Language

Ukrainian is an Eastern Slavic language and the official language of Ukraine. It is spoken by about 51 million people in Ukraine and around the worldWritten Ukrainian uses a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet that is similar to Russian but has a few different letters. From 1804 until Russian Revolution Eastern Ukraine was a part of Russian Empire and Ukrainian language was discouraged. In 1876, by imperial decree, the printing or importing of books in Ukrainian was forbidden. In fact, many Russians felt Ukrainian was a dialect of Russian as opposed to a true distinct language.

Today, Ukrainian is the only official language of Ukraine. However, a lot of people in Eastern Ukraine still speak Russian. Many people in Ukraine speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian called surzhyk. Even though schools and colleges are taught in Ukrainian, Russian is equally prevalent (popular). It is common to see two people conversing on the street one of them speaks Ukrainian while the other answers him in Russian. While engaged in the conversation both might not realize they converse in different languages.