyk is a Ukrainian dialect with large amounts of Russian borrowings. Standard Ukrainian has a large percentage of old Polish loanwords, including for commonly occurring words like "understand" (rozumiju) and "thank you" (djakuju), but in Surzhyk these are usually replaced by Russian forms (ponimaju and spasibo, respectively) with Ukrainian inflectional endings. The grammar is still solidly Ukrainian and much of the core vocabulary is still Ukrainian. To say (as you did at the Maltese talk page) that it is all Ukrainian grammar with all Russian vocabulary is wrong. One of the difficulties is that a word borrowed from English in Russian will look virtually identical to the same word borrowed into Ukrainian. The differences are often in the quality of one or two vowels and the palatalization pattern. The two languages are very closely related and there is a lot of mutual intelligibility between them. Calling a situation such as this a "mixed language" is not justified on either scientific or practical grounds. (Taivo (talk) 13:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, it appears you know little about what a mixed language is - I mean, you thought that a language was not "mixed" if did not inherit grammar from both of them; yet the majority of mixed languages do the exact opposite of just that. 78.151.112.123 (talk) 23:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but your understanding of what a mixed language is is quite inadequate. Study up a little more on the issue. Your understanding of Surzhyk is zero, so unless you have something constructive to contribute here.... (Taivo (talk) 01:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC))

Haha - oh I know so little about it compared to you, don't I? I mean, coming from the person who claims that all the languages described as "mixed" on Wikiedia are not really mixed. ;) A mixed language is to code-switching, as a creole is to a pidgin. A creole involves grammar mixes - while a mixed language by definition can take the (main) vocabulary from one language, while having the grammar solely from another - it makes no difference to the fact that it's mixed, and in fact, most mixed languages are like that. A mixed language develops from persistant code switching between two languages - if and when a language develops from this, with a stable grammar and vocabulary, it is then called a "mixed language". Try again. 78.146.251.146 (talk) 10:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Since you a sock puppet for a Maltese nationalist, know nothing about Surzhyk, and therefore have nothing useful to contribute to this discussion, I'll ignore you here. (Taivo (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC))

Oh really? I'm Maltese am I? LOL 78.146.251.146 (talk) 13:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

First of all Surzhyk is no language, second of all it has nothing to do with the fact that it was originated specifically in Ukraine, that is the urban legend.97.101.121.193 (talk) 22:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Surzhyk is Ukrainian?

How is Surhzyk a Ukrainian language? Surzhyk is example of a poor knowledge of the Ukrainian language, not its variation. Surzhyk is when you think Russian, but trying to speak Ukrainian, and how they say in Odessa - it is two big differences. That happens when somebody does not speak Ukrainian all the time, not because it's a dialect. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 23:17, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The descriptions of Surzhyk that I've read all say that it is heavily russified Ukrainian, not the other way round. That doesn't make it a Ukrainian dialect per se, but it is Ukrainian nonetheless. The description in the article--a sociolect of Ukrainian--is accurate. Actually, the amount of Russification varies from west to east across Ukraine and into southern Russia, so Surzhyk itself isn't really a unified speech. It more or less represents Ukrainian at its base with increasing amounts of Russian as one moves east. --Taivo (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The table is own research. Ok I am waiting to August 2011 and then to delete the table. I think a year is more than enough to find good source. But I think it doesn't exist:). Now I deleted the row in Ukraine (На Украине, в Украине) in table, because it is not Surzhyk. It's different norm of writing. In Ukraine in Russian language officially preferred used "в Украине". In Russian literature it used in 19th century and later. Now it some political question but isn't surzhyk. Volodimirg (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

If no reliable source is in the article after a year, then it should be deleted. --Taivo (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

For your attention, early you said "The descriptions of Surzhyk that I've read all say that it is heavily russified Ukrainian, not the other way round." - Its not true. Surzhyk is used by Ukrainian and Russian speakers. Exist different kind of Surzhyk. Most known is two types: (1) Russian words or distorted Russian words in Ukrainian speakers (example distorted ru:"даже" (must be in ukrainian - "навіть"), када (коли), отдав (віддав), отключив (вимкнув)... ) and (2) distorted Ukrainian words in Russian speakers (presented in table). Sometimes Surzhyk is called distorted Polish or Magyar words in Ukrainian (west part of Ukraine). Sometimes hard to say people speaks on Ukrainian or Russian (mostly old people on east and north of Ukraine). Volodimirg (talk) 10:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

We go by reliable, preferably scholarly, sources here and all the scholarly sources in English say that Surzhyk is Russified Ukrainian, not the other way round. Unless you have reliable scholarly sources that say otherwise, then that is the characterization that we will use in Wikipedia. I don't know where that table is from, but if it does not actually represent typical Surzhyk (Russified Ukrainian), then it can (and should) be deleted. --Taivo (talk) 12:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

"Surzhyk is used by Ukrainian and Russian speakers." - as I see it is not true. Almost all Russian speakers do not use Surzhik widely (however, the language which is recognised as Russian language in Ukraine is not the same as Russian in Russia). Surzik is used as a spoken variant of the Ukrainian language, and in some regions Ukrainian native-speakers should be recognised by it, while non-native speakers use standard literary language only. Also, "оддав", "одключив" are possible in literary Ukrainian language (however, forms with од- instead of від- are rarely used). The table in the article also contains no Surzhic-specific words (however, some of them are written in Russian-like orthography, and some of them use -ть instead of -ти in the end, while this form is legal in literary Ukrainian but not widely used in it). P.Y.Python (talk) 19:06, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"Surzhyk is when you think Russian, but trying to speak Ukrainian" - not true. Surzhyk evolved from the spoken Ukrainian with adding Russian cultural vocabulary due to lack of education in Ukrainian. Also, Surzhyk may appear as trying to make Ukrainian more "Russian-compatible" to be understood by non-Ukrainians. Another source of Surzhyk is difference between modern Ukrainian and literary Ukrainian in some periods of its history. There were attempts in USSR to make Ukrainian language more Russian-like, and the languge of some Ukrainian books printed in 1930-1940 may be now recognised as Surzhyk. P.Y.Python (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)