Surzhyk

Surzhyk (Ukrainian and Russian: суржик, Ukrainian pronunciation: [ˈsurʒek], Russian pronunciation: [ˈsurʐɨk]) is a mixture between the Ukrainian and Russian languages, used in certain regions of Ukraine and the neighboring regions of Russia and Moldova. The phenomenon of surzhyk is commonly interpreted as an application of Russian-language words and idioms in combination with Ukrainian speech, which makes it essentially a heavily Russified version of colloquial Ukrainian, although the opposite process can also take place. The vocabulary mix of each of its constituent languages (Ukrainian and Russian) varies greatly from locality to locality, or sometimes even from person to person, depending on the degree of education, personal experience, rural or urban residence, the geographical origin of the interlocutors, etc. The percentage of Russian words and phonetic influences tends to be greatest in the east and south and in the vicinity of big Russian-speaking cities. It is commonly spoken in most of eastern Ukraine's rural areas, with the exception of the large metropolitan areas of Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk, where the majority of the population uses standard Russian. In rural areas of western Ukraine, the language spoken contains fewer Russian elements than in central and eastern Ukraine, as historically Russian was not the prestige language in those areas. Nonetheless western dialects of Ukrainian have also been influenced by Russian.