The Ukrainian language, like every other great European language, is not uniform. Because of the great extent of the Ukrainian territory and the great population, favorable conditions have always been present for the formation of dialects and idioms. The Ukrainian language has four dialects,—the South Ukrainian, the North Ukrainian, the Galician (Red Ruthenian), and the Carpathian mountain dialect. The South Ukrainian dialect embraces the south of the region of Kiev, Kursk, Voroniz, the entire regions of Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Katerinoslav, Tauria, Don and Kuban. It possesses three idioms;—the northern, which constitutes the basis of the present Ukrainian literary language, the central, and the southern or steppe idiom. The North Ukrainian dialect includes the Chernihov country, the northern part of the Kiev district, Northern Volhynia, the Polissye along the Pripet, and the northern part of the Pidlassye. Its idioms are the Chernihov, the North Ukrainian proper, the Polissian, and the Black Ruthenian. The Galician or Ruthenian dialect takes in: Galicia (outside of the mountains), the Kholm region, Southern Volhynia and Western Podolia, and possesses [172]two idioms,—the Podolian-Volhynian and the Galician (Dniester) idiom. The Carpathian Mountain dialect includes the entire Ukrainian Carpathian country and has four idioms,—the Hutzulian, the Boikish, the Lemko idiom, and the Slovak-Ruthenian border-idiom. The Ukrainian dialects and idioms differ very little from one another, as indeed is the case with all the dialects and idioms of all the Slavic languages. A comparison of the Ukrainian dialects and idioms with the German, for instance, is entirely impossible. The Kuban Cossack or the Boiko, an Ukrainian inhabitant of Polissye or of Bessarabia, understand one another without the slightest difficulty. Only the Lemko idiom and Ruthenian-Slovak border-idiom show greater differences than other Ukrainian idioms. Beyond that, a great uniformity of language prevails thruout the wide areas of the Ukraine. A popular tale taken on a phonograph in the Kuban sub-Caucasus country is heard with the same understanding in a peasants’ reading society in the neighborhood of Peremishl, as if it came from a neighboring village, instead of a border country of the Ukraine thousands of kilometers distant. The same folk-songs, proverbs and fairy tales are found in Pidlassye and along the Manich, at Chernihiv and Odessa, on the Don and on the Dniester.