Introduction 5 умова дбати будинок жартувати допомагати задоволений година треба (іі) місто кордон час захід схід 'condition', 'accord', 'agreement', Pol. umowa, but Rus. уславив, договор. 'to care for, about', Pol. dbac, but Rus. заботиться. 'building', Pol. budynek, but Rus. здание. 'to joke', Pol. zartowac, but Rus. шутить. 'to help', Pol. dopomagac, but Rus. помогать. 'content', 'satisfied', Pol. zadowolony; but Rus. довольпьш. 'hour', Pol. godzina, but Rus. час. 'It is necessary', 'One must', Pol. trzeba, but Rus. надо, нужно (cf. Rus. требовать Чо demand'). 'town', 'city', Pol. miasto, cf. Rus. город 'city', 'town', but место 'place'. 'border', Pol. kordon (graniczny), cf. Rus. кордон 'cordon', грапица 'border'. 'time', Pol. czas, cf. Rus. час 'hour', время 'time'. 'west', Pol. zachod; but Rus. заход 'sunset', запад 'west'. 'east', Pol. wschod (with simplification of the initial cluster ws- > s-), cf. Rus. сход 'alighting', 'gathering', or 'assembly', восход 'rising' (в. солнца 'sunrise', 'east': obsolete), восток 'east'. All such lexemes have long been used in Ukrainian without evoking a sense of'Polishness' in the speaker's or listener's ear. Of course, occasionally there are lexical forms which will be more common in one area of Ukraine than another; thus, a western Ukrainian lexeme can be perceived by an easterner as a Polonism, for example, пан 'mister' (Mr.: compare Polish pan), a form that has been described in some grammars as one that is used primarily by emigres and occasionally by western Ukrainians; it is, however, present in the latest Ukrainian dictionaries. Even a basic word like 'please' can differ from East to West: прошу can be used anywhere in Ukraine, but is more common in the West (compare Pol. prosze), vs. будь ласка in the East. Sometimes the reverse occurs: in the West a 'letter' (of the alphabet) is more often буква - which is the same as in Russian - than літера, the word encountered elsewhere in Ukrainian and in Polish. Although this might be surprising - given the geo- linguistic realities of Ukraine - the history of all languages is full of such twists and turns. Other regional differences may be more subtle (suffixation, for example), as in the word for 'snapshot', 'photo': compare West знимка (not based on a Polish form), East знімок or знимок; the latter may have this form under the influence of Russian снимок, but phonetically the Ukrainian version is different enough from the Russian that it is not markedly heard as Russian. The Russianness of a given word is only clearly felt in lexical items that either have no Ukrainian related counterpart or belong to an obviously
|