Особливості функціювання української мови в Україні на початку ХХІ ст.
Peculiarities of the functioning of Ukrainian in Ukraine at the beginning of the 21st century

Summary/Abstract: The article is based on the starting point that state language is one of the main factors that ensure normal existence and functioning of any country. Therefore, adequate awareness of the various types of threats that impede the full functioning of Ukrainian is of particular relevance. Among such threats, various interferences pose a particular danger. The article contains a comparative analysis of such interferences and some negative consequences that they cause. The specificity of linguistic situation in Ukraine consists in the simultaneous coexistence of Ukrainian, Russian and other different minority languages. The minority languages have a local influence, limited by the area of their distribution. Meanwhile, Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism is widespread throughout Ukraine. The dominant position in this interaction used to belong to Russian. This factor leads to numerous types of deviations in the Ukrainian speech. One of the major types of such deviations is the so-called Ukrainian-Russian surzhyk, which especially spread throughout the eastern and southeastern Ukraine where the increased influence of Russian continued for almost 350 years. Meanwhile, the western part of Ukraine was under the influence of Russian for no more than 50 years. Such a short period could not have negatively affected the state of the Ukrainian language, which remains the first language for the vast majority of the population in this area. In recent years, significant changes in the vocabulary of Ukrainian appeared as a result of total globalization which led to the emergence of numerous borrowings from English. A significant part of the latter are designations of the special terms and new realities that were previously absent in everyday life. Meanwhile, there are a lot of cases when speakers prefer to use the anglicized hybrid forms instead of their adequate Ukrainian equivalents. Such phenomena cannot be assessed positively and require prescriptive measures to be taken by authorized and competent educational and government bodies.

• Details
• Contents