Ukrainian Accent

Friday, December 2, 2011

One of the biggest differences between Ukraine and Russian language is placement in the mouth. In Ukraine, placement is very far in back of throat and it had a bit of nasal quality to it. The people of Russian beliefs this makes us Ukrainians sound silly, but they are deranged.

The [I] sounds does not exist in Ukraine language!

So most of these times [I] becomes à [i]

EXAMPLE. Listen! Hit me up at the gym for a little swim.

In Ukraine we no like the diphthongs!

[ɛI] à [ɛ:] or [e:]

EXAMPLE: Danger Danger! A wave of May Day party girls with supremely low waistlines are headed this way.

[oʊ] à open back vowel [ɔ]

EXAMPLE: That hopeless moaning woman keeps ringing my mobile.

The light [l] sound is most difficult for us to make so we do this instead [ɫ]

Is much darker, kind of like swallowing the sounds.

EXAMPLE: Is slim chance military will ever master the Kremlin’s slick dance moves.

We will replace unrounded back vowel of cup sound [ʌ] with rounded back vowel that is worm with backpack [ɒ]

EXAMPLE: We will culminate this discussion with interruption from inebriated monks.

Hokay, now we also replace [ʊ] with the more rounded [u]

That prude woman should have shown me with bosom with more haste.

And replace that splat [æ] with [ɑ] if it is suiting for you.

EXAMPLE: Bad News! That man at the bar has stolen your rad jacket.

The [h] is replaced with the [x] which makes us sound like we have something stuck in the back of our throats. But don’t go too crazy with it because you will sound impaired.

EXAMPLE: The rehearsal inhabitants are most premium, but I am hungry, hokay?

As with many people of foreign [θ] and [ ] are difficult to speak so they are replaced with plosives [t̺] or [d] and also [s] or [z]

That kind of thinking could send me to the thoughtful theatre.

Now although there is an intrusive [j] in Ukraine accent I do not want you to go crazy with it because it does not happen as often as in Russian accent.

EXAMPLE: I will have a meeting with that man about her beauty.

One last thing. We will be replacing the hard [ɡ] with [h]. This only happen in Ukraine because we are not fans of the [ɡ] in our country.

My garage is full of gardening goods.

RHYTHM AND STRESS.

Most of the time the stress will be on the penultimate syllable of a word.

We tend to get rid of unnecessary articles such as “the, a, an etc.”

We do not aspirate [p, t, k] or if we do we tend to over-exaggerate to make up for all those times we didn’t aspirate them.

EXAMPLE: We picked up ticks at Peter’s place.

A bit of History

History of Ukraine

Most of the territory of what is modern Ukraine was annexed by Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century, but during that time, Ukrainians began to conceive of themselves as a distinct people, a feeling that survived subsequent partitioning by greater powers over the next centuries. Ukrainian peasants who fled the Polish effort to force them into servitude came to be known as Cossacks and earned a reputation for their fierce martial spirit and love of freedom. When Poland was partitioned in the late 18th century, much of modern-day Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire.

When World War I and the Russian revolution shattered the Habsburg and Russian empires, Ukrainians declared independent statehood. In 1917 the Central Rada proclaimed Ukrainian autonomy and in 1918, following the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd, the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence under President Mykhaylo Hrushevsky. After 3 years of conflict and civil war, however, the western part of Ukrainian territory was incorporated into Poland, while the larger, central and eastern regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was officially created in 1922.

Ukrainian culture and education flourished during the twenties, but with Stalin's rise to power and the campaign of forced collectivization beginning in 1929, the Soviet leadership imposed a campaign of terror that ravaged the intellectual class. The Soviet Government under Stalin also created an artificial famine (called “Holodomor” in Ukrainian) as part of his forced collectivization policies, which killed millions of previously independent peasants and others throughout the country. Estimates of deaths in Ukraine from the 1932-33 Holodomor alone range from 3 million to 7 million. 

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, some Ukrainians, particularly in the west, welcomed what they saw as liberation from Communist rule, but this did not last as they quickly came to understand the nature of Nazi rule. Nazi brutality was directed principally against Ukraine's Jews (of whom an estimated 1 million were killed), but also against many other Ukrainians. Babyn Yar in Kyiv was the site of one of the most horrific Nazi massacres of Ukrainian Jews, ethnic Ukrainians, and many others. Kyiv and other parts of the country were heavily damaged. After the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, the western Ukrainian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Armed resistance against Soviet authority continued as late as the 1950s. During periods of relative liberalization--as under Nikita Khrushchev from 1955 to 1964 and during the period of "perestroika" under Mikhail Gorbachev--Ukrainian communists cautiously pursued nationalist objectives. The 1986 explosion at the Chornobyl (Chernobyl in Russian) nuclear power plant, located in the Ukrainian SSR, and the Soviet Government's initial efforts to conceal the extent of the catastrophe from its own people and the world, were a watershed for many Ukrainians in exposing the severe problems of the Soviet system. Ukraine became an independent state on August 24, 1991, and was a co-founder of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although it has not officially joined the organization.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

 Ukraine has a presidential-parliamentary system of government with separate executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The prime minister is appointed by the president with the consent of more than one-half of the parliament. The prime minister, first deputy prime minster, three deputy prime ministers, and cabinet ministers are appointed by the president based on a submission by the prime minister. The Supreme Council (Verkhovna Rada) initiates legislation, ratifies international agreements, and approves the budget. Its members are elected to 5-year terms, with the next Rada election occurring in October 2012. 

ECONOMY 

With rich farmlands, a well-developed industrial base, highly trained labor force of 20 million, and good education system, Ukraine has the potential to become a major European economy. After a robust 8-year expansion beginning in 2000 that saw real GDP expand 75%, Ukraine’s economy experienced a sharp slowdown in late 2008, which continued through 2009. After contracting 15.1% in 2009, GDP is estimated to have bounced back only 4.2% in 2010 and is forecast to grow between 4.0% and 4.6% in 2011.  Ukraine’s economy remains burdened by excessive government regulation, corruption, and lack of law enforcement, and while the government has taken steps against corruption and small and medium enterprises have been largely privatized, much remains to be done to restructure and privatize key sectors such as energy and to create a market system for agricultural land. President Yanukovych chairs a Committee on Economic Reform, and in 2010 Ukraine developed an economic reform plan for 2010-2014. In December 2010 a comprehensive new tax code was passed by parliament and signed into law, provoking major street protests in Kyiv. 

Geography 

Area: 233,000 sq. mi., the largest country wholly in Europe. Cities: Capital--Kyiv (also transliterated as Kiev, pop. 2.8 million). Other cities--Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odesa, Lviv. Terrain: A vast plain mostly bounded by the Carpathian mountains in the southwest and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in the South. Climate: Continental temperate, except in southern Crimea, which has a sub-tropical climate.  

People 

Capitol: Kiev

Population (est.): 45.8 million.

Languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Surzhyk (mix of Ukrainian and Russian

Ethnic groups: Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians, Jews, Poles, Crimean Tatars, and other groups. 

Religions: Ukrainian Orthodoxy, Ukrainian Greek Catholicism, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Islam, others. Languages: Ukrainian (official), Russian, others.

 Education: Literacy--99.4%. 

Health: Infant mortality rate--8.73/1,000

Life expectancy--62.56 yrs. males, 74.74 yrs. females.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Ukrainian Words to live by.

1.  A crow will never be a falcon.

2.  A friendly word is better than a heavy cake.

3. A hungry wolf is stronger than a satisfied dog.

4.  A woman is not a harmonica that you put aside when you have used it.

5.  A woman's beauty cannot warm a winter's night.

6.  Black souls wear white shirts.

7.  Borrowed bread lies heavy on the stomach.

8. Deficiencies come by the kilo and go by the gram.

9. Drink a glass of wine after your soup and you will be stealing a ruble from the doctor.

10.  Drunkards know no danger.

http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/u/ukrainian_proverb/

Sound Changes

Link to the speech accent archive's Ukrainian Page. They have several sound samples that are also transcribed
http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php?function=find&language=ukrainian

I've been comparing the Spokane speaker's sound sample to the Ukraine sound samples to try and find the sound changes
http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=163