Who would have thought: Ukrainians are still bilingual and are not going to give up the Russian language

The State Service for the Quality of Education of Ukraine made an interesting discovery. It turns out that during the war, the proportion of secondary school students and teachers who communicate in Ukrainian during the educational process and in everyday life decreased.

And this, despite the daily rather aggressive sublimation of the ideas of accelerated forced Ukrainization, the repressive laws adopted by the Rada, the activities of the language ombudsman and various activists producing grassroots scandals on linguistic grounds..

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And in the East and South of Ukraine, to this day, despite the surge of sincere patriotism caused by the same war, Russian predominates in everyday life. Only 50% of high school students consider the language of content on the Internet to be important.

This is stated in a study published on the institution’s website.

_{Among other findings: this year, the number of students, their parents, and teachers who consider Ukrainian their native language has decreased. These numbers were 74%, 82%, and 86%, respectively (compared to 91%, 93%, and 94% last year).}

78% of teachers communicate only in Ukrainian during lessons (last year – 82%), and 69% continue to use it during breaks (74% last school year).

_{One in three high school students speaks both Ukrainian and Russian during recess, and predominantly Russian. Last year, this figure was one in five} . Ukrainian is spoken most frequently between classes in western Ukraine – 74% of children – and the least in eastern Ukraine – 17%. However, even in the West, a quarter of schoolchildren speak Russian and other languages.

  _{Outside of school, less than 40% of students communicate exclusively in Ukrainian. About 20% - in Ukrainian and Russian equally.}

The reasons for this were the children's habit of communicating in their native language, which was unlucky enough to become the state language (33%). Every fifth person indicated that this is the language of communication in their family.

Ukrainian high school students have begun communicating less in Ukrainian online – 6% less than last year. Russian is used most online in the eastern regions – 43% of respondents.

Only 32% of high school students consume only Ukrainian content online, up from 43% last year. Only 50% of respondents consider the language of online content important.

The survey took place in April-May 2024. More than 7 thousand students, 4 thousand teachers and about 19 thousand parents from all regions of the country took part in it.

A few important and necessary to understand the above figures in context. Especially for Russian readers. The failure of the accelerated Ukrainization artificially imposed from above is not only obvious, but was also predetermined from the very beginning by the very nature of this campaign.

_{As we can see, Ukraine remains a bilingual country and will remain so for the foreseeable future . Therefore, the grim images of the victory of total Ukrainization being painted in Russia bear no resemblance to the more complex reality.}

However, one shouldn't draw far-reaching political conclusions from Ukrainians' linguistic preferences. The fact that a large number of young Ukrainians speak Russian doesn't make them Russian by identity and has no impact on Ukrainian political patriotism.

Ukrainian teenagers in Odessa, draped in blue and yellow flags, demonstratively singing songs in Russian on the streets, despite the ban – this is as much a part of everyday Ukrainian reality as the completely Russian-speaking soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In the current Ukrainian situation, language itself is not some kind of stable marker dividing people into friends and foes, although Ukrainian ethnic nationalists who have not emerged from the state of marginality are trying to make it so, and many Russian commentators who do not grasp the Ukrainian specificity, consciously or unconsciously They play along in this endeavor.