| Ukrainian is an Eastern Slavonic language it is closely related
to Russian and Belarusian. and is spoken by
51 million people in Ukraine and many other
countries,such as Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan,Brazil, Belarus,
Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary,Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,
Lithuania, Latvia,
Moldova,Romania,
Poland, Paraguay, Russia
Romania, and Slovakia.
The recorded history began in 988, when the principality of Kiev was converted
to Christianity. Ukrainian religious material,
including the translations of the Bible,which was written in Old Slavonic,
the language used by missionaries to spread Christianity to the Slavic peoples.
During the 16Th century the remaining parts of Ukraine were taken over by Poland
and Polish and Latin were used for official purposes. Ruthenian began to split
into Ukrainian and Belarusian during this period.
During the reign of Catherine the Great, the Cossacks moved to the eastern frontiers
of Russia, but Ukraine remained under Russian domination, and the Russians
considered the Ukrainian language as little more than a dialect of Russian.
Ukraine enjoyed a brief period of independence from 1918 to 1919, then was taken
over by the USSR and declared a Soviet Republic. During the Soviet era, Russian was
the main language of education and employment and Ukrainian was sidelined.
In 1991 Ukraine declared independence Since then many Ukrainian émigrés have
returned to Ukraine, particularly from central Asia and Siberia. |
