(українська мова ukrajinśka mova) is an East Slavic language.
Geographic distribution:
History:
Scholarship on the early history of the Ukrainian language was hampered by the lack of Ukrainian independence. Thus, much of the early scholarship of the language was viewed through the lens of foreign neighboring conceptions. The existence of a separate Ukrainian language was not generally accepted even 100 years ago. For instance, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica called it the Little Russian dialect of the Russian language. Soviet historiography manifested an ideology of three brotherly East Slavic nations. Russian scholars tend to admit a difference between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (fourteenth through 16th centuries). Some Ukrainian scholars see a divergence between the language of Halych-Volynia and the language of Novgorod-Suzdal by the 1100s. Some European and American linguists concur. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia (Ukraine and Belarus) into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukrainian (Russian or Ruthenian or Little Russian or Little Rusian or Malorusian) and Belarusian diverged into identifiably separate languages.
