Ukrainian and Russian in the lexicon of Ukrainian Suržyk: reduced variation and stabilisation in central Ukraine and on the Black Sea coast

The subject of this study is the so-called “Surzhyk”, a mixed Ukrainian-Russian variety used by millions of people in Ukraine, sometimes alongside Ukrainian and, less commonly, alongside Russian. More specifically, the focus here is on the lexicon, addressing the following questions: (i) To what extent is the mixed speech lexicon influenced by Ukrainian or Russian? (ii) Does the distribution of Ukrainian or Russian lexemes reveal a reduction in variation, i.e. patterns of stabilisation? In other words, are there tendencies for one of the two competing, synonymous, or functionally equivalent Ukrainian or Russian lexemes to prevail over the other?

Many Ukrainian linguists have stereotypically claimed for years that the distribution of Ukrainian and Russian elements in Surzhyk is unpredictable, spontaneous, if not chaotic. It is worth noting that these opinions are not based on comprehensive, systematic empirical evidence and largely ignore theoretical developments in the field of code-mixing.

In contrast, by means of a quantitative analysis of an extensive corpus and a focus on intra-sentential code-mixing, this study demonstrates that the majority of recorded lexical Ukrainian-Russian competitions exhibit a clear fixation on one of the two expressions, resulting in a reduction in variation. In these instances, one of the two expressions prevails extensively across the entire region of Central Ukraine and the Black Sea Coast. Surzhyk is evidently evolving towards a “fused lect”. A smaller portion of the examined instances reveals such stabilisation only in certain parts of the survey area, and another equally small portion exhibits widespread variability. In general, Ukrainian and Russian lexemes are roughly balanced in quantity.