give your language a gift.

{little redpoll in the mayday tree}

As many of you may have likely been aware over the past couple years, there has been quite a massive (& inspiring) upsurge of political activism in Ukraine. Most of this has been primarily focused, of course, on increased democratic practices and loosening Moscow's little leash on Kyiv; however, the Orange Revolution has also included a lot of 'Ukrainian' cultural actions. While the spewing of the far-right neo-conservative groups, with their 'Ukraine for Ukrainians ([meaning 'ONLY, so get out Russians/Tatars/Roma/Poles/etc']) attitude, is profoundly disturbing, the moderate yet passionate activists working to increase the presence of the Ukrainian language in the Russian-language-dominated cities makes me quite happy

Many people aren't aware just how much Ukrainian suffered under Soviet rule. It is mostly due to the Western Ukraine's relative isolation and position as a traditional cultural and nationalist stronghold that the language is surviving. In most cities in the eastern part of the country, as well as areas in the centre (like the capital Kyiv) the Russian language still dominates. Thus, I am delighted to see these sorts of campaigns appearing, such as the one here at "Ne Bud' Baiduzhym!"

'Ne bud' baiduzhym' literally means 'Don't be indifferent!', or essentially 'Give a damn!' I haven't yet had a chance to read about it in much detail -- it looks like something I could definitely study in depth for my upcoming class on LangScaping/Language Planning -- but basically, the banners translate to something like "Give a gift to Ukraine for the New Year! In 2007 switch to Ukrainian!"

Here I'm loosely translating -- the organizers state that "We want to help people, who live in Kyiv and who want to speak Ukrainian but are ashamed to [in the face] of the Russian majority...". They want to "break the cycle" of people who state "I never speak Ukrainian, because I [never have the opportunity] to converse" -- they want to inspire as many Kyivans (& Ukrainians in other cities I'm sure) as possible to switch to 'only Ukrainian' on the streets on the first day of January. They go on to give reasons for getting involved and 'levels of participation' for people to commit to (especially if they aren't fully fluent).

It's really exciting for me to watch this unfold; grassroots language planning and language ideologies (which here is intrinsically & explicitly tied to nationalism!) will be important elements in my thesis (though in Yukon, not Ukraine)... still! this is quite fascinating. Speech (& conversely, silence) are peaceful forms of activism. And here, it can even be something so seemingly mundane as answering Russian greetings on the street with their Ukrainian equivalents... I think this will be quite positive for the language.

As well, it's given me the idea for my own New Year's resolution -- a rare thing, yes, but this time, something I can actually keep. I too shall give Ukraine a gift for Christmas (which is tomorrow) by resolving to write at the very least 200 words a day, journal-style, in Ukrainian. I need to use it more often outside my head, outside small smatterings here & there. I don't think I'll type them, though, my keyboard will do Cyrillic but it's not designed for it, alas, making things quite peck-ish. Nevertheless, any particularly good excerpts may be posted. Especially if I make any decent poems. We shall see.

In the meantime, veselykh sviat'! I bought organic beets & fresh garlic & beeswax candles at Roots today for dinner tomorrow. I feel very luxurious & fortunate. Tastyness, indeed.