What language do they speak in the Ukraine?

[Facin]

A friend and I at work disagree on which language is the "common language" of Ukraine. I say that for the most part they speak Russian and he says that they speak Ukranian for the most part. Neither of us really have any idea...for all we really know they speak spanish there. Anyway, does anyone actually know what language they speak over there?

Thanks.

 

[Lucky]

dont know the validity of the site, but a google search turns up:

Ukrainian is spoken mainly in Western part of Ukraine (where it undergone some Polish influence) and in rural areas of Eastern Ukraine. Eastern Ukrainian cities are russified and mainly Russian speaking (for instance although Ukrainians make up a quarter of the Crimean population, only four of 582 Crimean schools (0.69 percent) are Ukrainian, and only one out of 392
publications on the peninsula is in Ukrainian. In the Donbas, where Ukrainians constitute 50 percent of the population, the proportion of pupils in Ukrainian language schools is still only 10 percent) because of shauvinist and imperialist language politics of imperial Russia, where Ukrainian was considered as Little Russian language and was prohibited to use as famous Tsar's official Valuev said "Ukrainian language did not exist, it does not exist and it will not exist" Ukrainian is very well preserved in Western Ukraine (where I come from) which had never been part of Russia but of Austria and Poland and thus avoided russification.

During Soviet times it undergone further russification. Persons who tried to protect the rights
to speak in Ukrainian were deported to Siberia. Those who spoke Ukrainian instead of Russian were called and treated as "bourgois nationalists". Thus, Eastern Ukraine urban areas are completely russified: in Ukraine, where Russians are the largest minority, constituting 22 percent of the population, 33 percent of pupils and students are enrolled in Russian- language schools and universities (mostly in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, since instruction in Western Ukrainian Schools is exclusively in Ukrainian). In Ukraine, 1,193 newspapers are published in Russian
(largely in Eastern and Southern Ukraine), compared with 1,394 in Ukrainian (mostly in Western area of Ukraine).

Despite the sad past, nowadays, Ukrainian language is going through a revival and it has become the language of TV films, science, newspapers, computers and Internet, being the only official language of 49 millions people Ukraine.


From here.

Hope this helps.