Ukrainian

The Ukrainian language is similar to both Russian and Polish.  In its use of the Cyrillic alphabet, it is similar to Russian.  However, the vocabulary of Ukrainian is often very similar to that of Polish.

Unlike Russian, Ukrainian does not reduce an unstressed o to a.  In this respect, it is similar to Polish.  Also, the Ukrainian language uses the voiced glottal plosive less than Russian.

One area in which Ukrainian is different from both Russian and Polish is word-final voiced consonants.  In both Russian and Polish, word-final consonants are always voiceless.  In other words, voiced consonants are automatically devoiced word-finally.  This is not the case in Ukrainian-  word-final voiced consonants are preserved.

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language which shares features with both Russian and Polish.  Since Ukraine is located between Poland to the west and Russia to the east, this is not surprising.  The Ukrainian language is a language which is making a comeback since Ukraine gained its independence.