East Slavic Languages - Differentiation

Differentiation

The East Slavic territory shows definitely a linguistic continuum with many transitional dialects. Between Belarusian and Ukrainian there is the Polesian dialect, which shares features from the both languages. East Polesian is a transitional step between Belarusian and Ukrainian on the one hand, and between South Russian and Ukrainian on the other hand. While Belarusian and Southern Russian form a continuous area, making it virtually impossible to draw a line between two languages. Central or Middle Russian (with its Moscow sub-dialect), the transitional step between the North and the South, became a base for the Russian literary standard. Northern Russian with its ancient variation, Old Novgorod dialect, has many original and archaic features. As well, being several centuries in one state Belarusian and Ukrainian share many common elements, lexical and grammatical above all. Ruthenian, the mixed Belarusian-Ukrainian literary language with Church Slavonic substratum and Polish adstratum, was an official language in Belarus and Ukraine until the end of the 17th century.