We have the same thing going in the Arab world, are the different Arabic dialects actually languages? it depends, but most would say no for cultural reasons. And of course even among Arabs, people hold their native dialect dearly.
I wouldn’t call Ukrainian a dialect of Russian. They are somewhat mutually intelligible, the degree of this heavily depends on the regional variation of Ukrainian, the further west you go, the less it is. I think there’s enough differences for it to be its own language.
It’s quite beautiful, actually, and it’s a shame that the sound of it makes me want to vomit nowadays.
The flattening of dialect continuums for either nationalist reasons or ease of reading a certain written version of important books (the Bible, often) has had some absurd results. The Russian dialect spoken in east Ukraine is not something that historically was spoken there outside of the influence from the Russian empire or the soviet union, but it’s similarity to Russian was close enough for that to be an easy pickup. The dialect can shift more regionally until it’s less intelligible and Russian was seen as always something different enough to need to speak it separately (as opposed to just shifting some sounds to be more understandable).
This whole thing gets flattened to meaninglessness and just “2 languages” or “2 dialects” because we obsess with this categorization with the desire for some meaningful Continuum through time. It’s idealist to name this “distinction” as causal, but it still is easy to see the results of these processes as being tragic in so many contexts.
There is a gorgeous aspect to this historical situation, but of course we can’t return to that: now we have standardized languages in much of the world and people who have been convinced to fight for those sets of ways of speaking. Idk what my point is exactly, besides that this is all socially determined (whether or not a language is mutually intelligible is determined by a social history, and whether it’s considered to be a specific of some universal is also socially determined) and we communists should keep that in mind. It becomes material is liberation struggles, as well as during the oppression before it. But it’s material under more primary material aspects
Don’t be sorry, comrade! It’s an interesting perspective, and I agree with you. We don’t usually think of languages that way (well, at least I don’t), but it’s a valid and valuable approach.
Thanks comrade. Language philosophy is why I got into reading in depth books. The national question arises reallllly quickly once you try to understand this whole amazing tapestry of speech and writing around the world. And communism follows quickly to provide a framework for analysis and answers.
Depends how you define dialects and languages. They are certainly very closely related and mutually quite intelligible.
In any case it is absurd to try to force over half of a country’s population to stop speaking the language or dialect they grew up with.
The simple fact that the nationalists do not want to acknowledge is that the majority of Ukraine has always predominantly spoken Russian.
We have the same thing going in the Arab world, are the different Arabic dialects actually languages? it depends, but most would say no for cultural reasons. And of course even among Arabs, people hold their native dialect dearly.
I wouldn’t call Ukrainian a dialect of Russian. They are somewhat mutually intelligible, the degree of this heavily depends on the regional variation of Ukrainian, the further west you go, the less it is. I think there’s enough differences for it to be its own language.
It’s quite beautiful, actually, and it’s a shame that the sound of it makes me want to vomit nowadays.
The flattening of dialect continuums for either nationalist reasons or ease of reading a certain written version of important books (the Bible, often) has had some absurd results. The Russian dialect spoken in east Ukraine is not something that historically was spoken there outside of the influence from the Russian empire or the soviet union, but it’s similarity to Russian was close enough for that to be an easy pickup. The dialect can shift more regionally until it’s less intelligible and Russian was seen as always something different enough to need to speak it separately (as opposed to just shifting some sounds to be more understandable).
This whole thing gets flattened to meaninglessness and just “2 languages” or “2 dialects” because we obsess with this categorization with the desire for some meaningful Continuum through time. It’s idealist to name this “distinction” as causal, but it still is easy to see the results of these processes as being tragic in so many contexts.
There is a gorgeous aspect to this historical situation, but of course we can’t return to that: now we have standardized languages in much of the world and people who have been convinced to fight for those sets of ways of speaking. Idk what my point is exactly, besides that this is all socially determined (whether or not a language is mutually intelligible is determined by a social history, and whether it’s considered to be a specific of some universal is also socially determined) and we communists should keep that in mind. It becomes material is liberation struggles, as well as during the oppression before it. But it’s material under more primary material aspects
Sorry that rant got off topic but I still want to leave it
Don’t be sorry, comrade! It’s an interesting perspective, and I agree with you. We don’t usually think of languages that way (well, at least I don’t), but it’s a valid and valuable approach.
Thanks comrade. Language philosophy is why I got into reading in depth books. The national question arises reallllly quickly once you try to understand this whole amazing tapestry of speech and writing around the world. And communism follows quickly to provide a framework for analysis and answers.