Thread: russian language in the ukraine

simple question, more difficult answer.

do you think russian will still be widely spoken in the ukraine, in, let's say, 20 years or will the authorities try to get rid of it like the baltic states are doing now?

the situation is of course very different since russian is a lot of ukrainians' mother tongue but i'm still a bit scared russian will lose some ground.

i've also heard yushenko's mother tongue was russian. he's born in the east, is that right?

just a remark, when ukrainian people speak to foreign journalists, they always do it in russian (even yushenko).

Russian is under no threat - it is one of the sides of a smooth continuum of languages/dialects spoken in Ukraine.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Russian is under no threat - it is one of the sides of a smooth continuum of languages/dialects spoken in Ukraine.

Yeh. The Baltic languages are non-slavic and are not at all similar to Russian.

The reason why Yushchenko speaks to foreign journalists in Russian is because Russian is much mroe widely spoken than Ukrainian.

The number of people who can speak Ukrainian will increase though.

TATY wrote:

The reason why Yushchenko speaks to foreign journalists in Russian is because Russian is much mroe widely spoken than Ukrainian

definitely.

The number of people who can speak Ukrainian will increase though.

but will the number of people who can speak russian (basically almost 99% of the population, i guess) stay at its current level, making the ukraine more and more of a bilingual country.

it's very hard to find any info on the internet about languages used in college but i've read that most universities in the ukraine were still teaching in russian (because a lot more books are in russian, basically).

the same happens in maghreb where french is used in universities and very little arabic. that's a goodway of keeping a "foreign" language alive.

Are you sure about Yushchenko? I've always seen him speak Ukrainian at least when he speaks to American press from what I've seen.

well, yes, i'm pretty sure but can still be wrong

he was definitely using russian in strasbourg (european parliament).

Originally Posted by possopo

well, yes, i'm pretty sure but can still be wrong

he was definitely using russian in strasbourg (european parliament).

Or maybe he was speaking Ukrainian and you thought it was Russian. :P

Originally Posted by possopo

TATY wrote:

The reason why Yushchenko speaks to foreign journalists in Russian is because Russian is much mroe widely spoken than Ukrainian

definitely.

[quote:3jykwikr]The number of people who can speak Ukrainian will increase though.

but will the number of people who can speak russian (basically almost 99% of the population, i guess) stay at its current level, making the ukraine more and more of a bilingual country.

it's very hard to find any info on the internet about languages used in college but i've read that most universities in the ukraine were still teaching in russian (because a lot more books are in russian, basically).

the same happens in maghreb where french is used in universities and very little arabic. that's a goodway of keeping a "foreign" language alive.[/quote:3jykwikr]

In Rural areas they speak mostly Surzhyk, which is basically Russian vocab applied to Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation. As VM said, Russian and Ukrainian evolved from the same langauge and have existed side by side for hundreds of years. As you go South in Russian towards Ukraine the language changes and aquires certain Ukrainian characteristics (for example the pronunciation of Г as h).

The share of students receiving their education in Russian has significantly declined from 41% in 1995 to 24% in 2004, in favour of their Ukrainian counterparts. Still, many urban Ukrainian schools are de-facto Russian-speaking, especially in the East and South. Russian continues to be the language of international communication for many Ukrainians and is understood throughout the country.

for real? I talk to dis urkranian broad, and she said if you try to speak ukranian to anybody in ukrain, they look and you funny and pretend they don't understand you.

Originally Posted by TheMoonMonst3r

for real? I talk to dis urkranian broad, and she said if you try to speak ukranian to anybody in ukrain, they look and you funny and pretend they don't understand you.

Same here; I spoke to my girlfriend's (ukrainian) friend over the phone in Russian...She [deliberately I think] replied in ukrainian saying that she didn't understand. (This is a thirty-something woman mind you, who grew up speaking russian)

first of all when they went independent they dropped the definite articlein all official docs so it's no longer the Ukraine it's just Ukraine. As for what will happen to Russian in Ukraine I'd think it will continue to be used in the tradionally predominantly russian speaking areas, that is east and south. If the ukrainians have enough sense I think they'll eventually follow the swiss model that is it will be decided on the regional level which language should be used and there will be a third lingua franca kind of language, which in all probability will be english if things continue to go they way they are going now in ukraine.

Thing is there's quite a bit of resentment toward Ukrainian in the east and at the same time heaps of people in the west who won't speak Russian if their life depended on it. I don't think Russian is everused in Lviv university for example. At the same time everyone seems to fell ok about english on both sides of the linguistic divide.

Regarding surzhik, far as I know surzhik simpluy means dialect and it doesn't necesarily refer to rural areas in west Ukraine where I visit regularly they say every misto (that is city or town) has its own surzhik and it's not always that changed russian words are used in place of ukrainian words, in Lviv for example the language spoken there on the streets differs from standard ukrainian but instead of Russian words they use quite a few polish ones.