Someone is trying to turn language into an issue yet again. What are they doing and why?

The language bill, passed by the Ukrainian parliament in the end of April, has had many important aspects left out. Many of those were important features that would allow this legislation to enable effective Ukrainisation of the public sphere in Ukraine

The law is not applicable to the sphere of private communication and religious ceremonies

The plenary session on Wednesday was over after consideration of amendment No. 821

Previously, a moratorium on the public use of Russian-language cultural products was introduced in Lviv and Zhytomyr regions

In the summer of 2017, Kateryna Handziuk wrote an op-ed piece for The Ukrainian Week, which we are republishing here

The passage of the German-Ukrainian Year of Languages

Ignoring the language issue risks the likelihood that Ukrainian will disappear altogether in Ukraine

Why Ukraine cannot yield to the pressure from its neighbors and how it can protect the state language

Mostly discussed for its regulation of the language of instruction in schools, the new law offers more overlooked important innovations intended to change the quality and the content of education in Ukraine

Legislation and bills on the state language: current status and expectations

Is Ukrainian society ready for changes in language policy

If Russian becomes the second state language or even acquires official status in part of Ukraine’s territory, this will aggravate the discrimination of the Ukrainian-speaking majority and will ease the Kremlin’s expansion

If Ukraine’s top officials are unable to adequately assess the fatal outcome of their efforts in compromise seeking with Russia for Ukraine, they have no right to head the country. If they do realize the danger of the linguistic concession they are about to make, they should be treated as actors in the Russian cultural and language expansion in Ukraine who intentionally undermine its constitutional order and national statehood

College students in Odesa campaign against Ukrainophobia in local high schools

The people of Britain have an asset worth billions of dollars and effective soft power across the globe in their tongues

While Russia accuses Ukraine of "forced Ukrainization", Ukrainian-speakers face discrimination today, just like they did in times of colonial dependence

The notion that a foreigner would want to learn Ukrainian is beyond the comprehension of the majority of Kyiv residents. Why waste your time? Why stop to such a level? After all, don’t you see that she’s a toothless hag!?!

Professor Kostiantyn Tyshchenko speaks about the role of modern linguistics in our identity and the rebuttal of the cradle-of-three-brotherly-peoples theory

In the minds of Ukraine’s leadership and entire political class sits a deep conviction that eastern and southern Ukraine does not understand or accept Ukrainian and that the language irks and outrages everyone there, meaning it is better to not even speak it in those regions.

Recent developments signal that the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov language law is aimed at the renewed Russification of all Ukrainians regardless of their ethnic backgrounds

Dagmar Ostrzhanska, director of the Czech Centre in Kyiv tells The Ukrainian Week of Czech-Ukrainian cultural relations, the Ukrainian art underground and the language inactivity of our compatriots.

On Solving the Language Issue

Over the past twenty years, everyone has begun to get used to thinking that they could all be identical citizens of this country. That peaceful co-existence of different languages was possible. We have waited a long time for the civilized times to come. Now, the difference once again has a chance to grow visible.

After signing the language bill Mr. Lytvyn will now turn into a politician who is completely under the control of the government which will drop him at the first opportunity.

Greifswald University — a centre for Ukrainian studies in Europe

Contemporary Ukrainians reject the imperial civilisation that is identified by the Russian language

The position of the Verkhovna Rada’s Speaker on the language law, regardless of his motivation, will determine his political future and his place in Ukrainian history

During the protests in front of Ukrainian House the government has once more used the scenario of the soft, yet consistent narrowing of citizens’ rights to protest. The criminal cases are a perfect tool for pinpoint strikes against the most proactive protest participants.

The passing of the language law has triggered a parliamentary crisis that could explode into a political one.

The June 5th protests that accompanied the passing of a bill that aims to Russify Ukraine showed that while society is ready for radical resistance to the government’s anti-Ukrainian policies, opposition leaders are sitting on their hands.

The mistakes made by the protectors of the Ukrainian language and how they can take the initiative into their own hands

Slavist Yuri Shevchuk on conventional and new scenarios of assimilation, Russification and a pretense statehood

A number of Ukrainians successfully defend their language rights by using their knowledge of the law

A confrontation over language legislation proposed by the ruling party is unfolding in Ukraine.

It can be argued that Ukrainian-dubbed foreign films and series have done much more to Ukrainise young people than didactic and patriotic admonitions to love the beautiful Ukrainian language.

A firm choice of the language in which to speak allows people to shape their environment rather than be shaped by it

Under the current circumstances in Ukraine, most bilingual people ultimately become Russian-speakers

The status of Russian becomes the most acute problem in countries where Russian-speaking communities are large both in absolute and relative terms.

in a Russian-speaking or bilingual environment

Several official languages are an inefficient tool in solving language and national issues

The media have recently been overwhelmed with messages signaling constricted use of the Ukrainian language

His translations span 26 centuries, three continents and almost 30 literatures. The Soviets “awarded” him with 10 years in labor camps and the status of a dissident with no right to travel

More books for children are translated into Ukrainian than written in the language. Families seem to prefer “popular” classics and books made into Hollywood films

Italian scholar Giovanna Brogi Bercoff, a Slavic and Ukrainian studies specialist, speaks about the state of affairs with Ukrainian academia in Ukraine and abroad