During the three weeks of my stay in #Vienna, I heard several times the questions: "#Ukrainian and Russian languages are quite similar, aren't they?" and "Ukrainian and Russian are like different versions of German in Austria and Germany?". So, let me explain👇🏻
First of all, Ukrainian and Russian are different languages and by no means one language. Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian. #Moscow has always tried to pretend that the Ukrainian and Russian languages are similar. The truth is that Russians do not even understand Ukrainian
Ukrainian is the language that most closely resembles #Belarusian with which it has 29 common characteristics. Furthermore, Ukrainians can easily understand #Polish, #Czech, #Slovak etc.
"But you have the same words in languages, don't you?". Yes, because after taking control of most of #Ukraine in the early 18th century #Russia decided to erase Ukrainian identity. It restricted the use of the Ukrainian language on the basis of two documents
One, the Valuev Circular of 1863, which prohibited many publications in Ukrainian, religious and educational. The second was the Ems Ukaz, which prohibited the use of the Ukrainian language in printed works, except for the reprinting of old documents
Due to these and other decrees, as well as language reforms, there are a number of #Ukrainian repressed words. That's how we have the "similarity" of languages
And because of this Russification, many Ukrainians still speak Russian, but not due to the similarity between the languages
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