Aussiegirl wonders why the diaspora speak Ukrainian better than most natives. Ukrainian seems to still be regarded as the language of the country, and she makes this heartfelt plea to her fellow Ukrainians:
How heartbroken are we out here in the diaspora to see that what
hundreds of years of oppression had not been able to exterminate - our
beautiful language - has been voluntarily given up by Ukrainians
themselves, now that they have finally won their freedom. Without
language, there can be no national identity. Can an Englishman
voluntarily decide that French is by far the superior language of
culture and still consider himself an Englishman?This is a question that every Ukrainian must ask himself. I know
many there express the feeling of "What’s the difference? Speak what
language you want — who cares?" But, oh my friends, it does matter. If
the language dies — your culture dies, your literature dies. There are
things about the Ukrainian experience that only our language can
express, it is only our own beautiful native language which can give
expression to the ancient song of your ancestors that still sings in
your soul. It is the echo of Shevchenko that you must harken to - not
Pushkin — as beautiful and worthy as Pushkin is. His heart belongs to
Russia. Shevchenko is your father, he gave you your language, and died
defending the right to publish in it and to speak it. He knew that
Ukraine would cease to exist if its language ceased to exist. Do not
let go voluntarily, what has been fought for by the generations of
great writers and brave speakers before you, who did so at the cost of
their lives.
Not directly related, but I recall hearing from an American in Irkutsk how he’d received perhaps his greatest ever compliment:
"In the middle of a meeting, the Russian man I was interviewing broke off to tell me that my Russian was so good that he had, at first, taken me for a Ukrainian."
April 3rd, 2005 at 11:41 pm
I agree with the sentiment behind her post. Ukrainian is a beautiful language. It has been said that language is the soul of a nation. This is especially true of Ukraine.
OEC
April 4th, 2005 at 4:15 am
Thanks so much for the kind words and the link and excerpts. I couldn’t believe the comment made in Irkutsk, just shows to go ya, Ukrainians are the original speakers of the oldest Slavic language of the Kievan Rus - Russian came later — so properly, Russian is derived from Ukrainian, even though the Russians have been telling us that Ukrainian is merely a dialect of Russian.
April 4th, 2005 at 7:37 am
Of course no reasonably educated Russian will tell you that Ukrainian is merely a dialect of Russian — this is but a straw man — but it is equally illogical to claim that Ukrainian is the source of all Eastern Slavic languages. One might argue that Ukrainian and Russian developed from the same proto-language but to claim this language as Ukrainian is, mildly speaking, incorrect.
Ukrainian is without doubt beautiful and can boast a large body of good literature but still, even Gogol, born and reared in the Ukraine, wrote in Russian, to say nothing of Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Ukrainians would do better if they embraced both Ukrainian and Russian as their own, instead of treating the Russian language and Russian literature as alien.
April 4th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Martin Cruz Smith made some comment on the political elite of Moscow adopting the Ukranian manner of speaking in one of his novels. I don’t know if it is correct or not, but I’ll try to dig it out and post it.
April 4th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
He probably meant a sort of Ukrainian accent, primarily the fricative “g,” typical not only of Ukraine but of Southern Russia. It often conveys the message that the speaker is of humble origin, undereducated and provincial. A cheap shot at sounding like peasant-class heroes.
April 4th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Found it, on Page 55 of Polar Star, 1996 Edition, Pan Books:
Upwardly mobile Russians spoke the increasingly popular ‘Politburo Ukrainian’. Ever since Krushchev, the Ukrainian-born leaders of the country had spoken in crude, halting Russian, substituting w’s for v’s, until sooner or later everyone in the Kremiln, whether from Samarkand or Siberia, started sounding like a son of Kiev.
April 5th, 2005 at 6:43 am
I’m a bit confused by the diaspora speaker’s statement. 20 to 25 million seem to use the Ukrainian language regularly, and the total number of users is rising. Perhaps she wishes they used a certain dialect?
Ukrainian is without doubt beautiful and can boast a large body of good literature but still, even Gogol, born and reared in the Ukraine, wrote in Russian, to say nothing of Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Ukrainians would do better if they embraced both Ukrainian and Russian as their own, instead of treating the Russian language and Russian literature as alien.
Are they doing that? Or, are they ensuring that everyone is, in fact, fluent in the national language, taking for granted the fact that Russian isn’t exactly an endangered language in Ukraine given the huge number of first-language and second-language speakers across the country?
April 5th, 2005 at 8:11 am
Randy, if and when the switch to Ukrainian at schools and colleges is completed, even the children of native Russian speakers in Ukraine will soon be reduced to speaking kitchen Russian, unable to write Russian or read high-quality Russian texts.
April 5th, 2005 at 9:05 am
‘…if and when the switch to Ukrainian at schools and colleges is completed, even the children of native Russian speakers in Ukraine will soon be reduced to speaking kitchen Russian, unable to write Russian or read high-quality Russian texts.’
You’re a pessimist, Alexei. What evidence can you provide to prove that the above _may_ (just may) happen?
‘Ukrainians would do better if they embraced both Ukrainian and Russian as their own, instead of treating the Russian language and Russian literature as alien.’
And what makes you assume that Ukrainians ‘would do better’ if they embraced both languages ‘as their own’? (Some sort of idea that perhaps, just perhaps, Russian is implictly a more ’superior’ language than Ukrainian?)
April 5th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Tim, I’ll try to explain what is right and wrong with that quote. It is true that many party bosses spoke Russian with an accent that can be described as Ukrainian or Southern Russian. It should not be mistaken for the Ukrainian language, of course. Typical for this accent are the fricative “g” (a voiced “kh” or “h”), “w” instead of “v” at the end of words (Gorbachow to rhyme with “show” instead of Gorbachov), and the so-caleld “akan’e” — pronouncing unstressed “o” and “a” close to “ah.”
Some party leaders had always spoken that way, like Khruschev and Gorbachev. The latter came from Stavropol’, a Southern Russian region whose native dialects get close to Ukrainian. Others could have picked it up to conform: it sounds folksy and sends the message the speaker is still one of the common people, not an overprivileged apparatchik.
Whether everyone in the Kremlin sounded like that I rather doubt. Andropov, for one, came from the North and both sounded and seems to have been way above his peers intellectually, so I would be surprised if he resorted to that cheap trick.
Also, a career in the party was only one upward path open to an average Russian, and most upwardly mobile Russians chose other routes that did not require looking less educated than one actually was.
Finally, those who sounded “Ukrainian” in the Kremlin did not sound like “sons of Kiev,” rather like sons of peasants from around Kiev or Belgorod. The Russian accent of the Kievans comes through as educated.
April 5th, 2005 at 11:54 am
Thanks Alexei. I am curious as to how much of what Martin Cruz Smith says in his books is accurate. He seems to know an awful lot about Russia and the former Soviet society, and so far he seems to speak with some degree of authority (although one must not forget that he is a novelist and not a historian or social anthropologist.)
April 6th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Rick, the principal language of instruction at state schools and especially universities is bound to become, sooner or later, the language of the nation’s elites, to the detriment of other languages’ status. It would be different if Ukraine had a choice of high-quality private institutions – it has a glorious record going back to the 16th century – but if Russia’s experience in Yeltsin’s years is any indication, supply is not guaranteed to match demand for private education.
As for your second question, let me give three reasons. First, mastery of more than one language is always a benefit, and the time-effort cost of learning Russian is tolerably small for a native speaker of Ukrainian, and vice versa. Second, Russian is no less native to Ukraine than Ukrainian. Russian and various intermediate dialects, neither purely Russian nor Ukrainian, have been widely spoken in the Ukraine for centuries. Third, there is no superiority inherent in Russian but to deny 45 million people easy access to Russian literature, which has established itself almost on par with the world’s greatest, doesn’t seem like healthy cultural policy.
It is quite possible that Ukraine’s ruling elites will prioritize identity at all costs and define Ukraine-ness by cutting off what is deemed culturally impure and undesired. Leonid Kuchma, while in office, published a book titled Ukraine is not Russia. We’ll see if it works.
April 8th, 2005 at 2:23 am
But if fluency in Russian is broader than fluency in Ukrainian, shouldn’t Ukraine concentrate on promoting the latter language to achieve equality?
January 4th, 2007 at 4:22 am
We should embrace both of our languages! They are both beautiful ad have so much to offer. My father is from Chernivtsi and speaks a very pure form of Ukrainian while my mother comes from Kharkov and speaks only Russian. I was born in Chernivtsi and grew uyp speaking both languages at home. I am VERY proud to speak the beautiful Ukrainian language but EQUALLY PROUD to be a native speaker of Russian. These two languages are both important in the history of our nation. Neither should rule over the other.
Just wondering as well…. Do any Russian speakers born in Ukraine not understand Ukrainian? Or Visa Versa…. They are quite similar