The article is devoted to the analysis of the history of the Ukrainian language from the perspective of language planning. i.e., the theories of H. Kloss, J. Fishman and W. Croft. The processes of ‘ausbauization’ and ‘einbauization’, as well as the regional peculiarities of the entire dialect continuum, are described, taking into consideration the influence of the Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian languages.