Young people are defying government efforts to discourage the use of Russian, a senior official says<\/p>\n
Ukrainian teenagers are defying government efforts to discourage the use of Russian, Ukraine\u2019s top language official has said.
\nSince the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine has passed several laws restricting the use of Russian in public, while politicians and activists have campaigned to completely phase the language out.
\nElena Ivanovskaya, appointed state language protection commissioner in July, said the widespread use of Russian among young people in major cities remains \u201ca serious problem.\u201d
\n\u201cRussian is now ubiquitous in teenage spaces, and [many youths] are not maintaining the level of language resilience they acquired in primary school or at home,\u201d Ivanovskaya told the news website Glavkom in an interview published Sunday. She attributed this preference to teenagers\u2019 desire to \u201cbreak rules and challenge their parents and teachings.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen a teacher speaks about the beauty and melody of the Ukrainian language, students feel compelled to do the opposite,\u201d she added, arguing that \u201cthe lack of critical thinking\u201d also draws young people to Russian-language content online.
\nIvanovskaya said her own daughter used to write in Russian on social media. \u201cI asked my daughter, \u2018Sofia, why are you doing this?\u2019 She replied, \u2018Mom, who will read me if everyone is a Russian speaker?\u2019 I told her she should become so interesting that people would read and discuss her in Ukrainian,\u201d she said.
\nMoscow has cited attacks on Ukraine\u2019s Russian-speaking minority as one of the key causes of the ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Young people are defying government efforts to discourage the use of Russian, a senior official says Ukrainian teenagers are defying government efforts to discourage the use of Russian, Ukraine\u2019s top…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","category-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t