Hello Readers of Learn words, in this article we will get to know the Ukrainian alphabet and its history, if you study or studied Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian or Belarusian, you certainly know that these Slavic languages use Cyrillic writing, let us first know a little about Cyrillic history Ukrainian and learn the alphabet with the pronunciation close to Portuguese.
A brief history of the Ukrainian language
The Ukrainian language is from the Slavic branch of the large Indo-European family, it originated from the ancient Slavonic and bears much resemblance to the Russian language, although it has many words from its vocabulary borrowed from the Polish language, but it phonetically presents features of Serbo-Croat.
The language uses the Cyrillic alphabet since 1905 and has undergone changes until it reaches what we now see as the 33 letters of the Ukrainian alphabet (its last change was in 1990), during the 19th century new letters entered its composition, two of which are known. ours is the "I" and the "i".
Language data
- Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine, but it is also spoken in some countries like Poland, Russia, Slovakia and etc.
- The alphabet has the Latin “I” in its letters and has a letter with the sound of G (like a drop) and has a soft sign.
- the name "Ukrainian" comes from "Ukraina" meaning “border area”
Ukrainian Alphabet
Below is a list with the Ukrainian alphabet:
Ukrainian |
Equivalent sound in Portuguese | Next to Portuguese | |
Uppercase |
Lowercase |
||
А |
а |
а |
THE |
Б |
б |
baby |
B |
В |
в |
see |
V |
Г |
г |
rre |
rr in Portuguese pronunciation as in “Cachorro” |
Ґ |
ґ |
gué |
g also used for “gui” and “gui” |
Д |
д |
in |
D |
Е |
е |
is |
IS |
Є |
є |
yé |
Light sound like “harvesting” |
Ж |
ж | jé |
J |
З |
з |
zé |
Z |
И |
и |
and |
AND as in “Ecology” |
І |
і | i |
I |
Ї |
ї |
yi |
Yi |
Й |
й |
yot |
I sound cut with “Andrey” |
К |
к | ka |
Ç or K |
Л |
Л or ۸ | él |
L |
М | М | in |
M |
Н |
н |
no |
N |
О |
о | The |
THE |
П |
п | foot |
FOR |
Р |
р | er |
R (always alveolar, or shaky) |
С |
с |
You are |
s |
Т |
т |
you |
T (do not vary between i, it is as in the northeast “Ti”) |
У |
у |
u |
U |
Ф |
ф |
faith |
F |
Х |
х |
kha |
As the cat makes a soft sound, it comes out of the tongue, not the throat |
Ц |
ц | tset |
Tse as in the Chinese name “Mao TSÉ tung” |
Ч |
ч |
Tché |
Tch as in "bye" or as gaucho "tchê" |
Ш |
ш |
shé |
X |
Щ |
щ |
shtché |
SHtch, combined sound of the letters Ш and Ч (sh + tch) |
Ь |
Ь |
M´yakey znak |
relaxation sign, (similar to H from portuguese, when will come n in nh or the l in lh as in "nest" and "Spoon") |
Ю |
ю |
Yu |
Yu (diphthong) |
Я |
я |
ya |
Iá (diphthong) |
Listen to the pronunciation:
Although this video lesson is in Spanish, listen to the name and sound of the lyrics in Ukrainian.