Posted by Darka Hawryshkiw on March 21, 2000 at 16:37:15:
My impression was that people posting to this forum are engaging in an academic discourse where all opinions are permitted and respected. I find it unfortunate that someone such as Ann Fill feels she has the right to summarily dismiss our thoughts as "narrow-minded crap" as though the author of the only "truth."
I don't think she has a grasp of the full context of this debate nor a clear understanding of Ukraine's history of the past century - otherwise she would stop and listen to the fact that this discussion has many sides - cultural, linguistic, and surely, political.
There is one matter that I would like to clear up - regarding the definition of an official language. Some contributors are writing in under the misconception that if Ukrainian were to be the ONLY official langnuage, it would preclude the use of any others within its borders. This is simply not true. People would still be allowed the home language of their choice. However it would mean, as one poster mentioned, that Ukrainian language use would become compulsory in school, for example. Government documents, forms, ballots, etc. would appear in Ukrainian as well. Again, this does not mean that ethnic minorities couldn't participate in government, get a good education, or have voting provileges. It means that such documents will be in Ukrainian.
This discussion resonates somewhat of the perennial one in the United States regarding bilingual education. Those against it worry that children won't learn English, that will reject it and that Spanish or Chinese will run rampany and "take over" as the dominant language. I don't imagine that Ukraine is looking to play imperialist hardball with non-Ukrainians in its borders. However, it does want to take back its identity after too many years of longsuffering - and language is the critical component of that identity by which its cultural, political, and social frameworks will be expressed and flourish.