latynka

{this is from the 'je t'aime' wall in parc des abbesses, paris, where 'i love you' is written in a vast variety of languages. 'nalligivagit' is in inuktitut -- south baffin, or nunavik dialect i believe -- even though traditionally it would be written in syllabics in these areas...}

A topic quite popular (& controversial!) in language planning & language issue debates lately focuses on the use of script. It's not really a new topic -- the usage of a particular writing system to distance or align a language or nation with another has been going on for a long while... I can think of a number of examples, from Atatürk's plan of 'modernizing Turkish' by writing it in Latin instead of Arabic... the fact that Serbian and Croatian are mutually intelligible by both linguistic and language-speaker account, yet Serbians write their language in Cyrillic because they are Russian Orthodox, and the Catholic Croatians use the Latin script.

Or, last summer, while teaching English, my Azeri students showed me their new dictionaries in a modified Latin alphabet -- to emphasize ties to Turkey & distance themselves from the Cyrillic script of their Soviet history.

& of course, with Inuktitut in Canada right now, there are many voices in the Inuit community discussing the worth of using syllabics. It's a complex situation, especially since those in the Eastern Arctic use syllabics whereas those in the West (speakers of Inuinnaqtun) use the Latin alphabet. Speakers from various places all over Arctic Canada speak of a switch to the Latin script as a way to modernize, to make the use of technology easier, a way to relate to other world languages, and a way to distance themselves from a writing system not invented by Inuit, but by missionaries. Peter Irniq, former commissioner of Nunavut, openly supported a switch to the Latin alphabet at the recent Études Inuit Studies conference in Paris... yet many speakers contend that syllabics are important for Inuktitut. Besides being an easy-to-learn, efficient system (despite the r/q debate, etc), they support the idea that the script IS an Inuit thing, part of their culture. After all, it's been used by Inuit for over 100 years; it's irrelevant to them who originally invented it.

On the delightful website Omniglot.com, one can peruse detailed descriptions of pretty much all the alphabets & alphabetical variations in use in the world, past & present -- & it is here I came upon a new innovation for Ukrainian -- the Euro-Ukrainian script!

The page explicitly states that the purpose of the alphabet is to align Ukraine with the rest of Europe, to highlight the language's similarities with other Slavic languages using the Latin alphabet, and -- perhaps most crucially! -- to distance Ukrainian from Russian, which uses the Cyrillic script. This is the first I've heard of this particular script, though the idea of creating one isn't new at all. I was instantly reminded of the poem "Latynka", by Andrij Bondar, posted here in both English translation & in the original Ukrainian ( in the Latin alphabet).

"one of my friends thinks
that if we switch to the roman alphabet
our people will steal less
and immediately
our messy byzantinisms
our obnoxious sovietisms our endless ugro-finnisms
(sorry ugrics, sorry finns)
will disappear and something will snap in our heads
– and “voila!” we are part of europe"

It's really quite a poignant poem that I feel really captures a certain desire some Ukrainians
have to feel "part of Europe", to be really seen as "European" and all that connotes -- but yet,
despite their yearning to shake loose from the Russian/Soviet sphere, associated with Cyrillic,
they value the tradition embodied in their alphabet, what is distinctly Ukrainian:

"if every living ukrainian poet
writes one poem in the roman alphabet
it will be possible to make an anthology
of contemporary ukrainian poetry written in the roman alphabet
what a pity that Ivan Malkovych won’t be able to write a poem
about the crescent moon of the letter є
and the slender candle of the letter ї"


ї  & є are both letters unique to Ukrainian, they are not found in the Russian script... & besides making a point
about the distinctiveness of Ukrainian Cyrillic... I think he also stresses something fundamental
about writing in a certain script -- the aesthetic impact.

I love writing Ukrainian in Cyrillic -- I associate it with many positive things, like the Old Church Slavonic letters
emblazoned in gold on the ikons, my baba showing me how to write а-б-в with an old scratchy pencil on scrap
paper... the certain flow the handwriting that makes me think of embroidery.  However, I can appreciate some people's
desires to switch. I never grew up under the Soviets, I don't live in Ukraine now, caught in the midst of political struggles
that are constantly trying to realign the country with the E.U. or with Russia. I understand how the script can be used as
a powerful political banner, too. & thus I appreciate the eloquence of Andrij Bondar's poem...