Russians and Ukraineans do Not Speak the Same Language (unless they are Ukraineans who learned Russian)

Russians and Ukraineans do Not Speak the Same Language (unless they are Ukraineans who learned Russian) · If Ukraine Joins the EU, Russians in Ukraine Can Stop Worrying About Russian Language Status

It was some time since I saw this video again, and I think it would come handy to share it now.

How Different Are Russian and Ukrainian???
3rd August 2019 | Langfocus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLM62r5nLI

Two things to keep in mind:

• Russian and Ukrainian have 62 / 63 % lexical similarity;
• Russians and Ukrainians who have not learned the other language (or Surzhyk) cannot understand each other.

I wondered, is this like German and Dutch? No, German and Dutch is 80 % lexical similarity, like nearly the similarity between Ukrainian and Bielorussian (84 %, as I recall from seeing the video again).

It is somewhat closer than German and English, lexically, and as I recalled from a source no longer quite clickable,* about as between English and Dutch. Here are two comments**, and in the second of them, I had back then read the source:

I was wondering whether you would consider Swedish / Danish a fair comparison as to distance?

Wait, 62 common = 38 diverging.

Further apart than Swedish and Icelandic, according to this resource:

https://elms.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/lexical-distance-among-languages-of-europe/

More like between English and Dutch in vocabulary, at least.

Do Russians realise this? Do Russians in Ukraine realise this?

The fact is, lots of Ukrainians have been learning Russian for decades. This means, if a Ukrainian wants to be understood by a Russian, he can often achieve it by speaking Russian. And this means, Russians don't see how their not learning Ukrainian (even in Ukraine) is a problem for communication.

I don't speak either Russian or Ukrainian, but I rely on Langfocus' study of the question. And that lots of words are different due to Tatar loan words in Russian is obvious. Perhaps as obvious: mentality too.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Cyril of Jerusalem
18.III.2022

Hierosolymis sancti Cyrilli Episcopi, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris; qui, ab Arianis multas pro fidei causa perpessus injurias et ex Ecclesia sua saepe depulsus, tandem, sanctitatis gloria clarus, in pace quievit. Ipsius porro intemeratam fidem prima Constantinopolitana Synodus oecumenica, sancto Damaso Papae scribens, praeclaro testimonio commendavit.

* You can come to the site, but not click the image so it shows the lexical distance in the form of a graph.
** But I quote them as one, the second begins with "Wait," ...