On “historical unity” of Russian and Ukrainian: A linguistic perspective on language conflict and change

Authors

  • Anyssa Murphy University of South Carolina, Columbia
  • Lex Whalen University of South Carolina, Columbia
  • Stanley Dubinsky University of South Carolina, Columbia http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3688-7523
  • Michael Gavin University of South Carolina, Columbia
  • John F. Bailyn Stonybrook University
  • Jackson Ginn University of South Carolina, Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5467

Keywords:

language conflict, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, lexical similarity

Abstract

This paper focuses on Putin’s (2021) misguided claim regarding “historical [linguistic] unity” of Russian and Ukrainian. Their being two distinct languages is not in question, as opposed (for example) to Serbian and Croatian. However, it is important to substantiate the objective reality of those differences, taking a strong stand against unjustified claims about linguistic [unity] where there are no grounds for them. Implementing a Python-coded algorithm, like those described in Nerbonne & Kretzschmar 2013, we calculate Levenshtein distance between frequency-based word lists, in a manner sensitive to both organic and contact-induced change, to fully reveal Ukrainian’s complex relationship with both Russian and Polish.

Author Biography

  • Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina, Columbia

    Professor of Linguistics

    Department of English Language and Literature

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Published

2023-04-27

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2023): Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America

Section

Articles

License

Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 4.0 license.

How to Cite

Murphy, Anyssa, Lex Whalen, Stanley Dubinsky, Michael Gavin, John F. Bailyn, and Jackson Ginn. 2023. “On ‘historical unity’ of Russian and Ukrainian: A Linguistic Perspective on Language Conflict and Change”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 8 (1): 5467. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5467.