[thriftwy]

I'm pretty sure that Parisiens saw all other kinds of frenchmen as untermenschen and actively eradricated their languages until, like, late XX century. Since they held absolute political powers nobody was even there to question it.

Compared to that, Russians have super great attitude towards southwestern Russian variety. They do recognize the existence of Ukrainian language (dialect continuum) and that some people might want to speak it unharmed, for starters.

Ukrainian state rewrites history like there was no yesterday, but you could definitely study Ukrainian in any UkrSSR school from 1960s to 1991. I wonder if you could find a school that will teach any Languedoc, anywhere in Languedoc.

I'm also pretty sure that Germans from different parts of Germany aren't big fans of each other as a group.

[jacquesm]

> I'm pretty sure that Parisiens saw all other kinds of frenchmen as untermenschen and actively eradricated their languages until, like, late XX century.

That has nothing to do with Russia vs Russian conquered territories, besides, France has Occitan, there is the German based dialects, Catalan, some Basque and a whole raft of others.

> Since they held absolute political powers nobody was even there to question it.

Except that that didn't quite happen in the way you suggest. You could make a similar statement about Fries in NL or maybe Limburgs or Diets. And it would be just as much wrong.

> Compared to that, Russians have super great attitude towards southwestern Russian variety. They do recognize the existence of Ukrainian language (dialect continuum) and that some people might want to speak it unharmed, for starters.

Sorry, are we on different planets or something? You mean: those very same Russians that are currently bombing the shit out of anything Ukrainian and who wish to eradicate the Ukrainian nation and culture?

> I'm also pretty sure that Germans from different parts of Germany aren't big fans of each other as a group.

They are as alike as the Dutch and the Belgians, we joke about each other but at the end of the day there is no hate and zero chance of a war.

[thriftwy]

> Occitan native speakers: Estimates range from 100,000 to 800,000 total speakers (2007–2012)

No assimilation and cultural genocide policy in any form. It has just dwindled to these numbers on its own. Also has no relation to the topic that we discuss. Don't forget to call whataboutism.

I gather that reflection is not a strong side of Western Europeans.

> those very same Russians that are currently bombing the shit out of anything Ukrainian

That's called "a civil war", and that's how it viewed by many Russians and some Ukrainians. Indeed that's not a great condition to be in.

> who wish to eradicate the Ukrainian nation and culture

Again, this accusation is coming from a proud member of a nation who eradicated a couple of cultures very recently. "While I had already been born" recently.

People of Donbass were fed up with Ukrainization to the extent that these two Republics do not have Ukrainian as co-official. But Crimea, and the "new territories" of Kherson oblast and Zaparozh'ye (whatever left of them, arguably) have Ukrainian as co-official. Crimea also has Crimean Tatar as co-official. If anybody wants they can study their language and their culture, including in schools. That's what was not permitted to Russians in many, many ex-USSR countries.

[sergeykish]

February 2014 Moscow occupied Crimea, "referendum" a month later.

12.04.2014 Moscow occupied Slovyansk, "referendum" a month later.

February 2022 Moscow occupied Kherson, "referendum" half a year later.

Do you claim "people of Kherson was fed up, started civil war"?

[type0]

> That's called "a civil war"

It is un-civil-ized genocidal war, by calling it civil war you are denying the existence of Ukraine as a state it's the same as saying you support this war and atrocities Ruzzian Federation commits and occupation of Ukrainian territories. Go and preach this on runet instead.

[mlindner]

Ukrainian isn’t a dialect continuum with Russian. That’s a myth commonly pushed by Russia and Russian nationalists. It’s a separate language with roots diverging from a rather early point with different history. It actually shares more similarity with Polish or Bulgarian than it does with Russian. Here’s a good video on the languages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLM62r5nLI

(Note: It was published before the war so the statistics of where what languages are commonly used have changed dramatically.)

[thriftwy]

Surzhik spoken everywhere east of Dnieper, in Kiev and and Odessa certainly is a dialect continuum with Russian. Most often it's simply Russian with a Swadesh list of 100 words replaced by their Ukrainian counterpairs, whenever possible. The rest being left as is.

Nobody really cares what these far western ukrainians are up to. Russians don't really want them. Maybe with the exception for one dude from Vinnitsa.

[sergeykish]

Eneida by Ivan Kotliarevsky [1] (1798) is first literary work published wholly in the modern Ukrainian language. Ivan Kotliarevsky lived in Poltava, East Ukraine [2].

Valuev Circular [3] (1863), Ems Ukaz [4] (1876) banned the use of the Ukrainian language in print. Religious books on Ukrainian were banned century before [5].

Census [6] (1897) maps Ukrainian language majority far beyond Ukraine current borders. Annexed by RSFSR, Russified by force. Continuum of ethnocide by Moscow.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eneida

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kotliarevsky

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valuev_Circular

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Ukaz

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Ukrainian_langua...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_census

[thriftwy]

    Еней був парубок моторний
    І хлопець хоть куди козак,
    На лихо здався він проворний,
    Завзятіший од всіх бурлак.

So you are saying this is not a dialect of Russian? Any Russian can understand 50% of this text right off bat, 80% after a day of effort and 95% after a week.

Nationalists like to draw fantasy maps. Want to see mine?

[sergeykish]

Claims census 1897 is "fantasy map" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_census

Roma, Romania, do you claim Italian is "Romanian dialect"? Muscovy was Rus colony, grew under Golden Horde, renamed in 1721. Rus Grand Prince Володимѣръ Свѧтославичъ — Ukrainian name Володимир (Volodymyr) not Moscow Владимир (Vladimir). Language of Kyiv can't be dialect of its former colonies language.

Slav languages are mutually intelligible. I've checked spoken Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian. Do you claim these are "dialects" of Moscow language?

Eneida translated to Polish:

    Eneasz rzutkim był młodzianem,
    Podobnym całkiem do Kozaków,
    Radzącym z każdym złem spotkanym,
    Zawziętszym nawet od burłaków.

"50% of this text right off bat"

[thriftwy]

Okay, okay, I don't disagree. Perhaps Russian language is a dialect of Ukrainian. No worries.

I don't understand a word of Polish text.

[oneshtein]

No, it's other way around. Russian (Russish) language was based on Russian Church-Slavonic language, which is based on Old South-Slavonic language. Ru with many words borrowed from Ukrainian (Russian) language.

For example, Ukraine holds word record by number of folk songs, while I was able to found none of folk songs in Russian (Russish) language after years of searching. Folk songs exists in Russia Federation, but they are not in Russian (Russish) language. Cuban Cossack Choir - folk songs are in Ukrainian language, Ural Cossack Choir - Ukrainian, for example.

[mlindner]

You're mixing written versus spoken language. Russian people largely cannot understand any Ukrainian when spoken. Polish people on the other hand can make out bits of Ukrainian.

[surfingdino]

> "Russians have super great attitude towards southwestern Russian variety"

You may want to read some on that. Start with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[thriftwy]

> The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.

What does that have to do with hypothetical hatred of Ukrainians?

[surfingdino]

Read the whole page, especially the "Repressive policies" section.

[thriftwy]

So you are saying that similar repressive policies were not implemented in present-day Russia and Kazakhstan? Is there any research into comparative severity of policies?

As far as I know, Russian peasantry was absolutely not spared in the collectivization, making for the bulk of immediate casualties. And why would Stalin care about them? Was he Russian?

[surfingdino]

I merely question your claim about Russians having a positive attitude towards Ukrainians and their language. Having subjugated them by famine and other forms of mass-scale terror and murder, Russians allowed Ukrainians to use their language... how magnanimous.

No, there is no comparative study of the effects of repressive policies, because starving millions of people to death and not allowing outside help in (read "The Russian Job" by Douglas Smith) is not practiced on such scale anymore, even by Russia. The Wikipedia page on Holdomor quotes orders to subjugate Ukraine regardless of cost. That in itself negates any notion of Russians having a "super positive attitude" towards Ukraine. Do you know why "(...) you could definitely study Ukrainian in any UkrSSR school from 1960s to 1991."? Because it was not possible while Stalin was alive. It was not possible, because it was Stalin who gave orders to subjugate Ukraine at any cost.

[edit] more on the history of the freedom to use the Ukrainian language in Ukraine under Soviet rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization

[thriftwy]

Why would USSR have this famine in Russia and Kazakhstan if the goal was "to subjugate Ukraine"? Indeed why would it even suddenly need subjugating if it was part of Russian state for at least two centuries.

If you have any complaints about Stalin, you can mail them to Georgia, and indeed I'm the first one to do the same.

[sergeykish]

In terms of vocabulary, the Ukrainian language is the closest to Belarusian (16% of difference), and the Russian language to Bulgarian (27% of difference).

After Belarusian, Ukrainian is also closer to Slovak, Polish, and Czech than to Russian – 38% of Ukrainian vocabulary is different from Russian.