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Surzhyk: why Ukrainians are increasingly speaking a hybrid language that used to be a marker of rural backwardness (theconversation.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by lvxferre@mander.xyz to c/linguistics@mander.xyz

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Key points:

The word surzhyk (суржик) ['surʒek] in Ukrainian originally refers to a mix of grains, or a flour made with that mix. It's being used to refer to a "mixed" Ukrainian + Russian linguistic variety. Kind of like Spanglish, but more like Portuñol.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine shows people in central and eastern Ukraine using surzhyk more, and Russian less.
Acc. to the text the surzhyk being used nowadays is markedly different from the one used in the 30s, as if the mix was originally "some Ukrainian with lots of Russian" and nowadays "some Russian with lots of Ukrainian".
Attitudes towards surzhyk seem to be changing, too; from negative to positive.

Note: there's no way around politics, when it comes to language; it's an intrinsically political topic. However, I'd like to ask other users here to keep any potential discussion on-topic for this community. Also, please do not conflate populations with governments, OK?

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[–] Mika@piefed.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Vice versa actually. In soviet times many Ukrainians had to learn russian, thus it was russian with a mix of Ukrainian.

Modern days it's 2022 urge to drop russian, but people who didn't have much Ukrainian practice still use some russian words. But bad Ukrainian is better than good russian.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Got it. It makes sense.