- Official Post
In der englischen Ausgabe der UT gibt es einen sehr interessanten Artikel zu der Frage, wie es gelingt, Kinder in vorwiegend russophonen Gebieten ukrainischsprachig zu erziehen: How to Bring Up a Ukrainian-Speaking Child in a Russian-speaking or bilingual environment. Der Artikel beleuchtet eine ganze Reihe von Aspekten, ich greife mir nur mal einen Absatz als Beispiel heraus:
QuoteWhen Olha’s and Volodymyr’s kids went to a Ukrainian-language kindergarten in Kryvyi Rih, most of their friends spoke Russian. Although the teachers spoke Ukrainian in classes, they switched to Russian or surzhyk during breaks. “We heard our son and daughter use Russian words from time to time,” Volodymyr says. “Later we noticed our kids switched to Russian while talking to the kids they played with in the street. Of course, we don’t ban our kids from doing that. Instead, we ask them why they do it. We tell them that we always speak Ukrainian to Russian-speaking people and never switch to their language. So, why do they switch to Russian with other kids? ‘He doesn’t understand everything’ or ‘He told me he didn’t like Ukrainian’ our kids reply. This creates a barrier as most kids speak Russian and Ukrainian-speaking children don’t feel comfortable standing out of the crowd.”
Volodymyr Honchar believes children should not be enclosed in one language only and blocked from all others. Instead, he is trying to give them enough arguments in favour of Ukrainian. The decision is theirs though. “We try to not be too hard on them,” Olha explains. “Most grown-ups brought up in Ukrainian-speaking families who later switch to Russian were forced to speak Ukrainian by their parents, or their parents told them one thing and did the opposite themselves.”