Surzhyk

Surschyk, also Suržyk (of Ukrainian суржик = ' flour mixture ') is the colloquial name for a mixed language based on the Ukrainian and Russian.

Reasons for the emergence of Surschyk

The emergence of Surschyk is both a result of the preference of Russian in the Soviet Ukraine, on the other hand a result of migration within the former Ukrainian SSR. Already in the 1930s and again reinforced after the Second World War many Western Ukrainians migrated from the industrial cities of eastern Ukraine. The western Ukrainians, who usually barely mastered the Russian language, produced when trying to speak Russian, a language variety, the leaning is phonetically and partly also in the grammar of the Ukrainian, the vocabulary but essentially consisted of Russian words. Even Ukrainian vocabulary in Russian phonetics can be observed, for example, ' rok ' for ' rik '. In western Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1921 and in some cases only from 1945, the Ukrainian always had a much stronger position, so the appearance of the Surschyk was there rare.

Taboo of Surschyk

In the Soviet Union the Surschyk was not the subject of scientific research, but was at best sporadically mentioned as a phenomenon of language contact. After the independence of Ukraine, he was considered a phenomenon that was to fight it.

Latest development

Since independence, Ukraine is the "classic" Surschyk back in eastern Ukraine, because the use of the Ukrainian is funded by the state. On the other side are now entering the Surschyk similar phenomena also in western Ukraine, especially in the city of Lviv language on.