| Southwestern Ukrainian dialects | |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Nativename: | Південно-західне наріччя |
| Region: | Western and Central Ukraine |
| Fam1: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Slavic |
| Fam3: | East Slavic |
| Fam4: | Ukrainian |
| Glotto: | sout2604 |
| Glottorefname: | Southwestern Ukrainian |
| Map: | Map of Ukrainian dialects.png |
| Mapcaption: | Modern Ukrainian dialects. Southwestern Ukrainian is shown in red.Volhynian-Podolian group Galician–Bukovinian group Carpathian group Lemko (in rhombuses) |
The Southwestern Ukrainian dialects (Ukrainian: Південно-західне наріччя|translit=Pivdenno-zakhidne narichchia) are, together with the Northern and Southeastern groups, one of the three main dialect groups of the Ukrainian language. In contrast to Southeastern, which is the literary standard of Ukrainian within Ukraine, Southwestern is common within the Ukrainian diaspora, much of which comes from Western Ukraine.[1]
The Southwestern dialects contain more archaisms than the Southeastern dialects, but do not use the same archaic vowel system as the Northern dialects. Among the speakers of the Carpathian dialect group, regardless of stress, historic vowel sounds Ukrainian: ō and Ukrainian: ē become Ukrainian: і, Ukrainian: ě becomes Ukrainian: 'і, and Ukrainian: ę becomes Ukrainian: 'а. In the Galician–Bukovinian dialect group, Ukrainian: ě becomes Ukrainian: 'е or Ukrainian: 'y, and Ukrainian: ę becomes Ukrainian: 'і.[2]
Historically, the Southwestern dialects also separated foreign loanwords from native Ukrainian words by usage of the pronounced as /link/ sound for "Ukrainian: г" rather than the pronounced as /link/ typically used for the sound in non-loanwords. This practice ended following the Ukrainian orthography of 1933 and the Soviet annexation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia.[3]
Southwestern Ukrainian is broken into three dialect groups, each of which contain multiple dialects:[4]