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Lemko dialects. The differences among them lie in the
preservation of a number of archaisms in the phonetic and word-
inflection patterns of the final three (Carpathian) dialects, and in a
number of phonetic and morphological innovations in the others.
The development of various lexical and phraseological
peculiarities in the Carpathian dialects was influenced by the
conditions of mountain life, by ancient tribal differences, and by
various foreign-language admixtures (Romanian, Slovak,
Hungarian, Polish, etc).
Historically, Ukrainian linguistic territory covered two
groups of dialects: the northern and the southern. Their boundaries
underwent considerable changes as a result of various migrations
of the population: there were periodic waves of migration of the
steppe inhabitants to the northwest in their flight from the nomadic
Pecheneg, Cuman, and Tatar tribes (10th–13th century and 15th
century) and their subsequent resettlement in the southeast (14th
century, and 16th–19th century); smaller movements of
colonization took place in Podlachia (to the north, 13th century), in
the Carpathian Mountains (over the mountains to the west, 14th–
15th century), in Transcarpathia (the Lemkos to the southeast, 18th
century; the Hutsuls to the south, 17th–19th century).
After the Ukrainian literary language stabilized in the 19th
century, the use of dialects came to characterize primarily the
peasantry. But in the course of the 20th century, with the influence
of the church, education, the press, and radio, elements of the
literary language began, and continued increasingly, to penetrate
even the language of the peasants. This process is most rapid in the
areas of phonetics and morphology, slower in syntax and
vocabulary; geographically, it is more rapid in suburban and
industrial regions, especially among those groups of speakers who
most frequently spend time outside the village (youth, men). The
opposite influence—of dialects on the standard language—which
was substantial as late as the 19th century, has become, since the
1930s–1940s, insignificant.

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