Thread: Members of Ukrainian parliament fight over Russian language

I hope you did not misunderstand me! Perhaps my post came out wrong - I simplified and did not consider how it would sound to a British person. From a Russian perspective, according to themselves, they don't even have accents, and the expression RP is not known outside of Britain, I think. I should have said BBC English though.

I am not proposing that you should speak RP and I don't like the accent snobbery in the UK. Because of this, I retain a slight foreign accent, just to avoid people putting a label on me. My point was, some people in the UK want to change their accent but cannot. It's harder than you might think. A person that was very close to me wanted to speak less RP and more London or Derbyshire. But he simply wasn't able to. His accent was too posh and trying to speak local just made him sound ludicrous. An Indian friend of mine wanted to reduce his Indian accent, and actually took lessons for it! He was a completely fluent English speaker, but he felt that people had a stereotypical view of him because of his accent. Very ambitious person......

I like Scots but in its most extreme forms I can't understand it, that's all. I prefer it if the BBC sticks to "standard Scottish", Welsh or neutral English because a strong accent is distracting when watching the news. So shoot me....

If you speak Scots, did you see the thread where somebody was asking about Robert Burns?
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Originally Posted by xdns

The "5th Channel" launched an advertising campaign against official recognition of Russian language in Ukraine:

Я хочу розмовляти українською мовою! - YouTube
Єдина державна мова - українська! - YouTube
Скажи "НІ" казнокрадам і українофобам! - YouTube
Я не хочу жити в резервації! - YouTube

Oh dear....! And like someone said, this is not like Dutch and French, they are similar languages. Not that I can understand Ukrainian though! But since it-ogo said, people could practically speak one and respond in the other (that's exactly what we do in Scandinavia and it works fine). What's the point of forcing people to use a different language than they are used to, when it is a local language?

I imagine if somebody came to me and said that I have to fill in all papers in Danish and get Danish TV etc, etc. and Swedish would be pushed to the side. I would find that extremely irritating and insulting. I like Danish/Norwegian precisely because they are never forced on me. If they were, like one time at university, when some Danish books were mandatory reading, I'd hate it.

Likewise the dominance of English in business. It is one thing for a French or German person if the CHOOSE to speak English. It is quite another to more or less be bullied or forced to. I am glad I speak English, but I am sometimes very ambivalent of the backside of it....

Originally Posted by Hanna

I hope you did not misunderstand me! Perhaps my post came out wrong - I simplified and did not consider how it would sound to a British person. From a Russian perspective, according to themselves, they don't even have accents, and the expression RP is not known outside of Britain, I think. I should have said BBC English though.

I am not proposing that you should speak RP and I don't like the accent snobbery in the UK. Because of this, I retain a slight foreign accent, just to avoid people putting a label on me. My point was, some people in the UK want to change their accent but cannot. It's harder than you might think. A person that was very close to me wanted to speak less RP and more London or Derbyshire. But he simply wasn't able to. His accent was too posh and trying to speak local just made him sound ludicrous. An Indian friend of mine wanted to reduce his Indian accent, and actually took lessons for it! He was a completely fluent English speaker, but he felt that people had a stereotypical view of him because of his accent. Very ambitious person......

I don't accept your premise. Sorry

For one thing, losing one's accent was the done thing for the aspiring middle classes for many many years and many millions of Brits did so successfully while it was the fashionable thing to do, and there are still a good number who do so now in spite of it being generally considered pretentious rather than admirable. We haven't magically lost the ability, only the motivation. Of course there will be examples of people who want to lose their accent and simply can't, but you can't generalise from those specific cases.

Secondly, I don't accept that there is accent snobbery as such any more. Accent snobbery was looking down at people who spoke with regional accents because having such an accent was considered a sign of being working class and uneducated. What we have now is accent rivalry, or accent xenophobia, where people become targets because their accent is out of place or different, not because it's "common".

And thirdly, you need to be sure you're talking about accent and not dialect. You mention "BBC English", but if you watch the BBC nowadays you will hear lots of different accents, some of them quite strong. What you won't [often] hear is regional (non-standard) grammar or vocabulary.

If you speak Scots, did you see the thread where somebody was asking about Robert Burns?
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Hadn't seen it, but have now!

Originally Posted by Hanna

What's the point of forcing people to use a different language than they are used to, when it is a local language?

The point is that in fact the positions of Russian language in Ukraine is much stronger than that of Ukrainian language. Russian is the de-facto uniform standard language to speak "outside one's village" while "inside village" they normally speak local dialects. Plus there are many 99%-95% Russian-speaking regions and cities. Pro-Ukrainian people argue that without forced support Ukrainian language will vanish in few generations.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

The point is that in fact the positions of Russian language in Ukraine is much stronger than that of Ukrainian language. Russian is the de-facto uniform standard language to speak "outside one's village" while "inside village" they normally speak local dialects. Plus there are many 99%-95% Russian-speaking regions and cities. Pro-Ukrainian people argue that without forced support Ukrainian language will vanish in few generations.

The sort of "patterns" of when you speak Ukrainian vs Russian are fascinating, I think. When did you, yourself speak Ukrainian last, for example? I remember you saying that you sometimes regret that you don't speak it often enough at home? I suppose there are certain

Perhaps because I study Russian, I have been overly partial to Russian in this discussion. I don't know. And I am aware that it is not my business in any form or shape. With Latvia, I feel I have a right to a small say; after all they are in the EU and there are really strong ties with Scandinavia where I come from.

I approve of these sorts of language-protective-measures when they are done in Wales or in Northern Scandinavia. In both these places it is essentially "too late" anyway, though. Mostly old people and rural people are really fluent in the local language. But this is the first time I have heard of "language protection measures" that are actually perceived as intrusive by speakers of the larger language. I suppose the situation in Ukraine is quite unique.

But I foresee that we will have this situation with local language vs English, in about 50-100 years in places like the Netherlands and Scandinavia unless something change. The really sad things is that some of the biggest English proponents don't even speak English very well! They insist on using English even when there is no good reason, and then they write or speak it poorly, putting themselves at a disadvantage in comparison with native speakers.