CONFERENCE ON THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE HELD IN KYIV

[Hanya Krill]

CONFERENCE ON THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE HELD IN KYIV

   On December 12-13 1997 a Conference on Ukrainian
Orthography was convened in Kyiv.  It was organized by the
National Committee on Orthography (Mykola Zhulynskyi, head)
and the Shevchenko Scientific Society (Larissa Onyshkevych,
executive vice president) in collaboration with the
Ukrainian Language Institute  and the Ukrainian Language and
Information Fund of the National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine. Ukrainian language specialists and other scholars
from all over Ukraine were invited to attend;  over sixty
speakers represented all regions of Ukraine.  Also present
were two scholars from the US. (Assya Humesky and L.
Onyshkevych) and one from Canada (Andrij Hornjatkevyc).

Most of the participants voiced opinions that many rules
should be changed in order to let the Ukrainian language be
allowed to develop in accordance with Ukrainian tradition
and linguistic system, and that foreign words should be
transliterated directly from source languages, rather than
through an intermediary (as was required during the Soviet
years). Too heavy reliance on the use of many foreign words
which were introduced into Ukrainian during the previous
decades (and lately also a deluge of English words) was
criticized;  it was suggested that Ukrainian words be
brought back and be given an opportunity to exist as
synonyms.  However, at this time, some advised caution in
the way that changes are introduced into Ukrainian
orthography, and many suggested that dual rules be tolerated
for a while.

Prior to the conference theses of the papers
were published  in a special booklet (110 pp.);  the
complete texts will be published in the spring. The
Conference was convened in order to mark the 70th
anniversary of the All-Ukrainian Conference on Orthography,
held in Kharkiv in 1927, which resulted in a modern and
unified set of rules on orthography and grammar for all
Ukrainians. However, the Soviet government intervened with
new rules in 1933, 1942, 1946 and 1960 in an attempt to
bring Ukrainian language closer to the Russian. Ukrainians
in Western Ukraine adhered to the Kharkiv orthography until
1946, and most Ukrainian publications in the western
diaspora still do until today.

The Kyiv meeting was an attempt to  allow the Ukrainian
language to develop according to its own traditional norms
and provide a contemporary orthography for the independent
Ukraine and the diaspora. The Kyiv conference was the second
scholarly gathering in 1997 honoring the 70th anniversary of
the Kharkiv event;  the first one was held in June at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Proceedings of  the Urbana conference have now been published
by the Shevchenko Scientific Society of the U.S.;  the 238 pp.
publication (edited by Larissa Onyshkevych, Andriy
Danylenko, Assya Humesky, Dmytro Shtorhyn and Maria
Zubrytska) is now available at the Society for $5.00 (plus
s/h).