Authors

Andriy Danylenko¹;  ¹ Pace University, Modern Languages Department, United States

Discussion

The paper deals with the history and typological classification of standard varieties and subvarieties of Ukrainian. Based on societal-political and spatial-temporal characteristics of standard Ukrainian and its varieties, the author profiles Ukrainian as a hierarchically multilayered continuum. The author substantiates the existence of two national varieties of standard Ukrainian. The first variety which is represented by East Ukrainian and West Ukrainian, with sub-branching for regional varieties, including Transcarpathian, Lemko and Slovak Rusyn. The second national variety is represented by Vojvodina Rusyn. The historical data allows the author to argue that standard Ukrainian is a pluricentric language which has undergone both centripetal and centrifugal codification leading to a multilayered hierarchy