THE CONCEPT OF UKRAINIAN DIALECTS GENETIC UNITY IN V.M. HANTSOV’S LINGUISTIC HERITAGE

Abstract

Continuing the series of papers on the history of personalized Ukrainian linguistics, we should mention that V.M. Hantsov made a considerable contribution into native linguistic research development. Due to his unfortunate fate, he created few works, nevertheless they are of great scientific importance. The scientist’s studies became an important stage in the development of Ukrainian dialectology, historic phonetics, lexicography as well as standard language normalization including its orthography.
A great scientist’s sense of nationhood and his significant professional authority were acknowledged and properly appreciated by the world scientific community. V.Hantsov had tirelessly worked in the field of standard Ukrainian language normalization, in particular, he took an active part in Kharkiv orthographic committee’s activities. It was him, who wrote a chapter on invariable words orthography (1926) and the Academic Russian-Ukrainian dictionary.
In the article, the authors presented an analysis of selected scientific works by V.M. Hantsov’s, a well-known Ukrainian scholar, dialectologist, language historian and lexicographer, who made great contribution into Ukrainian language normalization concerning its orthography, lexicological and word-formative processes. The authors analyzed this scientist’s study on the special features of Kozelets dialects in Chernihiv Region, which created an overall picture of North Ukrainian dialects and presented their division into three groups: the East one (Left Bank), the Central one and the West one.
When working on the orthoepic peculiarities of North Ukrainian dialects, V.Hantsov paid special attention to diphthongs correcting his predecessors’ scientific research. The scholar made a theoretic description of diphthongs, ascertained their role in the system of North Ukrainian dialects as well as in the historic development in general. When the scientist made a research on the phonetic features of diphthongs, he proved the historical unity of Ukrainian dialects.
The history of Ukrainian vocalism development was repeatedly chosen as the object of V.Hantsov’s scientific interests. Referring to consonantism, the scholar justly states that Proto-Slavonic reflex *dj underwent different transformations in Ukrainian and other languages.
We should admit that during his short periods of freedom, V.M. Hantsov managed to present to the Ukrainian and world community an example of civil courage, dignity and decency as well as a scientific interpretation of certain general linguistic ideas, dialectological explanations, historic phonetic descriptions, lexicographic works. All of this is a great impulse to develop modern linguistic studies.