Ukrainian voice overs: what you need to know

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language, most widely used in the Republic of Ukraine. Around 35 million people are native Ukrainian speakers. Additionally, 5 million people speak it as a second language.

Ukrainian is the sole official language in Ukraine. It’s also claimed to be one of the official languages of Transnistria — an unrecognized state near Ukrainian and Moldovan borders.

The Ukrainian-speaking communities are prevalent in Eastern Europe, most notably in Belarus, Russia, and Moldova. It’s also spoken in the US, Canada, and Brazil by Ukrainian expatriates.

Language History

Like other East Slavic languages, Ukrainian developed from the Old East Slavic language — a common language that was used in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Ukrainian as a distinct variety emerged somewhere around the 13th century after the fall of Kievan Rus. Around that time, the first independent varieties of Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian emerged from the Old East Slavic language.

For many centuries, Ukrainian did not have a literary tradition — the language was only spoken. Ukrainian co-existed with a literary language that was based on Church Slavonic. The first literary works in Ukraine appeared only in the 18th century, marking Ukrainian’s shift from being a spoken vernacular to a fully-fledged independent language.

During the Soviet Era, Ukrainian went through a period of Russification and persecution. Ukrainian was banned in education, newspapers, and other publications. When Ukraine gained back independence in 1991, Ukrainian became the sole official language of the state.

Close Relations

Ukrainian is related to other languages with the same Slavic roots. Most notably, Ukrainian shares many similarities with Russian and Belarussian.

In fact, the three languages have a high degree of mutual intelligibility. While Russian and Belarussian are more mutually intelligible, linguists claim that spoken Ukrainian and Russian share 50% of the same features.

Unlike the other two Slavic sister languages, Ukrainian has some similarities to Polish. Polish and Ukrainian share a big part of the vocabulary as well as grammar rules.

Ukrainian inherited its core vocabulary from its Slavic past. But during the centuries, Ukrainian also borrowed from other languages as well. Words of Polish, Greek, Latin, French, Russian, and English origins are quite common in modern Ukrainian vocabulary.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Dozens of Ukrainian dialects exist and they are divided into three regional groups: Northern, Southwestern, and Southeastern. The majority of the dialects spoken in Ukraine are mutually intelligible. However, the language varieties used by Ukrainian emigrants can greatly differ from those spoken in the homeland.

Standard Ukrainian that’s used in official matters, education, and literature is based on the Middle Dnieprian dialect — a southeastern dialect, spoken in the capital of Kyiv.

Similarly to Russian and Belarusian, Ukrainian is a heavily inflected language — word endings can change their meaning. Additionally, it’s particularly important to pay attention to the word stress — Ukrainian has rather unusual stress patterns. In general, Ukrainian doesn’t sound too strange to the foreign ear. It doesn’t have extensive consonant clusters or unusual sounds.

When recording a Ukrainian voice over, make sure you’re paying the most attention to the word endings and word stress — these two features can really make or break the speech!

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