Ok, this subject is very personal for me so I am very subjective when it comes to it...
In August of this year, the ruling party of Ukraine "Party of Regions" adopted a law about the languages of minorities in Ukraine (mainly Russian minority). This event included deputies fighting in the parliament, people protesting and going on hunger strikes..The law pronounces that the official language of the country is still Ukrainian, however if a certain minority's population is more than 10% in a certain region of the country, this minority can vote and have the language of the region to be changed to the language of minority: which means education in schools, government documents, TVs, newspapers, etc. For those who don't know, Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe, a former republic of USSR, it borders with Russia in the East, Belarus in the North, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova in the West, and Turkey across the Black Sea in the South. Historically, the regions in the East had always more Russian people. Following the adoption of the "language law", several regions of Ukraine have adopted Russian as their "regional" language. What is interesting is that when Hungarian minorities in Western Ukraine tried to get their language to become "regional", they were denied that right, even though the law concerns all the minorities living in Ukraine.
Links with more detailed info on this subject:
No comments:
Post a Comment