Drahomanivka was a proposed reform of the Ukrainian alphabet and orthography, promoted by Mykhailo Drahomanov. This orthography was used in a few publications and in Drahomanov's correspondence, but due to cultural resistance and political persecution it was never able to catch on. The Ukrainian Alphabet (Украї́нська абе́тка, Ukrajins′ka abetka, or алфаві́т, alfavit in Ukrainian) is used to write Ukrainian, the official language of Ukraine. ...

This phonemic orthography was developed in Kiev in the 1870s by a group of cultural activists led by Pavlo Zhytetsky and including Drahomanov, for the compilation of a Ukrainian dictionary. The 1876 Ems Ukaz banned Ukrainian-language publications and public performances in the Russian Empire, so cultural activity was forced to move abroad before this reform had a chance to be published. A monument to St. ... The Ems Ukase or Ems Ukaz, named after the city of Bad Ems, Germany, where it was promulgated, was a secret ukase of Tsar Alexander II of Russia issued in 1876, banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print, with the exception of reprinting of old documents. ... Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва, ukrayinska mowa) is the language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. ...

Zhytetsky named this alphabet the Hertsehovynka, after the influence of the recent Serbian orthography of Vuk Karadžić. But Drahomanov first used it in a publication (Hromada, Geneva 1878), and it came to be popularly referred to as the Drahomanivka. It was used in Drahomanov's publications and personal correspondence, as well as in publications in Western Ukraine (Austro-Hungarian Galicia) by Drahomanov's colleagues Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Pavlyk (Hromadskyi Druh, Dzvin, and Molot, Lviv 1878). But these publications were opposed by conservative Ukrainian cultural factions (the Old Ruthenians and Russophiles) and persecuted by the Polish-dominated Galician authorities, and the orthography fell into obscurity. The Serbian language is one of the standard versions of the Å tokavian dialect (former standard was known as Serbo-Croatian language). ... Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (Вук Стефановић Караџић) (November 7, 1787 - February 7, 1864) was a Serb linguist and major reformer of the Serbian language. ... The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, was the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of Austria from 1772 until 1918, with Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) as its capital city. ... Ivan Franko Ivan Franko (Іван Франко) (August 15, 1856 – May 28, 1916) was a Ukrainian poet and writer, social and literary critic, journalist, economist, and political activist. ...

The Drahomanivka was based on the phonemic principle, with each letter representing exactly one Ukrainian phoneme (one meaningful unit of sound). Letters representing two sounds (щ, я, є, ю, ї) and the hard sign ъ were abandoned, й was replaced with the Latin j. Iotified letters я, є, ю, ї were replaced by ја, је, ју, јі. Palatalization was represented by the soft sign, so after a softened consonant я, є, ю, ї were written ьа, ье, ьу, ьі. The verb ending ‑ться was written ‑тцьа. A grapheme designates the atomic unit in written language. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... The letter (Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак ) in the modern Russian alphabet and as er golyam (ер голям, big yer) in the Bulgarian alphabet. ... Iotation is a form of palatalisation which occurs in Slavic languages. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Soft Sign (Ь, ÑŒ) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet (Russian: мягкий знак (mÄ­ahkiy znak) [], Ukrainian: м’який знак (miakyy znak) [], Belarusian: мяккі знак (miakki znak) []). It is named so because it usually indicates softening, or palatalization, of the preceding consonant or of the group of them. ...

Examples:

• шчука (щука in the modern orthography, ščuka, "pike")
• јаблоко (яблоко, jabloko, "apple")
• свьатиј (святий, svjatyj "saint")
• сподіваjетцьа (сподівається, spodivajet’sja, "anticipates")