Ukraine: Walking the Linguistic Tightrope

Ukraine: Walking the Linguistic Tightrope Between Ukraine and Russian

After the demise of the Soviet Union, many of the newly independent former republics changed their official national languages from Russian to that of the national 'ethnic' language. This was done for patriotic and practical reasons in most instances. In many of the outer-lying republics of the U.S.S.R., such as the Baltic republics and the Muslim and East Asian republics, Russian had never been the predominant conversational language of the populace. Russian was a language imposed upon the citizens by the leaders of the U.S.S.R. In a show of Soviet tyranny. However, in other republics, with a closer relationship with Russia such as the Ukraine, the relationship with the Russian language was more tenuous.

Today, Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian, but most residents of the Ukraine are bilingual. When the Ukraine severed from Russia in 1996 and created its own constitution, Ukrainian was declared the official state language (Reid 101). This may have been admirable as a political rallying cry of independence: however, as a practical policy in a nation where Russian is the predominant language of nearly 50% of the population in some areas, the wisdom of doing so is questionable (Ukrainian language, Try Ukraine, 2009). A more reasonable solution would be to establish Russian as the second official language of the Ukraine. This would show greater respect to the linguistic diversity of the nation, and also make the Ukraine more competitive on the international stage, given the relatively limited use of Ukrainian elsewhere in the world.

Ukrainian and Russian are both Slavic languages, which makes the country's bilingualism fairly easy to support: "Both use the Cyrillic alphabet and about a third of the words are similar" between Russian and Ukrainian (Ukrainian language, Try Ukraine, 2009). While overall, the populations of Ukrainian and Russian speakers within the city is about equal, "the preferred spoken language in most cities of southern, eastern, and northern Ukraine is Russian," thus to deny the influence of Russian upon the lives of many Ukrainian citizens to alienate large portions of the nation (Ukrainian language, Try Ukraine, 2009). Many people on a colloquial level merge the two languages: "Large segments of the population -- for example, street vendors, laborers, farmers, and many others -- speak a mixture of the two languages that leans either towards Russian or Ukrainian. This mix is commonly called 'Surzhyk' or 'Surzhik'" (Ukrainian language, Try Ukraine, 2009). This hybridization further supports the idea that both languages be taught in the schools, to ensure that good standard Russian and Ukrainian grammar is understood by a wide segment of the population.

"It would be naive to think that after a generation or two of 'Ukrainization' Russian will disappear or play a marginal role in Ukrainian society. People very rarely change their mother tongue and are almost always successful in passing it on to their children, regardless of the language of instruction in schools. The proportion of Ukrainians who consider Ukrainian or Russian their mother tongue has remained stable over the years" and reflects a long-standing history of a close cultural relationship between the two nations, no matter how divided their governments may be today ("Ukrainian language," Try Ukraine, 2009).

According to one American living in the Ukraine: "Language is one of the most vexing aspects of life in Ukraine. At least, for foreigners. Before moving here last August, I didn't know which language to study. I'm still not sure. Here in Kiev, you see Ukrainian on street signs and on packages of food in grocery stores, as required by law, but on the street, you hear more Russian" ("Ukraine's language," PRI, 2009). This reaction suggests that foreign investment and tourism in the Ukraine may be discouraged, if there is an uncertainty how to communicate with the local populace and bureaucrats.

And while this linguistic co-existence may seem harmless, it denies the fact that while Ukrainian is spoken by a relatively small number of people, the Russian language is spoken by a far wider population base: Russians and Ukrainians. "Russian isn't going away. Even Ukrainian language champions like Volodymyr Kulyk don't expect it to, or even want it to. The fact is, Russian is useful. In this part of the world, it's the language of business and science" said one Ukrainian ("Ukraine's language," PRI, 2009). Ukrainian is sometimes used in popular music, but that is because it is often used as slang rather than as the dominant language of conversation or commerce.

So the dissenting question arises, if Russian is already so dominant, and understood much of the population that is not solely Russian-speaking: Why not teach Ukrainian in school, and leave bilingual speakers to their own devices? However, if the Ukraine school system must neglect Russian, due to the nation's official policy, than the next generation of children will speak inferior Russian to their Russian and other Slavic counterparts. Russian will persist, but more sophisticated use of the language will ebb away. Another problem is class divisions: Russian is weakest in the poorest sections of the Ukraine. Denying these Ukrainians access to Russian in the schools could shut them out of the language of business and science in a dangerous fashion.

To change the linguistic status of the Ukraine would require changing the constitution (Khineyko 2007). However, there seems to be support for such a motion. Polls indicate that 26.4% of all Ukrainians believe that Russian should be raised to the status of a state language and 24.7% consider support elevating Russian to the second state language in areas where Russian-speakers are a majority (Marples 2007). In case this seems like a surprise, given the animosity that currently exists between Russia and the Ukraine regarding control of natural resources, on a personal level, "Russians were often not perceived as aliens," even during the height of Soviet aggression by Ukrainians, "due to the similarity of languages" and religion (Kulyk 290). Russians were never culturally marginalized in the way they were in non-Slavonic republics

Popular support for the reintroduction of Russian as a national language is also simply a reflection of reality and common practice: "in the early 1990s the gradual transition of most printed and electronic media to Ukrainian seemed inevitable" yet "by the end of the decade Russian retained or even strengthened its prominence" in the media, as " Ukrainian-language newspapers and magazines in the total circulation fell far below the percentage of (however defined) Ukrainian-speakers, and most new high-circulation outlets appeared in Russian (Kulyk 307).