Thread: Members of Ukrainian parliament fight over Russian language

One third of Ukrainian citizens have Russian as their mother tongue. Isn't it unfair not to recognize their native language officially (at least on regional level, as it's proposed)?

Originally Posted by xdns

One third of Ukrainian citizens have Russian as their mother tongue. Isn't it unfair not to recognize their native language officially (at least on regional level, as it's proposed)?

+1
Those who are against Russian language usually state that "it does not matter" since millions of Ukrainians who speak Russian as their first language "are not forbidden to use it in private settings". Which is not a consolation, because it's quite clear that the only reason it's not forbidden yet is that such a ban is impossible to implement at the time. The government is making baby steps in this direction, though, first forbidding airing Russian songs on radio in certain regions, then forbidding demonstrating foreign films dubbed in Russian in theaters, despite many people in Russian speaking regions being openly against it (in my native city 75% of movie theaters broke because of that), and generally excluding Russian from wherever possible.

Also the statistics about ratio between Russian and Ukrainian speaking citizens is not fully objective, since questionnaires usually look like "What's your native language?" instead of "What language do you speak at home?" (or similar question). Many respondents see it as a question about their ethnicity, so ethnic Ukrainians usually answer "Ukrainian" regardless of their actual native/primary language.