Towards a description of pre-war Galician Ukrainian

Any 'language' typically consists of numerous varieties, which are, from a structural point of view, languages in their own right. In view of the current interest in endangered languages, the pre-war Galician variety of Ukrainian, which is of great historical interest, deserves attention from linguists while there are still speakers to act as informants. The present study is an initial contribution to a comprehensive study of the Galician varieties of Western Ukrainian, as spoken in southeastern Poland between the two World Wars. This variety was imported to diaspora communities by migrants, and is currently approaching extinction as its native speakers are now ageing and relatively few have transmitted their vernacular to their offspring. The study is based on an analysis of the idiolect of one such speaker.