Switzerland is a country of four official languages. European map of languages: how are “thorny” issues resolved? Countries with multiple official languages

In some countries (for example, in South Africa, there are even more than 2 official languages. In many they want to introduce a second national language. For example, in Ukraine they were going to make Russian the second national language (during the reign of Yanukovych), but this did not come to fruition .

Plus, in some countries there are separate regions with other official languages. In the USA, some states with two offices. languages: English and Spanish.

But if purely by country, then the bilingual states are Canada, Israel, Afghanistan, Finland, Belarus, Paraguay.

There are a lot of such countries. Since the world map changed very often, as a result of wars, many countries or their territories changed their affiliation several times. Therefore, several languages may be used in a country, both at the legislative level and not. You can look at the countries in detail here.

In many countries, there are not one, but two official languages. For example, in Belarus both Belarusian and Russian are considered state languages. I was there recently and that’s why I know. In Israel, Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages. This is very convenient, since in addition to representatives of Jewish nationality, there are a lot of Arabs living there.

There are no problems with bilingualism or more where people don’t put pots on their heads and don’t shout Slava....

Israel's official languages are Hebrew and Arabic (in conditions of constant war with the Arabs)

Switzerland's official languages are German, French, Italian, Romansh.

Singapore official languages - Chinese, Malay, English, Tamil.

Haiti's official languages are Haitian, Creole, French.

This phenomenon is very common and many people live communicating in two or even more languages. They study them from childhood and do business with them. A full list of such countries can be seen by clicking on the link.

To the above answers, I can also add Kazakhstan from the second Russian and India with one English state, Hindi is probably not the second official due to the prevention of internal quarrels, at least it seems so to me. In connection with the current situation, I would not be surprised if I hear that Belarus and Kazakhstan will eventually abandon bilingualism, this is indicated by the first sign - an affectionate attitude towards the Russian world in these countries, in connection with the prevention of further events unfolding according to the Ukrainian scenario.

If we talk about countries that have two official languages, there are quite a lot of them:

Bangladesh - Bengali, English;
Belarus - Belarusian, Russian;
Botswana - English, Setswana;
Burundi - French, Kirundi;
Vatican - Latin, Italian;
East Timor - Portuguese, Tetun;
Djibouti - Arabic, French;
Israel Hebrew, Arabic;
India - Hindi, English;
Iraq - Arabic, Kurdish;
Ireland - Irish, English;
Kazakhstan - Kazakh, Russian;
Cameroon - French, English;
Canada - English, French;
Kenya - Swahili, English;
Cyprus - Greek, Turkish;
Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyz, Russian;
Comoros - French, Arabic;
Lesotho - English, Sesotho;
Madagascar - French, Malagasy;
Malawi - English, Chichewa;
Malta - Maltese, English;
Nauru - English, Nauruan;
Pakistan - Urdu, English;
Paraguay - Spanish, Guarani;
Samoa - Samoan, English;
Swaziland - English, Swazi;
Somalia - Somali, Arabic;
Tanzania - Swahili, English;
Tonga - English, Tongan;
Philippines - English, Tagalog;
Finland - Finnish, Swedish;
Chad - Arabic, French;
Montenegro - Albanian, Serbian;
Sri Lanka - Sinhala, Tamil;
Equatorial Guinea - French, Spanish;
Eritrea - Tigrinya, Arabic;
Republic of South Africa - Afrikaans, English.

The following countries have more than two official languages:

Belgium - French, Dutch, German;
Bolivia - Aymara, Quechua, Spanish;
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian;
Vanuatu - Bislama, English, French;
Luxembourg - German, French, Luxembourgish dialect;
Peru - Spanish, Aymara, Quechua;
Rwanda - Kinyarwanda, English, French;
Seychelles - English, Creole, French;
Singapore - English, Chinese, Tamil, Malay;
Switzerland - Romansh, German, French, Italian.

As you can see, the list is more than impressive.

An interesting ratio of official language to number of countries is given below:

English - 56

French - 29

Arabic - 24

Spanish - 20

Portuguese - 8

German - 6

Italian - 4

Russian - 4

If the question is about two official state languages, then here is a list of these countries:

Belarus (Belarusian and Russian)
Israel (Hebrew and Arabic), although those who came to Israel say that they hear a lot of Russian speech.
Canada (French and English)
India (Indian and English)

Belgium has 3 languages:

French, Dutch and German.

In such a wise country as Switzerland there are generally 4 languages:

French
German
Italian,
retro-romance language.

The Republic of South Africa has 11 languages, but the main ones are African and English.

In general, this list can be continued for a long time.

True, there is one country where there is only one language - China.

And even if you know English and want to communicate in China, it is very difficult, since in China almost all Chinese speak only Chinese and even if they learn English at school, it’s generally for show.

Many countries have two national languages. For example, in our friendly and brotherly Belarus, there are Belarusian and Russian languages, both official state languages. Previously, there were more such countries, where the second state language is Russian, until persecution and rewriting of history began.

For example, the following countries have two official languages:

Finland (Finnish and Swedish)

Vatican (Italian and Latin)

Israel (Hebrew and Arabic)

Cyprus (Greek and Turkish)

Afghanistan (Pashto and Dari)

Tajikistan (Tajik and Russian)

Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz and Russian)

India (Hindi and English; in addition, 21 more languages are recognized as regional)

Sri Lanka (Sinhala and Tamil)

East Timor (Tetum and Portuguese)

Somalia (Somali and Arabic)

Djibouti (French and Arabic)

CAR (French and Sango)

Chad (French and Arabic)

Cameroon (French and English)

Eritrea (Tigrinya and Arabic)

Uganda (English and Swahili)

Kenya (Swahili and English)

Tanzania (Swahili and English)

Burundi (Kirundi and French)

Botswana (English and Setswana)

Lesotho (Sesotho and English)

Swaziland (Swati and English)

Madagascar (Malagasy and French)

Canada (English and French)

Haiti (French and Haitian Creole)

Paraguay (Spanish and Guarani)

Samoan (Samoan and English)

Tonga (Tongan and English)

Tuvalu (Tuvaluan and English)

Marshall Islands (Marshallian and English)

Kiribati (English and Kiribati)

Nauru (English and Nauruan)

The following countries have more than two official languages:

Belgium (Dutch, French and German)

Switzerland (German, French and Italian; partly also Romansh)

Singapore (English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil)

Rwanda (Kinyarwanda, French and English)

Zimbabwe (16 languages, the most important of which are English, Shona and Ndebele)

South Africa (11 languages, including: English, Afrikaans, Venda, Zulu, Xhosa)

Comoros (Comorian, Arabic and French)

Seychelles (French, English and Seychellois Creole)

Bolivia (37 national languages, the most important of which are Spanish, Quechua, Aymara and Guarani)

Papua New Guinea (English, Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu)

Fiji (English, Fijian and Hindustani)

New Zealand (English, Maori and New Zealand Sign Language)

There may be many such countries, but I will tell you which countries I know, but of course I won’t write them all:

Finland (Finnish and Swedish)

Norway (Norwegian and Sami)

Belarus (Belarusian and Russian)

Ireland (Irish and English)

Cyprus (Greek and Turkish)

Belgium (French and Dutch)

Scotland (English and Scottish)

These are some of the countries that I remembered, but in general there are so many of them, it’s impossible to list them all.

In Canada, as far as I know, there are two official state languages: French and English, but about more than two state languages. I can’t say something in languages

To the question: Which countries have two or more official languages? and which ones? given by the author Meg the best answer is Russia - Russian and 30 other languages of the peoples of Russia
The state language of the Russian Federation throughout its entire territory, in accordance with Article 69 of the Constitution, is Russian. In addition, Autonomous entities within the Russian Federation have the right to establish their own state languages, therefore there are 31 state languages in Russia.
Other states:
Bolivia, Peru: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara
Botswana: English, Setswana
India: Hindi, English and 21 other languages recognized as official languages of individual states
Ireland: Irish, English
Cameroon: French, English
Full list here
And those who answered made mistakes... Switzerland - 4 official languages - German, French, Italian, Romansh; Bklgia - three official languages - French (Walloon dialect), Dutch (Flemish) and German. and to call Golandic a cross between English and French is generally some kind of nonsense.

Answer from Azamatus[guru]
For example, Mauritius is a state government there. languages English and French.

Answer from Yoma[guru]
Canada - French and English

Answer from Zhanna Kuznetsova[guru]
Ukraine - Russian and Ukrainian. Latest news.

Answer from In[guru]
In Canada French and English

Answer from June[guru]
Sweden, there seem to be three of them, Canada - English. French. And it would be nice to see the former Spanish, English and French colonies.

Answer from Alenka[guru]
in Switzerland, for example, 4 states. language: English German franc. Italy. , and there are plenty of such countries in 2 languages, it would take a long time to list: all the CIS countries, and most of old Europe.

Answer from User deleted[guru]
A striking example of the advisability of using a second state language for socio-economic reasons is Finland - a former province of the Russian Empire, previously for 300 years part of the Kingdom of Sweden, a country with a population of 5 million people, which has one of the highest quality indicators in the world life. Finland has two official languages - Finnish and Swedish, although the share of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland does not exceed 5%. Countries such as India, Ireland, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malta, Singapore, Kenya, have English as their official languages, in addition to the languages of the peoples inhabiting these countries. But in little Switzerland (which arose in the 13th-14th centuries as an association several independent regions - cantons) even speak four languages: German (the majority of the population), French, Italian and Romansh (this language is close to Italian, a small number of speakers live in Switzerland and northern Italy). On Swiss money, for example, inscriptions must be made in all four languages, but in “national” life the most commonly used of these four languages is still German. True, the German dialect spoken in the Swiss cantons differs from literary German much more than, for example, Dutch, which is considered an independent language (this is another case when different languages are closer to each other than dialects of the same same language). But if you know German, don’t despair: in Switzerland they will understand you. Literary German is studied there in schools, and it is written in books and newspapers. True, in the Swiss village you will still have a hard time...

Answer from Valyushka[guru]
I would like it in ours, but since 2007 in Kazakhstan they have introduced office work in the Kazakh language, what should Russian-speaking and other nations do, study or leave? Question for the end.

Answer from User deleted[newbie]
Israel has 2 official languages - Hebrew and Arabic. Although from the communication that is heard on the streets, the Russian language is heard from all sides.

Answer from Azer Huseynov[guru]
I would answer yes, I see that all the answers have already been given to me. Of course, at this moment when I wanted to answer, until I read the answers, and an idea came to my mind, about Canada! But since I already have the answers, maybe I shouldn’t answer at all, but ask for something? Let's get to know each other?!

Answer from User deleted[active]
Finland has two official languages - Finnish and Swedish... and either 3 or four languages are included in the compulsory school curriculum

Answer from Chimera[guru]
They forgot about Belgium - Walloon (a dialect of French) and Dutch (with German influence).

Answer from Shadow[guru]
In Finland we have Finnish and Swedish. All displays, advertisements, TV are all in two languages.

Answer from Alexis[guru]
In Canada, Belgium

Papuan languages

It would be interesting to know which country speaks the largest number of languages and what kind of languages they are? Around the world, people speak more than 6 thousand languages, with an eighth of them being Papuan languages. These languages are spoken by a little more than 4.6 million people, a population of Papuan, Indonesian and Melanesian tribes living mainly on the island of New Guinea, as well as on some islands and archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean.

Papuan languages do not belong to the Austronesian family. These languages have been almost unstudied and their related relationships with each other have been little proven. They are officially recognized and even have (though not all of them) a developed writing system based on the Latin alphabet, although most of these languages are spoken by only a few hundred to two hundred thousand people.

Almost all Papuan tribes live on one island, New Guinea, part of this island belongs to Indonesia, whose official language is Indonesian. The second part of the island, with its ideal border line, is given to the state of Papua New Guinea, which is the seat of the Papua tribes. Thus, it is Papua New Guinea that is the country with the largest number of languages.

New Guinea

This state in Oceania is located on several islands (the main one is New Guinea), has a population of 4.2 million people, and the total number of ethnographic groups amounts to several hundred.

All citizens speak approximately 800 languages, united according to common characteristics into 12 families. The largest linguistic groups are: Trans-New Guinea phylum, West Papua phylum, Sepik-Ramu phylum and Torricelli phylum. The Trans-New Guinean family is the largest; it is spoken by representatives of the largest Papuan tribes: Enga, Chimbu, Hagen, Kamano.

It is curious that due to such multilingualism, the country of Papua New Guinea does not have an official state language, and in documents, English, or rather its local version, is most often used.

Nowadays, knowing several languages is not only useful, but also fashionable. And in some places on Earth, speaking three or four languages is even a vital necessity. Their residents sometimes even mix words from different languages in one sentence.

Such linguistic confusions arise for various reasons. They may be caused by colonial expansion, strong ties between regions, or the cultural influence of nearby superpowers.

Aruba

The island of Aruba is located in the southern Caribbean, next to Venezuela. Due to the fact that this island is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the official language is Dutch. English and Spanish are also compulsory in the education system, so studying here is quite difficult. English is widely used due to the well-developed tourism industry, and Spanish due to the island's proximity to Venezuela. However, none of these three are Aruban native languages. On the streets and at home, local residents communicate with each other in Papiamento, a Creole language based on Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English. Papiamento is an official language along with Dutch and is regularly used in the media and at government level.

Luxembourg

Residents of this small European country use Luxembourgish when speaking to each other. It is consonant with German, but is incomprehensible to German residents due to the large number of French words. Both French and German are official languages spoken by everyone. In addition, they are compulsory subjects in the education system. The Luxembourg government conducts all its activities in French. In addition, schools have another compulsory language – English. Thanks to this aggressive approach to linguistic education, almost every Luxembourg resident knows at least four languages.

Singapore

Singapore has four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. In this ethnically diverse city, signs and advertisements appear on all four. However, it is unlikely that every resident knows all four. For communication between different ethnic groups, they use English, which is compulsory in school and familiar to every resident of Singapore. On the streets, some Singaporeans use a unique English-based creole called Singlish. Those who know English will be able to recognize most words, but Chinese grammar and Chinese and Malay loanwords are difficult to understand. Along with English at school, everyone learns their native language: Indian Singaporeans learn Tamil, Malays learn Malay, and the Chinese learn Mandarin (Northern Chinese). In addition, some Chinese speak the widely used Hokkien and Hakka dialects.

Malaysia

Despite having fewer official languages, Malaysia uses more languages than neighboring Singapore. Everyone can speak official Malay. Most people know English, which is compulsory in school and widely used in cities. Creolized (derived from a simplified international language) English is called "Manglish" and is often used on the streets. Malaysians, whose ancestors emigrated from India, also know Hindi. Chinese Malays learn Mandarin in school, but other dialects (Cantonese, Hokkien or Hakka) are more often spoken at home and on the streets. In major cities such as Kuala Lampur, Penang and Johor, it is not uncommon to find a Chinese person who speaks all three dialects in addition to Malay and English.

South Africa

South Africa has a whopping 11 official languages. In urban areas, English serves as the interethnic means of communication. It is also used by the media and government, despite being considered the primary language by less than 10 percent of the population. Afrikaans is a Germanic language similar to Dutch, spoken in the southern and western regions of the country. South Africa has nine official Bantu languages, the most widely spoken of which are Zulu and Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's mother tongue). A distinctive feature of some of these languages is the “click” consonant sounds. Many residents speak English, their native language and any other language that is dominant where they live. Although some of them are rarely used, many people know three or more languages.

Mauritius

This island nation in the Indian Ocean is generally considered part of Africa. The current population learns English and French at school. And although Mauritians know both, they don’t speak either language on the streets. Mauritian Creole (based on French but not intelligible to the French) is spoken by everyone and is the primary language of most of the population. Some Mauritians of Indian origin speak Bhojpuri, a dialect of Hindi, and the descendants of Chinese immigrants are well versed in the language of their ancestors. Thus, Mauritians can speak three languages fluently, and some can speak four.

India

Hindi and English are the official national languages of India, so most educated Indians and urban residents speak them, although the southern part of the country prefers English. Each state in India has its own official language (or several languages), and most of them are other than Hindi. These languages are used in the media and in everyday communication. This means that the vast majority of Indians know three languages, and those who visit other states can understand others. Therefore, even though Indians may not be fluent in each of them, they understand and can communicate in four or more languages.

Suriname

This republic in northern South America is located deep in the tropical forest. Dutch arrived here as a result of colonial expansion and is now the native language of more than half the population. This language is used in education, commerce and the media. The main language in everyday communication is the Creole “Sranan Tongo”, derived from Dutch and English. It is the native language of the “Creole” population, but it is used by almost everyone for interethnic communication. Suriname has a large population of Indian origin. They still speak a dialect of Hindi, and the descendants of Chinese and Javanese immigrants still communicate in their native languages. English is also often used here. It has become especially popular since Suriname became culturally closer to the English-speaking Caribbean than to the South American ones.

East Timor

This small young country is located in the southeastern part of the Indonesian archipelago. It gained independence from Indonesia just over a decade ago. After gaining independence, Timor decided to make Portuguese the official language, which spread here after Portuguese colonization. But in everyday communication, Timorese most often use the local language Tetum, which is very similar to Portuguese. Moreover, English and Indonesian are widely spoken, both of which are enshrined in the constitution as “valid languages.” Although the illiterate population remains quite large, the number of residents who speak Portuguese and English along with Tetum continues to grow. Many Timorese understand Indonesian, although they prefer not to speak it.

What about the USA?

Thanks to the large number of immigrants, many languages from around the world are spoken in American cities. However, about 75 percent of Americans speak only English, although there is a growing bilingual population that uses Spanish and English. So, although the total number of languages spoken in the United States is quite large, the percentage of multilingual residents remains quite low compared to other countries on our list.

The authors of the article “One language or two: theses and counter theses” (hereinafter referred to as “material”) presented arguments in favor of introducing a bilingual Ukrainian-Russian model of state languages in Ukraine. Discussion of complex problems must begin with the establishment of initial concepts. As in mathematics, in particular in geometry, we formulate them in the form of postulates. Their choice is somewhat arbitrary. Euclid chose five and received geometry, which we study at school. Lobachevsky, Riemann and Klein created geometries on other bases. Nevertheless, something needs to be agreed upon, otherwise the discussion loses its focus. Therefore, we postulate the following:

1. Ukrainian is the only state language.

2. Forced Ukrainization is no better than forced Russification.

For further purposes, we formulate auxiliary provisions, a kind of lemmas:

1. Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages are completely independent, and not dialects or spoiled Russian.

2. There is no Slavic, East Slavic, South Slavic and other brotherhood. Just as there is no Germanic, Finno-Ugric, Semitic, in particular, Arabic, Romanesque, etc. The common origin, the ethnic proximity of peoples does not prove or disprove anything. Relations between peoples and countries are a historical phenomenon and change under the influence of various factors and are transitory.

The evidence for these provisions is quite obvious. Serbian and Croatian ethnic proximity, practically the same language, although different graphics, did not lead to good relations between peoples and states. Their ancient and recent history is full of bloody episodes of mutual confrontation. Nevertheless, after the end of the First World War, the three Yugoslav peoples created a single state, as did the Czechs and Slovaks. History has given them a relatively short time of existence. At the end of the last century they broke up. Where it’s peaceful, where it’s not so much. And there was no talk of any brotherhood. More recently, Serbia and Montenegro diverged in exactly the same way. But good neighborly and fraternal relations have existed between the two peoples for centuries. The Montenegrin language is a Jekavian-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian. In addition, a literary standard for Montenegrin has not yet been established. According to the 2003 census, 63.49% of the population of Montenegro called Serbian their native language, 21.96% - Montenegrin. And yet, Article 13 of the Constitution of Montenegro establishes that the state (official) language is the Montenegrin language. Cyrillic (Vukovica or Serbian Cyrillic) and Latin (Gajevica or Croatian Latin) spellings are recognized as equal. The languages spoken in the country are Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian.

After establishing the basic concepts, we will move on to the proof or refutation of some theorems that are given in the material. For convenience, we keep its numbering.

1. For some reason, the authors believe that our Constitution is not legitimate, since it was not adopted in a referendum. The method for adopting the Basic Law is not established in international law. In many countries it was adopted either by parliament or by a specially assembled constitutional or legislative assembly. And no one considers the American, Mexican and other constitutions illegitimate on this basis. The issue of its discussion before adoption is debatable. In our country, many legislative acts were adopted without proper discussion; examples can be found in the very recent past, but this is not a legal argument, but a political and social one. This is a problem, but it is not directly related to the adoption of the Constitution. It seems that the illegitimacy of our Constitution for the authors of the material is associated with the establishment of the Ukrainian language as the only state language. If there had been a different formulation, quite obviously what it was, then the question of the legitimacy of the Constitution would not have arisen so acutely.

2. 11-13. Language itself cannot unite or divide a country. There are more important reasons for this, although language can enhance or weaken them. Unfortunately, it is often used for political purposes, exaggerated and presented as the only reason for confrontation. Actually this is not true. The example of neighboring Moldova is proof of this. The separatism of Transnistria is not connected with the state language, but with the interests of the elite in Tiraspol, which has not found consensus on economic and financial issues with Chisinau. The presence of one language for the majority of the population does not guarantee state unity. In Italy, more than 90% of the population speaks Italian, and for them it is their native language, but this does not in any way reduce the separatism of the northern regions.

This is complemented by the frequently cited examples of countries with two or more official languages. Favorite examples of such advocates for bi- and multilingualism are Switzerland and Finland. At the same time, important reasons for this situation in these and other countries remain somehow in the shadow of reticence and manipulation. There are much fewer countries with several official languages than monolingual ones (at the state level). For some reason, they categorically refuse to consider the latter as an example.

Let's take such a multinational country as the USA. At the same time, the share of the Hispanic population is very large and tends to further increase. In some southern states, the Hispanic population approaches 80%. However, the issue of the state language is not considered. Moreover, some time ago the US Supreme Court, which also performs constitutional functions, adopted a special resolution according to which the issue of introducing a second state language is unconstitutional and therefore cannot be considered. And what about American national unity? Never mind. It stood very steadily and will continue to stand for the foreseeable future. Or the tiger of Southeast Asia Malaysia. The population is 18 million people, of which only 6.7 million are Malays and other speakers of the Malay language. The official language is Malay. And nothing, the country is developing very successfully. And no split.

But the problems of multilingual countries are often hushed up or mentioned in passing. Here is Belgium. The country has three official languages, but the country has been teetering on the brink of collapse for a significant part of its history. In Flanders and Brabant they basically speak Dutch, ignoring French, in Wallonia it’s the other way around, and in the east they prefer German. The author witnessed such a language situation. In Bruges and Antwerp, do not ask in French, and in Liege, in Dutch or German, do not ask for directions. They won't say. If you want to know the way, switch to English. If they know him, they will answer you.

And in India there are no less than 14 (!) official languages. And this at least somehow reduced interethnic tension, which in some states turned into separatism. Not at all. The problems are not so much in the language, but in the economic, agricultural, religious and other problems of India. And the multitude of official languages does not bring them closer to solutions and does not reduce their severity.

And finally, about Switzerland, so beloved by our defenders of the two official languages. Yes, this country has four official languages. But this factor is mainly historical. The Romansh (Romansh) language, despite its high status, is dying out, the number of its speakers is constantly decreasing. Now there are only 39 thousand of them. In fact, only German, French and Italian are federal languages. The latter is less common than the first two. And in this example of linguistic tolerance there are plenty of problems with languages, although the state is quite strong. And its significant problems are not languages, but completely different factors.

5. It seems that in this paragraph of the material the authors mix different concepts to prove the need to improve the status of the Russian language. Let’s not argue with the commonplace that even polyglots have one language as their mother tongue. But it is difficult to agree further. To begin with, let us highlight such a concept as biligism. This is when a person speaks two languages quite well. Sometimes so much so that he does not fix his attention on the language being used, freely, depending on the need, moving from one to another and back. This situation is typical for many people in our country. And it’s not about the native language, but about fluency in another one. The situation of bilingualism in Ukraine is our national wealth. And if we also have many polyglots who speak three or more languages, then it will increase many times over. And we need to strive for this and create all the conditions for this. Let us present the opinion of Lev Shcherba, a Russian, Soviet linguist, academician, who made a great contribution to the development of psycholinguistics, lexicography and phonology. By the way, bilingualism is studied within the framework of psycholinguistics. “By comparing different languages in detail, we destroy the illusion to which knowledge of only one language accustoms us - the illusion that there are unshakable concepts that are the same for all times and for all peoples. The result is the liberation of thought from the captivity of the word, from the captivity of language and giving it true dialectical scientific character. Such is... the colossal educational significance of bilingualism, and one can, it seems to me, only envy those peoples who, by the force of things, are condemned to bilingualism.”

The authors’ assertion that there are very few bilingual people in Ukraine is not only controversial, it does not correspond to reality. Even in the west of our country, so unloved by some, the overwhelming majority know and communicate fluently in Russian. The converse theorem regarding east and south is, generally speaking, incorrect. And this situation is of fundamental importance. This is the root of the problem - an organic rejection of the need to know, at least passively, the Ukrainian language. And everything else is nothing more than camouflage, a search for reasons, and often, it should be admitted, foreign trends and singing to someone else’s tune. This has nothing to do with the true defense of the Russian language.

Nothing other than linguistic chauvinism can explain the passages about unwritten dialects of the Ukrainian language. It seems that the authors believe that no one speaks or writes real Ukrainian in Ukraine. Only dialects, and only in villages and small towns. If a dialect acquires writing and it is codified, then it is no longer a dialect, but a language. An example is the Montenegrin language. There are more than 20 dialects of English in Britain. Remember Professor Higgins from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and his struggle with them. And all of them have no written language, and many of them have a very small distribution area. That's why they are dialects. Or the authors do not know that there is a standard Ukrainian literary language, long ago codified on the basis of the Kiev-Poltava dialect. Or they deliberately hush up this fact. It’s worth a trip to Poltava or Cherkassy to see otherwise. And this is not surzhik. Listen to some deputies from the so-called Russian-speaking regions and part-time defenders of the state status of the Russian language, it would be better if they remained silent. Ears are drooping. Their speech has nothing in common with the real Russian language. He should learn his native language, otherwise such defenders will only make things worse for him. By the way, many defenders of the Ukrainian language are no better. President Yushchenko never bothered to learn that the Ukrainian word protyaz means in a draft, and not throughout (Ukrainian protyagom).

9, 10. Some progress is evident. It is recognized that the Ukrainian language was persecuted during Tsarist and Soviet times. Naturally, the language could not fully develop in such conditions. From here it is a completely logical conclusion that the Ukrainian language needs support.

Such a difficult past caused a situation where the Russian language was in many cases considered the so-called “high H-language”, and Ukrainian - the “low L-language”. Naturally, this should not be the case. At a minimum, it is necessary to equalize the area and functional qualities of the Ukrainian language. This has nothing to do with the persecution of Russians.

The mutual enrichment of languages should be welcomed in every possible way, but only under the condition of complete freedom of this process. At the same time, there is competition between languages. This is a mutually contradictory but natural process. The dominant position of the Russian language in many cases harms the Ukrainian language. The example given by the authors with the Scottish language is not entirely appropriate for various reasons. Very similar to the situation with Irish and neighboring Belarusian. In both countries, state bilingualism is legally enshrined. And it almost led to the death of these languages. Back in the colonial era, Irish was actually expelled from cities, schools and universities, and thrown back to the rural periphery. The number of its carriers has decreased to a critical level. And only literally dramatic actions to save it, administrative implementation in office work and thoughtful actions to raise the status and attractiveness of the Gaelic language made it possible to save it. And no one in Europe is making a fuss or shedding crocodile tears about the fate of the English language in Ireland. What language did the Irishman Bernard Shaw write in? And the Irish poet Thomas Moore - remember “Evening Bells” in Kozlovsky’s translation, which many consider a Russian folk song, was also forced to write in English. The literary heritage of Irish literature was forgotten, and only literary scholars and linguists knew about it.

In neighboring Belarus they grabbed their heads several years ago. A high-ranking official in Minsk lamented in a conversation with us that Russian had supplanted the first state language even in the west in Grodno, the last bastion of the Belarusian language. And they began to seriously address this problem in order to stop this destructive process. These are the results not only of the colonial past, but also of a misunderstood linguistic democracy. Why don’t we analyze the sad experience of our European neighbors in the linguistic sphere, near and far, and prevent such negative phenomena?

12. We do not believe that the language problem as such poses any threat to the independence of Ukraine. Ireland remains an independent country, despite language problems. Only the Irish, as it turns out, are not satisfied with such independence. The language and culture created on its basis are of fundamental importance and cannot be replaced by any economic achievements. We can agree with the authors of the material on this. An expression of this is the state status of the Ukrainian language.

It is much more dangerous that, under the banner of state bilingualism, the ideas discussed in the lemmas are being pushed from a neighboring country. Slavic brotherhood, interpreted exclusively for the political moment, Ukrainian as Russian distorted by the Polish language, etc. poison the consciousness, impose and introduce great power ideas of the supremacy of Russians and the status of younger brothers of Ukrainians and Belarusians. It’s strange, but for some reason the Slavic brotherhood and kinship of languages in Moscow and its adherents here has recently not extended to the Bulgarians, from whom we received the graphics of our languages, Serbs, Montenegrins and other Slavic peoples. They prefer not to remember the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenians, Macedonians, and Lusatians, who seem to be not Slavs at all. Where does this selectivity come from? All because of the same political expediency. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland joined NATO, which means they are no longer our brothers. When they were part of the Warsaw Pact, then they were such. Katyn, Mednoye, Starobelsk don’t count. In the rush of brotherly feelings they preferred not to mention them.

And in conclusion, two comments. The authors of the material consider it unprecedented in history for a minority to impose its own language on the majority. It is in vain that they think that this has never happened in history and does not happen. Montenegro is such a modern example. Austria-Hungary is in the past. In that empire, the German-speaking population was always in the minority, but the official language was German. And only from the second half of the 19th century. in Hungary - Hungarian. At the same time, in the Czech Republic it completely replaced the Czech language. Prague was an entirely German-speaking city. The society “Matitsa”, where “Prosvita” played a similar role, had to revive the native language. They got down to business so zealously that internationalism words, for example theater, were replaced by the Old Slavonic word dyvadlo, and music by the word gudba. Nevertheless, despite all the deviations and excesses, the language was preserved. But there was so much noise around the fact that it is impossible to join the world culture in the language of the hillbilly and there is no way to do without German. It’s okay, they join freely, we would have such problems. And the example of our close relatives is well worth using. By the way, Ukrainian has the same number of word matches with Czech, Slovak and Russian languages - 61%. Based on this parameter, it is not clear who we are closer to. For Belarusians - for sure, there are about 80% matches with their language.

The Russian language in Ukraine, like any other language of the peoples living in our country, needs support. Just not in the administrative and bureaucratic one, but in the real one. Why doesn’t printing have the same benefits in our country as in neighboring countries? Publishing a Ukrainian book in any language is a problem and commercially unprofitable. We need our own Russian literature, and not just that brought from a neighboring country. No, we are not talking about its great examples from Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev to Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Every cultured person should read them, either in the original or in translation. But after all, during the period of the “Rozstrilian Revolution”, our own Ukrainian Russian, German and other languages literature began to take shape. Our Ukrainian writers wrote in these and other languages until they ended up in the basements of the NKVD.

And then we will take a step towards the harmonious functioning of the languages of the peoples of Ukraine, towards the achievement of European values. Without quotes.

Yuri RAIKHEL