Q&A about the Language Question in Ukraine

Aside from the question on why I want to shoot drug dealers on sight (which I absolutely do not), I’m getting excellent questions these days. Thank you, this is an excellent one.

There was never any language issue in Ukraine. If you heard of one prior to 2022, that was all propaganda. Words can’t describe how utterly indifferent everybody in Ukraine was to what language anybody spoke before February 2022. The overwhelming majority spoke Russian but could switch into Ukrainian whenever they wanted to.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, things changed. People have been wounded, lost loved ones, lived under occupation, have been displaced, sat in bomb shelters. They are being told endlessly by Russians that this is done because of the Russian language. It’s not shocking that many people now feel a visceral hatred for this language. Imagine spending your nights in a bomb shelter for 3 years over a language. How’d you feel?

As a result, many formerly Russian-speaking Ukrainians can’t hear the sounds of this language. Everybody who could, switched to Ukrainian. Among those who are under the age of 30, you will not find any Russian speakers.

Of course, not everybody can switch. Imagine if you had to switch to a different language right now. It’s an enormously difficult and painful proposition. Imagine abandoning all of your favorite jokes, snippets of songs, wordplay, movie quotes, idioms. The older you are, the more cultural baggage you carry. Dropping it all and inscribing yourself into a completely different culture, one that even swears in an entirely different way*, is a Herculean endeavor. It’s also very painful. But seeing daily reports of raped toddlers is more painful, so people keep trying to tear themselves out of any connection with the culture capable of such horror.

Curiously, the most Russian-speaking group of non-elderly Ukrainians right now is the soldiers fighting on the front lines. They don’t have to show their patriotism in additional ways, so they are more indifferent to the language they speak.

I don’t think there’s any going back to the young people in Ukraine not hating the Russian language. That all was buried under the rubble of Mariupol and Bakhmut. I think that’s fine because it’s not much of a language to begin with. I say that as a native speaker who spent a lifetime learning other languages because Russian is so flat and inexpressive.

*Russian swearing is sexual while Ukrainian is scatological. Putting it bluntly, they refer to the sexual act in their swearing, while we refer to the process of excretion.