Ukraine as a multilingual society

NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Languages in Ukraine

Presented by

Abdureim Abdurashytov

to

Prof. Dr. Mohammad Keshavarz

511 Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching

Fall semester

“Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law”

Ferdinand de Saussure

February 15, 2014

NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

Nicosia,TRNC

Ukraine as a multilingual society

Ukraine and Russian are used roughly equally across Ukraine. These two languages belong to the Slavic language family and considered  to be complicated for native English speakers because they possess completely different alphabet (Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian , Bulgarian ect. ) While the  official state language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, the preferred spoken language in most  cities  of southern, eastern, and northern Ukraine is Russian.

In Kiev (the capital of Ukraine), and many other regions use of Ukrainian has been increasing and instruction in most schools is in Ukrainian. The percentage of people speaking Ukrainian "on the street" is about 30% in Kiev, 40-80% in Zhytomyr, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskyy, Chernivtsi, Mukacheve, and Uzhhorod, 5-10% in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odessa, 1-5% in Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk, and 80-98% in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyy, and Lutsk (these are just approximations). Rural areas have a significantly higher concentration of Ukrainian speakers and speakers of "Surzhyk" ( i.e. code-mixing), which will be elaborated later on. On the other hand, the most literary Ukrainian is spoken by educated individuals in the cities.

It might be worth mentioning that there is no much animosity between Russian and Ukrainian speakers. Animosity  tends to occur among people who only speak one of the languages and feel alienated when surrounded by people who speak the other language.  In fact, our country is bilingual, well-educated and well-travelled. Once upon a time, I heard how two people having a conversation where one was speaking Russian and the other Ukrainian languages and didn’t even realize that they were speaking two different languages.

While educated people usually speak pure literary Russian or Ukrainian, different strata of the population (e.g. street vendors, laborers, farmers ect.) speak a mixture of the two languages that leans either towards Russian or Ukrainian. This phenomenon is commonly called "Surzhyk" or "Surzhik."

Ukrainian uneasiness about Russian influence is often expressed through concern about the integrity and even survival of the Ukrainian language. Considering language as a symbol of internal unity and external differentiation, today, not only substantial ethnic Russian population, but many ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as their primary language. Moreover, many Ukrainian speakers do not speak Standard Ukrainian, but a Ukrainian/Russian as I mentioned earlier, and it is widely viewed as a heritage of the ‘Russification’ of Ukrainian life and culture. Ukrainians may identify Surzhyk as any infiltration of Russian into Ukrainian speech.

It deserves to be mentioned that in Ukraine among educated Russian speakers you will find a few minor differences in pronunciation from "classic" Russian. For example, the [g] sound is often pronounced [h] (which Russians in Russia often make fun of), and there are slight differences in intonation and speaking style. In addition, if you are fluent in Russian several months of passive exposure is quite enough to learn to understand a lot of Ukrainian — or vice versa.  In fact, westerners usually have an easier time learning Ukrainian than Russian, since it has fewer palatalized, or "soft" consonants (t', d', l', r', s', and so on) and fewer difficult consonant clusters (str, vstv ect.). Ukrainian and Russian share much of their vocabulary but have different pronunciation paradigms. However, learning Ukrainian from a base of Russian or vice-versa is much easier than mastering a new language from scratch.

In some regions of Ukraine we can observe ethnic minority groups like Crimeantatars ( i.e. Crimeans) , Moldovans, Belarusians, Romanians and so on. Thus, in Ukraine besides Ukrainian and Russian languages we have other languages that originated from this minority groups. One of them is the Crimeantatar ( i.e. Crimean) language which takes the third place in terms of the usage after Ukrainian and Russian languages.

Crimeantatars

For someone who has little or no idea about who are Crimeantatars some historical events should be highlighted. You can barely find more inappropriate term than the term “Tatar”. This word came into our vocabulry in the beginning of the 13^th century by Russian Empire to distinguish Crimeans from other Turkic nationalities. Thus, it shows how ignorant Russian Empire was to label all Turkic people as “Tatars”. So, the term “Tatar” refers to groups of different people who came from east (i.e. Astrakhan Tatars, Siberian Tatars, Barabin Tatars, Azerbaijani Tatars (which gave up of the second part “tatar” as humiliating their ethnicity) and ect.)

Some may think that we belong to one nation that dispersed over a large territory.As we can see even in Leo Tolstoy’s story (Prisoner of Mountains) the term “Tatar” was used to describe inhabitants in village, which had different ethnic origin. It is a big misconception to think this way. For example, Crimean Tatars have as many common roots between them and Kazan Tatars, as the Serbs and Russians. The only common element among Tatars is that they are Turkic people, and the Serbs are Slavs. The Slavs consider themselves among many nations across the European continent (eastern and southeastern). Turks do the same. There are: Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uyghurs, Karakalpaks, Karaims, Krymchaks, Turkmen, Gagauz,Turks, Azeriys, and all the Tatars that we mentioned above. That is why we should talk about Crimean Tatars as a unique and whole nation.

As you understand, the Crimeantatars are a small ethnic group whose native language is from the Turkic language family. Roughly half of the Crimeantatars’ population, about 270,000 people, currently live on the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. The Crimeantatars have pre-Mongol origins in the ancient peoples of the Crimean peninsula. Consequently, they consider themselves one of the three indigenous peoples of the peninsula, along with the Karaim and Krymchaki. In addition to residing in the historic homeland of Crimea (where population of 270,000 comprises 11,4 percent of the total population) and places of former exile such as Uzbekistan, there are large populations of Crimeantatars in Turkey where they number over five milion, Romania (40,000), Bulgaria (10,000), the United States (6,000).

Dialects

Crimeantatar language with regard to content is heterogeneous. It happened because of a great impact that historical conditions had on the formation of Turkic people on the Crimean peninsula. The Crimeantatar language consist of 3 dialects.

1. South Coast Crimeantatars- by classification of V.V. Radlov, their language belongs to south-west branch of Turkic languages (oguz) as well as Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmenian.

2. Local and Mountain Crimeantatars (also called mixed (ctat. Orta yolaq) dialect). As A.E. Crimskiy observed they speak fusion language in which the elements of south-coast dialect prevail. It led the foundation of the literary Crimeantatar language.

3. Steppe Crimeantatars (nogays)- By deffinition of V.V. Radlov their language is belong to north-east branch of Turkic languages (Kipchak) as well as Kirgizian.

In order to understand the main problems of Crimeantatars we have to examine some recent history. The Crimeantatars were exiled from Crimea in 1944 for supposed collaboration and cooperation with Nazi forces, and were only allowed to return in 1989. During that time they lived primarily in Uzbekistan and, with no access to education in Crimeantatar language, they used Russian almost exclusively. About fifty years of exile, interrupted the normal cultural development that would likely have fostered Сrimeantatar language. The majority of Crimeantatar children and a significant portion of their parents, born in exile, know the Crimeantatar language at best on an everyday, household level.

Sovietization meant Russification, and CT language fared poorly against the driving force from above to promote R as the language of the so-called 'internationale'. As Dorian notes, when "people have changed to another language and given up their own entirely, it has nearly always been due to a local history of political suppression, social discrimination, or economic deprivation. More often than not, all three have been present." Certainly, CT did not give up their language completely, but their communication became extremely Russified.

The traditional Arabic script of the Crimean Tatars was changed to Latin script from 1926-1927 and then from Latin to Cyrillic in 1936, consequently it became increasingly difficult for Crimeantatars to learn their language and history or perpetuate cultural traditions.

During Soviet Union, Bolshevik party made as much as possible to erase all traces of the Crimeantatars on the Crimean Peninsula. 14 december of 1994 there was a resolution adopted according to which all toponymy should have been renamed.

The exiled people's efforts were initially devoted to physical survival, but in the mid-1950s, veterans and elders began to write letters to the authorities asking to be returned. They believed that the issue of return could be resolved only if the central leadership were convinced of their loyalty to the Soviet State. By the 1960s, however, a growing number of activists were discouraged by the lack of results of the letter writing campaign.

Beginning in the summer of 1965, there was an almost uninterrupted presence of Crimeantatar delegates in Moscow. Among other activities, they produced leaflets now known as samizdat  literature. The information bulletins were part of the movement organization that Crimeantatars developed.

Agitation for repatriation gained credence in the places of exile, the authorities waged a corresponding battle to dissuade the Tatars. This included a plan to resettle them not in Crimea but in a specially created autonomous region in Central Asia called Mubarek. They were promised housing, jobs, and cultural institutions of their own. The KGB succeeded in recruiting some prominent Tatars, but it failed to gain broad-based support. Crimeantatars, from all parts of the Soviet Union held a series of highly visible demonstrations in Moscow. Their protest registered in the international news and sparked numerous letters on their behalf from other dissidents.

In the 1990s the Crimean Tatars became increasingly politically organized. In June, 1991 the Second Kurultai or Congress was convened in Simferopol (named after the first Congress that took place among early nationalists in 1917). The Kurultai elected 33 people by secret ballot to serve in the Mejlis, the authoritative political body or plenipotentiary committee of the Crimeantatar people. The Mejlis declared the sovereignty of the Crimeantatar people, adopted a national anthem and a national flag. The Kurultai also elected a chairman or president, Mustafa Dzhemilev.

 The Crimean Tatars began repatriating on a massive scale beginning in the late 1980s and continuing into the early 1990s. The population of Crimean Tatars in Crimea rapidly reached 250,000 and leveled off at 270,000 where it remains as of this writing. There are believed to be between 30,000 and 100,000 remaining in places of former exile in Central Asia.

While the vast majority of the Tatars remaining in Central Asia still hope to return, political and economic conditions prevent them. A flooded real estate market makes it difficult for Tatars to sell their homes in Central Asia and rampant inflation in Ukraine makes it close to impossible to construct or purchase new ones. New border and customs regulations complicate relocation.

Impact of origin elemets on Crimeantatar language

In the course of many ages Crimeantatars and their ancestors had direct and indirect relationships with Mongols, Iranian tribes (i.e. sarmats, skifs), Greeks, Italians, Arabs, Russians, Ukrainians which consequently influenced the Crimeantatar language.

Let me ellaborate on some of them.

For instance, Iranian elemets in the Crimeantatar language

What is following indicates that some segments of Iranian words bare the same meaning in the Crimeantatar language that they have in origin language. For instance, ctat. Penjere-window

On the basis of loan words some parts of Iranian words changed their semantics and possessed new meaning often distractly differing from initial meaning. For instance, ctat. Bekar (single, bachelor)unemployed, idle); ctat. Hasta (sick)

Arabic language

Among a big number of loan words in lexicon of modern Crimeantatar language Arabic words much more prevail (over 18%), which penetrated into language as a result of political, economical, cultural and other routes in which Crimeantatars had a contact with Arabs.

We can classify Arabs loan words using theme groups:

1. Socio-political life: memleket (state, homeland); vatan (motherland); Ukumet (government); Vekil (ruler).

2. Upbringing and education: terbie (upbringing); tertip (discipline); ders (lesson, class)

3. Science: arif (letter); satir (sentence); isim (noun); edebiyat (literature); felsefe (philosophy)

4. Military: emir (order, command); esir (hostage, captivity)

5. Religion: Alla (God); din (religion); muqadess (holy)

Fonetic mastering of Arabic words by the Crimeantatar language.

1. Arab loan words in the Crimeantatar language as well as Iranian ones undego contraction of vowels. For example, arab. Maktab ctat. Mektep (school), arab. Fula:n ctat. Felan( such-and-such); arab. Markaz ctat. Merkez (center).

2. According to vocalic harmony of the Crimeantatar language the vowels of Arab loan words endure progressive and regressive harmony. For instance, arab. Hami:r ctat. Ham[ɨ]r (dough); arab. Sifat ctat. s[ɨ]fat (feature, quality, adjective).

3. In some words we can observe labial harmony. For example, arab. Mushkil ctat. Mushkul (complex, difficult); arab. Mumkin ctat. Mumkun ( it is possible).

4. Final voiced b,d generally become voiceless. For example, arab. Maktu:b ctat. Mektup (letter); arab. Kita:b ctat. Kirap (book); arab. Maksad ctat. Maksat (aim, goal)

5. Epenthesis of vowel (i.e. the addition of i, ы- [ɨ], u). For instance, arab. Davr ctat. Devir (epoch, period); arab. Fikr ctat. Fikir (idea, thought); arab. Sabr ctat. sab[ɨ]r (patience).

Modern alphabet of Crimeantatar language consist of 37 letters. During transition to Cyrillic alphabet with purpose of “cost cutting” primitive variety of selective alphabet was employed. Russian letters were adopted directly without any extra symbols that would reflect the specifics of the Crimeantatars language sounds.

In order to recognize the specific phonemes of the Crimeantatar language the following clusters were used нъ- [ŋ], гъ- [ɣ], къ- [q], дж- [dʒ]. They exist till now. Moreover, in our alphabet we have extra щ- [ʃtʃ], ц- [ts] which is of no use. The unification woth alphabets of other Turkic languages was absent. Consequently, it brought to mutual misunderstanding among representatives of different Turkic nationalities in written communication. However in verbal communication they can fully understand each other. Thus, this alphabet led to total loss of specific features of the Crimeantatar language, sounds of speech harmony weakened.

In this respect one of the Crimeantatar leaders Ismail Gasprinskiy is worth mentioning. He was a leader of movement to unify Turkic peoples. In order to achieve this goal he came up with the idea to create one universal Turkic language on the basis of Ottoman turkish literary language, which would become lingua franca. Thus, they introduce their method with the motto ‘’Unity in language, thought, and action’’. But this idea as we can see observing the situation of Turkic languages nowaday didn’t yield fruits.

Reference

Allworth E. The Tatars of Crimea: return to the homeland: studies and documents. Durham : Duke fffffUniversity Press

Fisher A. (1978). The Crimean Tatars. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press

Меметов А.М. (1988). Источники формирования лексики крымскотатарского народа. hhhhТашкент: Фан

Меметов А.М., & Мусаев К. (2003). Крымскотатарский язык. Симферополь: Крымучпедгиз

Poliakov V. (1998). Krym: sud'by narodov i liudei [Crimea: Fate of Nationalities and Peoples]. hhhhSimferopol: International Renaissance Foundation