The North Ukrainian dialect of Vyšneve in the East Slavic context: towards a final description

Abstract The linguistic description of the dialect of Vyšneve (Černihiv, Ukraine) can be considered a milestone of a more comprehensive dialectal and sociolinguistic study on the dialects spoken along the Ukrainian-Belarusian and, to a lesser extent, Russian border areas of eastern Polissia. Some of the most representative features of the Vyšneve dialect and its relation to Belarusian have already been the object of previous linguistic analysis. The village is situated about 35 km north-east of the city of Černihiv (regional centre); 12 km south-east of the town of Ripky (former district centre). The distance to the Belarusian border is approximately 35 kilometers. Only the former district of Horodjans’k separates Vyšneve from the region of Brjansk (Russian Federation). The factual material examined in this article aims to complete previous research gaps and, at the same time, intends to foster further theoretical reflections about the origin of these border dialects. The analysis of this local dialect (which includes the phonetic-phonological, morpho-syntactic and lexical levels) in fact lays the foundation for successive and more advanced stages of research on the Ukrainian-Belarusian-Russian border dialects. In this contribution the dialectal features will be systematically compared with both the neighbouring Belarusian dialects spoken along the Ukrainian-Belarusian continuum and with the nearby southern Russian dialects, particularly with their western group. The latter, in fact, shares with the neighbouring Ukrainian and Belarusian border dialects a series of isoglosses and idiosyncratic traits.