Changes in the attitude towards the state language of the representatives of the national minorities of the Dniester and Danube rivers

Maryna Deliusto, Candidate of Sciences in Philology, ssociate Professor, Departmant of the Ukrainian Language and Literature
Izmail State University of Humanities
12 Repin St., Izmail 68601, Ukraine

E-mail: mdelyusto@ukr.net
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9162-4131

Heading: Articles
Language: Ukrainian

Abstract: The article deals the results of the analysis of language biographies of speakers of the Gagauz and Albanian languages who live in the south of Odesa region, between the Dniester and Danube rivers, as well as observations of the language situation in this region after February 24, 2022. A comparison of the obtained results with the results of previous studies carried out at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries showed that the language and educational policy of Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2014, especially the active phase of the Russian aggression, caused a language shift associated with a change in attitude to the Ukrainian language as a state language, namely, as a language of international communication. The Russian
language, losing its positive evaluative qualities in the polylingual South Bessarabian region, as the language of the aggressor, is no longer perceived positively either from an aesthetic point of view or in terms of prestige. Instead, the Ukrainian language acquires a positive evaluation based on these signs that, in addition to the laws aimed at protecting the Ukrainian language as a state language (Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Education” of 2017, the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” of 2019), causes the emergence of a real need for representatives of national minorities to have a highquality knowledge of the state language in order to use it unhindered as a means of interethnic communication.

Keywords: attitude to languages, language behavior, national minority languages, Gagauz language, Albanian language, Ukrainian language, language of international communication.

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