  The results of quantitative analysis of word distribution in two fables in
Ukrainian by Ivan Franko: "Mykyta the Fox" and "Abu-Kasym's slippers" are
reported. Our study consists of two parts: the analysis of frequency-rank
distributions and the application of complex networks theory. The analysis of
frequency-rank distributions shows that the text sizes are enough to observe
statistical properties. The power-law character of these distributions (Zipf's
law) holds in the region of rank variable r=20 - 3000 with an exponent
$\alpha\simeq 1$. This substantiates the choice of the above texts to analyse
typical properties of the language complex network on their basis. Besides, an
applicability of the Simon model to describe non-asymptotic properties of word
distributions is evaluated.
  In describing language as a complex network, usually the words are associated
with nodes, whereas one may give different meanings to the network links. This
results in different network representations. In the second part of the paper,
we give different representations of the language network and perform
comparative analysis of their characteristics. Our results demonstrate that the
language network of Ukrainian is a strongly correlated scale-free small world.
Empirical data obtained may be useful for theoretical description of language
evolution.
