Dear Ms. Ivshyna,
I have long wanted to express my gratitude to you on behalf of the House of Scholars and its administration.
Daryna Halatchenko’s publication in The Day (Issue No. 32, Oct. 21, 2008) about the Salon of Aristocratic Ukrainian Speech has become widely known. The Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York has welcomed the very idea and the launch of the Salon. The TV channel UT-1 has also expressed interest. The Institute of the Ukrainian Language has insisted on joining in and created a program involving our Salon. All of this is scheduled to appear in a TV broadcast on November 21.
TV personnel acknowledge that our comments on the quality of Ukrainian speech are valid, but they say that all of them speak the ”universally understandable” [Russian] language in everyday conversations (and when the microphones are turned off). There is nothing that can be done about it, and I believe that they do not have a desire to do anything. As a result, we are witnessing the slow death of our language.
You must have noticed that diaspora Ukrainians have a distinctly non-Ukrainian pronunciation. This is because the school and the everyday milieu have shaped their articulatory habits in line with English, Spanish, or other languages.
Again and again, we are exposed to Ukrainian through the lens of Russian and the way it is spoken in our media. In other words, we listen to Ukrainian being spoken as a foreign language. We have been accustomed to this since we were children, thus no longer noticing that we are surrounded by the aura of an invader’s language.
However, we, Ukrainians, definitely feel discomfort at the subconscious level, and we lose our identity for real.
These circumstances are ignored by those who are supposed to pay attention ex officio. Pure Ukrainian pronunciation still exists in some places and we need to seek it out and use it. Then we will hear the truly melodious Ukrainian language!
