Native language: (un) new threats and new hopes

15.4.2022

On April 14, the Faculty of Ukrainian Philology and Social Communications hosted a round table on the occasion of the Days of Science.

Natalia Viacheslavivna Bahniuk, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Head of the Ukrainian Language Department of the I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, gave a guest lecture to teachers and students. The topic of the discussion is relevant: “Native language: (un) new threats and new hopes”. The epigraph of the conversation between scientists and students was the words of Serhii Zhadan “History today is not just rewritten, but rewritten in Ukrainian.” Therefore, the conversation was primarily about the terminological system of the history of the Ukrainian language, which should be corrected, carefully justifying each term. This, of course, applies to the terms Old Russian, Old Ukrainian, Russian and others.

It was interesting to debunk common myths, such as: the Ukrainian language does not exist and never existed; almost no one speaks Ukrainian in Ukraine; Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian and others. Listeners agreed with the evidence that the Ukrainian language has older roots than Russian; the Ukrainian language developed from the vernacular of Kievan Rus from the VI century; written monuments and wall inscriptions of the XI century contain specific features of the Ukrainian language; the first dictionaries codifying the Ukrainian language appeared in the XII – XVI centuries. Teachers and students recalled the dictionary of original words of the Ukrainian language, which was sentenced in the 30s of the twentieth century.

Associate professors V.V. Lesnova, O.Ye. Kleshchova, A.O. Nairulin, I.O. Nikolaenko, prof. K.D. Glukhovtseva participated in the discussion. 

Appropriate here were the words of L. Kostenko: “Here it came, this unique time, to return to the Ukrainian people their history…”.

Faculty of Ukrainian Philology and Social Communications