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I'm agree that the grandparent example is, uhm, weird: it rather reflects Poles' and Ukrainians' knowledge of Russian language than some unbiased inter-intellig

I'm agree that the grandparent example is, uhm, weird: it rather reflects Poles' and Ukrainians' knowledge of Russian language than some unbiased inter-intelligibility. Polish language is quite close to Ukrainian in regard of vocabulary and maybe grammar, but is quite different phonetically and does not use Cyrillic like Russian. Still, I can't agree that Ukraine is _ethnically_ divided in halves, ethnic Russians are near 17% of the population. Language question is much more vague, I think that more than 50% of Ukrainian population use Russian on daily basis (though it's hard to say how many of them use a mixed Russian-Ukrainian dialect, surzhyk and a lot of people actively use both languages) and it's very hard to find someone who does not understand Ukrainian and Russian at the same time.

xixi77 13y ago
it's very hard to find someone who does not understand Ukrainian and Russian at the same time Hard to find in Ukraine, since most people (both Russian and Ukrainian native speakers) have been constantly exposed to both, very easy to find in Russia :)
phillc73 13y ago
You're right, ethnic Russians are only about 17% of the total Ukrainian population and heavily concentrated in the east. I guess it must be the distribution which effects voting patterns, rather than purely ethnicity. Having asked the wife, so yes it's anecdotal evidence, she feels both Polish and Slovakian are closer to Ukrainian than standard Russian. She cites the example of a friend from St Petersburg who can only understand a few words of Ukrainian. Perhaps my wife's Ukrainian is somewhat dialectical, incorporating many Polish/Slovakian elements.