Ukrainian Latin alphabet


A Latin alphabet for the Ukrainian language has been proposed or imposed several times in the history in Ukraine, but has never challenged the conventional Cyrillic Ukrainian alphabet.

Characteristics

The Ukrainian literary language has been written with the Cyrillic script in a tradition going back to the introduction of Christianity and the Old Church Slavonic language to Kievan Rus’. Proposals for Latinization, if not imposed for outright political reasons, have always been politically charged, and have never been generally accepted, although some proposals to create an official Latin alphabet for Ukrainian language have been expressed lately by national intelligentsia. Technically, most have resembled the linguistically related Polish and Czech alphabets.
While superficially similar to a Latin alphabet, transliteration of Ukrainian from Cyrillic into the Latin script is usually not intended for native speakers, and may be designed for certain academic requirements or technical constraints. See romanization of Ukrainian.
The Mozilla Add-ons website published the Ukrajinsjka Latynka extension to transliterate Ukrainian texts from Cyrillic to Latin script on web pages.

History

Ukrainian was occasionally written in the Latin script as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in publications using the Polish and Czech alphabets. In the nineteenth century, there were attempts to introduce the Latin script into Ukrainian writing, by Josyp Łozyńskyj, a Ukrainian scholar and priest from Lviv, Tomasz Padura, and other Polish-Ukrainian romantic poets.
The use of the Latin script for Ukrainian was promoted by authorities in Galicia under the Austrian Habsburg Empire. Franz Miklosich developed a Latin alphabet for Ukrainian in 1852, based on the Polish and Czech alphabets. Czech politician Josef Jireček took an interest in this concept, and managed to gain support for the project in the Imperial Ministry of Interior. As part of a Polonization campaign in Galicia during the period of neo-absolutist rule after 1849, Viceroy Agenor Gołuchowski attempted to impose this Latin alphabet on Ukrainian publications in 1859. This started a fierce publicly debated "War of the Alphabets", and in the end the Latin alphabet was rejected. Ukrainian books continued to be published in Cyrillic, while the Latin alphabet was used in special editions "for those who read Polish only" in Galicia, Podlaskie, and the Chełm region.
A Latin alphabet for Ukrainian publications was also imposed in Romanian Bessarabia, Bukovina and Dobrudja, Hungarian Zakarpattia. It was also used by immigrants from these regions in the United States.
In Ukraine under the Russian Empire, Mykhailo Drahomanov promoted a purely phonemic Cyrillic alphabet including the Latin letter ј in 1876, replacing the digraphs я, є, ю, ї with ја, је, ју, јі, similar to the earlier Karadžić reform of the Serbian alphabet. The Ems Ukaz banning Ukrainian-language publication doomed this reform to obscurity.
In Soviet Ukraine, during the 1927 orthographical conference in Kharkiv, linguists M. Johansen, B. Tkačenko, and M. Nakonečnyj proposed the application of the more "international" Latin script to Ukrainian, but the idea was opposed by Soviet government representatives. Later, Vasyl Simovych was a proponent of the Latin script during the tentative latinization in the USSR.

Variations

Abecadło

Some letters borrowed from Polish were used in the Ukrainian Łatynka as stated above, which also has a close resemblance to the Belarusian Łacinka. Although never broadly accepted, it was used mostly by Ukrainians living in territories near Poland. The orthography is explained in Łatynycia, a western Ukrainian publication of the 1900s.
As example, the Introduction of Josyp Łozynśkyj's Ruskoje Wesile :

Jireček's project

proposed an alphabet based more closely on Czech orthography.
  1. For є which is used in place of Old Church Slavonic ѧ or Polish ę.
  2. For л in old slavic ъl + cons.. Jireček mistakenly believed there are three types of L in Ukrainian – hard l, soft ľ and potentiated hard ł.
  3. For і, which derives from Old Church Slavonic о. EG. кість - küsť, гвіздь - hvüźď.
  4. In foreign words only.

    Modern versions

In modern Ukraine, use of Latin alphabets for the Ukrainian language is very rare. However, discussions of a united format of Latynka and its status still continue. The most popular modern versions are Luchukivka and Ukrainian Gajica. In western Ukraine, the Abecadło alphabet is also used, but to a lesser extent than Luchukivka.

Comparison

Comparison of two traditional and two modern versions of Ukrainian Latin alphabet in example of the national anthem of Ukraine.
Łozynśkyj'sLuchuk's
Szcze ne wmerła Ukrajiny ni sława, ni wola.
Szcze nam, brattia ukrajinci, usmichnet́sia dola.
Zhynut́ naszi woriżeńky, jak rosa na sonci,
Zapanujem i my, brattia, u swojij storonci.

Duszu j tiło my położym za naszu swobodu,
I pokażem, szczo my, brattia, kozaćkoho rodu.		Šče ne vmerla Ukrajiny ni slava, ni volia.
Šče nam, brattia ukrajinci, usmichneťsia dolia.
Zhynuť naši vorižeńky, jak rosa na sonci,
Zapanujem i my, brattia, u svojij storonci.

Dušu j tilo my položym za našu svobodu,
I pokažem, ščo my, brattia, kozaćkoho rodu.
Jireček'sGajica based
Šče ne vmerla Ukrajiny ni slava, ni voľa.
Šče nam, bratťa ukrajinci, usmichneťśa doľa.
Zhynuť naši vorüžeńky, jak rosa na sonci,
Zapanujem i my, bratťa, u svojij storonci.

Dušu j tilo my položym za našu svobodu,
I pokažem, ščo my, bratťa, kozaćkoho rodu.		Šče ne vmerla Ukrajiny ni slava, ni volja.
Šče nam, brattja ukrajinci, usmixnetjsja dolja.
Zhynutj naši voriženjky, jak rosa na sonci,
Zapanujem i my, brattja, u svojij storonci.

Dušu j tilo my položym za našu svobodu,
I pokažem, ščo my, brattja, kozacjkoho rodu.
Cyrillic-
Ще не вмерла України і слава, і воля,
Ще нам браття-Українці,
усміхнеться доля.
Згинуть наші воріженьки, як роса на сонці.
Запануємъ, браття й ми, У своїй сторонці.

Душу й тіло ми положим за нашу свободу,
І покажем, що ми, браття, козацького роду.		-