Let’s not deny our own: linguistic essays on the history of word usage

Abstract

The complex historical fate of the Ukrainian language has primarily affected its vocabulary, which has undergone significant changes over the past two centuries. In the new Ukrainian literary language, which emerged on a folk basis thanks to the works of Ivan Kotliarevskyi and Taras Shevchenko, many words inherited from the old Ukrainian literary language were replaced by synonyms from the vernacular speech. As a result, modern Ukrainian speakers may not perceive archaic lexemes as Ukrainian, even though these words of Proto-Slavic origin were already attested in Old Slavonic language and actively used in the Old Ukrainian period (14th–18th centuries), continued to be used in the new Ukrainian literary language until the first quarter of the 20th century, and are still in use in Ukrainian dialects.

The article demonstrates the “Ukrainian-ness” of archaic lexemes such as время, год, нельзя, and послідній. Based on lexicographic works of the 19th to the first quarter of the 20th century, including the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” by P. Biletskyi-Nosenko, the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” edited by B. Hrinchenko, the “Ukrainian-German Dictionary” by Y. Zhelekhivskyi and S. Nedilskyi, the “Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary” by M. Umanets and A. Spilka, and the “Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary” edited by A. Krymskyi and S. Yefremov, as well as texts by Ukrainian writers of the 18th–19th centuries, including Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ivan Kotliarevskyi, and Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Romantic poets, Taras Shevchenko, and collections of paroemias compiled and organized by M. Nomys and I. Franko, the history of the usage of these words throughout the centuries is traced. Based on dialectal dictionaries, it is shown that these archaic lexemes continue to be used in various Ukrainian dialects, including Boyko, Bukovynian, Hutsul, Central Dnieper, East Slobozhanskyi, and others.

This is a trace of the past literary-written tradition, evidence of our language-historical memory, and not elements of the Russian language or surzhyk. Misunderstanding the nature of such lexical units can distort Ukrainians’ perception of their national identity.

Information about the author:

Lidiia Hnatiuk – Dr Hab, Prof. of the Department of the Ukrainian Language and Applied Linguistics; Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology; Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine).

E-mail: lidahnatjuk@gmail.com

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REFERENCES

1. Hnatiuk, L. P. (2022). The linguistic phenomenon of Hryhorii Skovoroda as a manifestation of Ukrainian spiritual heritage. Hryhorii Skovoroda: “Spiritual figures of Ukraine” series. Lviv : “Logos”, рр. 21–32 (in Ukrainian).
2. Hnatiuk, L. P. (2016). National identity and the culture of historical memory: the linguistic dimension. Mova i suspilstvo, 7, 139–145 (in Ukrainian).