Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect

Map of the dialects and subdialects of the Ukrainian language

The Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect (Ukrainian: Покутсько-буковинський говір, romanized: Pokutsko-bukovynskyi hovir) is a dialect of the Ukrainian language that originated in Pokuttia and Bukovina under the influence of the Romanian language. Along with Hutsul, Upper Prutian and Upper Sannian dialects, it is part of the archaic Galician-Bukovinian group of dialects. The dialect is locally spoken in some regions in Western Ukraine south of the Dniester and east of the Carpathian Mountains (on the territory of the Chernivtsi Oblast excluding its extremely western regions, and in the eastern part of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast).

History

Map of the historical region Pokuttia (darker blue), based on Ion Nistor, Die moldauischen Ansprüche auf Pokutien, Vienna 1910

The territory of Pokuttia had been part of Moldavia since the 14th century. The Moldavian state had appeared by the mid-14th century, eventually expanding its territory all the way to the Black Sea. Bukovina and neighboring regions were the nucleus of the Moldavian Principality, with the city of Iași (outside but near Bukovina) as its capital from 1564 (after Baia, Siret and Suceava, all in Bukovina). When Moldavia established its control over part of Pokuttia and Bukovina, there occurred a process of Romanianization. The language of the Moldavians influenced the language spoken by locals, and the Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect was formed. It is distinct from other Ukrainian dialects because all of them are influenced by other Slavic languages, while the Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect was formed under the influence of Romance languages. The dialect preserved several archaic endings and soft declension, and certain lexical peculiarities, including Romanianisms. The expansion of ancient Pokuttian phonetic features in the 14th-16th centuries in western Podolia contributed to the formation of a broader group of Dniester dialects.

Area of dialect's distribution

Podolia and Hutsulshchyna

The area of the Pokuttian-Bukovinian dialect covers the regions of western Ukraine located in the lower and middle reaches of the Dniester River (on the right bank of the Dniester east of the Carpathian Mountains). This area covers the eastern districts of the Ivano-Frankivsk region and almost entirely the territory of the Chernivtsi region, excluding its extreme western areas, generally coinciding with the historical and ethnographic regions of Pokuttia and Northern Bukovina. The dialect can also be found in small areas of Romania in the border areas with Ukraine (in the northern part of the Suceava County) and along the territory of Moldova.

Linguistics

Extract from a church register in a Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect variant from Răcăria, the Republic of Moldova (18th century)

The study of the Pokuttia–Bukovina dialect was carried out by such researchers of Ukrainian dialects as I. G. Verhratsky, Y. .A. Karpenko, K. Kisilevsky, B. V. Kobylyansky, K. Lukyanyuk, V. A Prokopenko and others.

The vocabulary of the Pokuttian-Bukovinian dialect area is characterized by such words as: ґázda, gazdin'i (Ukrainian literary gentleman, lord "master, mistress"), zhitnits'i (Ukrainian literal syrovatka "serum"), kugyt (Ukrainian letter piven "rooster"), lilik (Ukrainian letter kazhan "bat"), shytiy (Ukrainian letter hornless "hornless"), rish'ch'a (Ukrainian letter hmiz "brushwood") etc. With the Hutsul dialects, the Pokuttian-Bukovinian ones combine the following words: baryl'i (Ukrainian literal potato "potato"), véremne (Ukrainian literal weather "weather") and many others.

See also

• Ukrainians of Romania
• Ukrainian dialects