Southeastern dialects

Southeastern dialects. A dialectal group consisting of the Middle Dnipro dialects, Slobidska Ukraine dialects, and steppe dialects. They have the same type of phonetics as the Podilian dialects and South Volhynian dialects of the southwestern dialects group, and a type of simplified morphology, syntax, and, to a certain extent, vocabulary similar to that of the Polisian dialects. Vsevolod Hantsov and, later, Olena Kurylo expressed the view that the southeastern dialects developed as a result of the intermingling of speakers of the southwestern and Polisian dialects who colonized southeastern Ukraine. Leonid Bulakhovsky and Fedot Zhylko maintained that they are one of the three primeval, fundamental Ukrainian dialects spoken by the ancient Polianians of the Ros River basin and the Pereiaslav region; they did not, however, point out any distinctive ancient traits, and their hypothesis is unconvincing. Modern Standard Ukrainian is based on the northern belt of the southeastern dialects. (See map: Ukrainian dialects.)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]