Ukrainian language

Ukrainian
українська мова ukrayins'ka mova
Pronunciation	[ukrɑˈjiɲsʲkɐ ˈmɔwɐ]
Native to	Ukraine
Ethnicity	Ukrainians
Native speakers	45 million (2007)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Ukrainian
Early forms	Old East Slavic Ukrainian
Writing system	Cyrillic (Ukrainian alphabet) Ukrainian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine Crimea  Transnistria
Recognised minority language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Croatia  Czech Republic  Hungary  Moldova  Poland  Romania  Serbia  Slovakia
Regulated by	National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, Potebnya Institute of Language Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uk
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	ukra1253  (Ukrainian)
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ed < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eda to 53-AAA-edq)
Ukrainian-speaking world
Ukrainian language and Ukrainians with their neighbors in the early 20th century.
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Ukrainian ⁱ/juːˈkreɪniən/ (українська мова ukrayins'ka mova, pronounced [ukrɑˈjiɲsʲkɐ ˈmɔwɐ]) is an East Slavic language. It is the official state language of Ukraine and first of two principal languages of Ukrainians; it is one of the three official languages in the unrecognized state of Transnistria, the other two being Moldovan and Russian. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script (see Ukrainian alphabet).

Until the 20th century it was known in Russia as the Little-Russian dialect (Russian: малорусское наречие, малороссийский язык) from the Tsardom of Muscovy and later the Russian Empire, while in Poland and in Austria-Hungary as the Rusyn language or Ruthenian language (Polish: język ruski, rusiński, German: ruthenische Sprache).