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Description
This paper investigates Ukrainian feminine word-formation processes as reflected in archival materials from Ukrainian women’s organizations (UWO) active in 1940s–1950s Munich, preserved in the archive of the Ukrainian Free University (UFU). These documents form a unique linguistic corpus that captures Ukrainian language use in formal diaspora settings shaped by sustained contact with German. The study focuses on derivational patterns used to create feminine occupational titles, offering insights into how gendered language functioned within a multilingual, postwar exile context.
While the interaction between Ukrainian language norms in Ukraine and abroad has received increasing scholarly attention (Azhniuk, 1999; Taranenko, 2013; Moser, 2016), variation within diaspora Ukrainian varieties, particularly in the domain of feminization, remains underexplored (Jenkala, 1991). This research seeks to address that gap.
Grounded in Winford’s (2003) and Haugen’s (1950) frameworks distinguishing loanwords and loanshifts, and applying Thomason & Kaufman’s (1988) borrowing scale to assess the depth of cross-linguistic influence, the study analyses both derivational patterns and semantic loans in occupational and role nouns. The archival corpus, comprising written correspondence, reports, and administrative records, illustrates how feminine terms evolved under the influence of German linguistic structures, the socio-political realities of postwar displacement, and a conscious effort to preserve Western Ukrainian linguistic identity as resistance to Soviet linguistic norms, Russification, and repression.