Authors

Lesia Myklash¹;  ¹ Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine

Discussion

The report is focused on the current Ukrainian language usage due to the Russian aggression. The Ukrainian language has undergone quantitative and qualitative changes caused by the conduct of hostilities of Russia’s armed forces. As quantitative dimension, it should be outlined that: Firstly, the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine massively shifted to using the Ukrainian language (even staying abroad) in order to demonstrate their Ukrainian national identity and to have nothing to do with ‘ruskiy mir’. Secondly, military vocabulary items became widely spread in everyday communication (cute names for pets and even babies as ‘Bayraktar’ and ‘Javelin’/‘Javelina’, ‘Javelin’ bread label). Thirdly, some Ukrainian words have appeared as passwords which are inherent only to the Ukrainian pronunciation and vocabulary to distinguish Ukrainian insider from Russian comer (‘palianytsa’ , ‘nisenitnytsia’  etc). As long as qualitative dimension, it can be mentioned the fact that women military service in the Ukrainian army is a new social phenomenon that needs a set of specific language nominations. In addition to the male word ‘pobratym’ as co-brethren, one’s male colleague in the same military craft, the word ‘posestra’ for a female colleague gets into usage. Furthermore, there is a growing demand for learning and teaching military disciplines in English, especially within Military Service Institutions as Ukraine joining NATO. In fact, Russian lexical units were completely substituted, in particular in the south and east of Ukraine (in Kyiv city, ‘Lev Tolstoy Metro Station’ was changed into ‘Ukrainian Heroes Square’. ‘Moscow avenue’ has been renamed as ‘Bandera avenue’ though it used to be called ‘Troitskyy way’. As a result of a targeted marketing strategy, all food products named as Russian were replaced with Ukrainian labels (‘Moscow sausage’ and ‘Russian cheese’ became ‘Classic’ ones). Likewise, historically originated words such as ‘moskovia’, ‘moskovyty’ have become widely used to denote the Russian state and the Russians as former inhabitants of the area around the Moscow river settlements. Similarly, neologisms as ‘rusnia’ and ‘russists’ to name the Russians appeared; those who support ‘ruskiy mir’ are nominated as ‘vatnyky’ and ‘separy’; militants as hostile people are called ‘opolchentsi’/‘opolchennia’ with negative connotation acquired. According to the current Ukrainian spelling for internal use, ‘росія’ (Russia) and ‘білорусія’ (Belarus) should be written with a lowercase letter. And finally, the use of abusive (obscene) vocabulary shows a strong protest against the Russian hostilities (‘Ruskiy korabl idi …’  / Russian warship, fuck off). All things considered, the above mentioned points reveal a clear language tendency of the Ukrainians towards affiliation with the Ukrainian cultural and national identity, further national consolidation against outside enemies to defend Ukraine.