Thread: Members of Ukrainian parliament fight over Russian language

Originally Posted by Hanna

I was recently in the Baltics and noticed no such mentality among the Russian speakers. In most cases (except the market in Riga) it was very hard to tell who was ethnically Russian vs Latvian. They are not very warm people, like Ukrainians for example - but both groups were about equally well or poorly behaved. There were crooks and rude people from either nationality, nice and friendly people from either. The Russians are somewhat the underdog though, the native Latvians are a little bit better off economically I think.

i'm not so much talking from human relations standpoint as from the standpoint of values, and it's the prevailing values which determine the orientation of the entire nation and national consciousness

Originally Posted by Hanna

But the Balts are practically being fascist about it - that is what I oppose.

they restore historical justice, they have every right to since they have been violated

Originally Posted by Hanna

The Baltic states are essentially culturally and ethnically homogenous from an outside perspective, which is more than what can be said for any country in Northern Europe for example. In Belarus were only Belarussians and Russians, in the Ukraine I was not able to determine, but there certainly were no Africans or Arabs there at any rate. In Latvia too, were only white people, Europeans.

that is why it's only logical that there should be only one official language

I just watched on Эхо Москвы a talk with Riga's mayor Нил Ушаков, as you can tell by his surname he's Russian, by his personal name one can tell how much Russian he is, because Нил is an ancient forgotten Russian name
so maybe the rumors about discrimination are a bit exaggerated, or maybe only a certain stratum of Russian speaking population is discriminated against on whatever grounds

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Well, I know that certain areas in Canada maintain their Ukrainian identity and hold on their language. For more than 100 years. That being said, the Ukrainian Canadians are only making the 10th or so in overall population so making Ukrainian official language is more of an inconvenience than there would be a convenience.

with such percentage, this Ukrainian law the MPs scrap over, would grant these Ukrainians the right to demand declaring Ukrainian a provincial language alongside English and French, don't you think it's ridiculous?

Originally Posted by Crocodile

The descendants of French settlers had a concern that English as a more dominant culture in the region would obsolete French. Making French an official language solved the issue. Nowdays, both English and French are mandatory languages in all schools in Canada. And even though Canadian French is still under strong influence of English, nobody I think is afraid French would be obsolete. What's wrong with that solution and why couldn't that be implemented in Ukraine?

that's the exact reason why Ukrainian has to remain the sole official language, i mentioned this reason earlier in this thread