Ukrainian language
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Ukrainian is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language of a large majority of Ukrainians.
"Lenten Triodion" of Kiev Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, 1646
While Russian was a de facto official language of the Soviet Union in all but formal name, all national languages were proclaimed equal. The name and denomination of Soviet banknotes were listed in the languages of all fifteen Soviet republics. On this 1961 1 Rbl note, the Ukrainian for "one rouble", один карбованець (odyn karbovanetsʹ), directly follows the Russian один рубль (odin rublʹ).
2007 sign in the Kyiv Metro in Ukrainian. The evolution in their language followed the changes in the language policies in post-war Ukraine. Originally, all signs and voice announcements in the metro were in Ukrainian, but their language was changed to Russian in the early 1980s, at the height of Shcherbytsky's gradual Russification. In the perestroika liberalization of the late 1980s, the signs were changed to bilingual. This was accompanied by bilingual voice announcements in the trains. In the early 1990s, both signs and voice announcements were changed again from bilingual to Ukrainian-only during the
Ukrainian language traffic sign for the Ivan Franko Museum in Kryvorivnia
Ruthenian language
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Ruthenian was a written language used from the 14th to the 18th centuries within the East Slavic-speaking regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Literary
Ukrainian language
…a descendant of Old East Slavic, a language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rusʹ. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the language developed into Ruthenian, where it became an official language, before a process of Polonization began in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the 18th century, Ruthenian…
Ruthenian Bible printed in 1517