Salon of aristocratic Ukrainian speech
A new language club has been founded by Kyiv-based scholars with support from the Institute of Ukrainian Language at Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences, particularly its director Pavlo Hryshchenko.
On Oct. 14, the newly-founded language salon launched its maiden season at the House of Scholars by announcing its goals and activities. The main idea of this linguistic initiative is to unite scholars from different areas of specialization in order to resolve the problem of the functioning of the Ukrainian language. As Svitlana Yermolenko, the head of the institute’s Stylistics Division, put it, “We want to make the literary language more conversational, as it is always a level higher than the casual conversational level.”
The participants of the first meeting focused mostly on the question of whether a higher style of communicating in Ukrainian exists today. The answer was not very reassuring because, as the participants of the discussion noted, excellent Ukrainian is quite rare not only among average Ukrainians but even among scholars.
The language problem was presented from an interesting aspect: scholars claim that the low status of a language depends not only on cultural and educational factors but also, to a significant degree, on socioeconomic and psychological ones. Oleksii Panasiuk, one of the founders of the Spadshchyna Ukrainian Studies Club, gave the example of the development of the American nation, which rallied around a strong social base.
“There are no poor patriots in America. In the US, patriots are economically independent. In our country the situation is the opposite.”
An important aspect, scholars think, is the fusion of all factors that can influence the development and spread of a higher brand of Ukrainian. Also important is the formation of a linguistic ideology, a much-discussed question today, whose absence makes it impossible to pursue any language policy.
In order to solve crucial language problems in their work, scholars follow the following credo: “Direct people’s attention to the excellent literary language and to communicating by means of sophisticated language forms that are backed by the traditions of the national linguistic culture, education, and breeding. The deliberately coarsened speech and average colorless style should be contrasted to the high standards of lofty linguistic communication.”
The drabness, facelessness, and loss of our national “ego” are the features that, according to scholars, describe the linguistic situation in Ukraine today. In order to promote the use of a refined Ukrainian language the guests of the salon expressed their willingness to invite artists, journalists, and young people to their meetings.
Future sessions will be devoted to such topics as “Existence as Communication” and “The Linguistic Signs of Culture.”
The idea of ennobling the Ukrainian language and improving Ukraine’s linguistic space is urgent. However, whether the salon of aristocratic speech will be restricted to its members’ own speech or whether it will have a certain social impact are questions of a more complex nature.
