Ukraine is a bilingual country; well-educated people usually speak either pure literary Russian or Ukrainian. However, in different strata of the population (e.g. street vendors, laborers, farmers etc.), people speak a mixture of the two languages that leans towards either Russian or Ukrainian. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “Surzhyk” (Seals, n.d.).

The word Surzhyk can be used not only as a linguistic term. According to Bilaniuk, this word initially was used in mill industry for a mix of rye and wheat from which poor quality bread was made (as cited in “Surzhyk”, 2002). Surzhyk also indicated a person of blended ethnic origin (Bersand, 2001). Nowadays, however, in Ukraine linguists apply this term in linguistics that refer to disobedience, unawareness or violation of the rules of the Ukrainian or Russian languages (Bernsand, 2001, p.40). The article by Bilaniuk and Melnyk (2008) explained that, the hybrid language known as ‘’surzhyk” appeared when Ukrainian peasants were interacting with Russian speaking environment; a process which had been closely related to the modernization of Ukrainian societ