Opting for Deutsch in Ukraine

by Alexander Motyl

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Ukrainians are voting with their tongues, and they appear to be voting for
Europe. In a little-noticed statistic just released by Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science, 52 percent of the country’s fifth-graders chose German as their second foreign language in the forthcoming school year. With another 14 percent of fifth-graders opting for French, 1.6 for Polish, and 1.2 for Spanish, non-Russian European
languages accounted for 69 percent of their choices, while Russian accounted for 23 percent -a ratio of three to one in favour of the former.

Since 92 percent of all grade-schoolers already study English as their first foreign language, it’s clear that a linguistic sea change is taking place in Ukraine.

Twenty-five years ago, before independence, the only Ukrainians with a
proficient knowledge of Western languages were those who studied them at
university or attended elite schools (or worked for the KGB), while all
Ukrainians had to be fluent in Russian. Unsurprisingly, their worldview was
largely defined by their relationship, whether positive or negative, with
Russian culture. Within a few years, it’s quite possible that the vast
majority of Ukraine’s young people will be conversant, and possibly fluent,
in English and German. Most of them will still speak Russian with varying
degrees of facility, but their civilizational and cultural choices will now
be a function of their encounter with and understanding of a different
world. 

Knowledge of English and German is no guarantee of liberalism and democracy, of course, but the ability to easily navigate among a multiplicity of cultures and countries can only enhance young people’s disdain for hierarchy, authoritarianism, intolerance, and provincialism. The effects
won’t be felt immediately, but, within 10 to 15 years, expect this cohort of
globally savvy Ukrainians to have very different values, norms, hopes, and
expectations from their still-Sovietized elders.

Knowledge of Western languages is also likely to have a far-reaching impact
on Ukrainian society. At present, about 70 percent of Ukrainian children
study in schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction. The
statistic conceals important regional variations. In western Ukraine, the
percentage is in the high 90s. In eastern and southern Ukraine, it’s
significantly smaller, with village schools being primarily in Ukrainian and
urban schools primarily in Russian. In Donetsk, for instance, 28 percent study in Ukrainian-language schools.

In Odesa, it’s 52 percent. In Luhansk, it’s only 13 percent.

Notwithstanding what the language of instruction is at school, the fact of
the matter is that, with print media, television, pop music, and cinema so
overwhelmingly Russian-Russia’s cultural products have completely saturated
the Ukrainian market, so much so that you’ll be hard-pressed to find a
Ukrainian-language publication at a newsstand anywhere in Ukraine-it’s
virtually impossible not to develop, by osmosis, a working knowledge of
street Russian.

Ukrainian parents know that. They know that their fifth-grade kids will
learn to speak some form of Russian anyway, even without trying. Acting as
perfectly rational agents out to “maximize” their children’s “utility,”
parents understand that knowledge of English and a second European language
such as German, French, Polish, or Spanish will give their children a leg up
over the kids who study Russian as a second foreign language. A
middle-school graduate able to converse in Ukrainian, English, German, and
street Russian will have far greater economic opportunities, whether at home
or abroad, than a student with literary Russian, English, and Ukrainian. The
former will be able to travel to and study in the West, work for Western
multinationals in Ukraine, or get a job in a Russian company. The latter may
be better qualified to teach Russian in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Odesa, but,
other things being equal, will be a less attractive job candidate than the
former in a rapidly globalizing world.

Expect the 23 percent of the parents who opted for Russian progressively to
recognize their mistake. If so, the drift toward Western European languages
should accelerate over time and street Russian will increasingly dominate
literary Russian. Will parents in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Odesa follow suit and enroll their children in schools that give them greater linguistic flexibility or will they stick to literary Russian? The rational choice would be to opt for linguistic flexibility.

Consider, then, what the overall result might be in, say, a decade. As young
Ukrainians become fluent in literary Ukrainian and street Russian as well as
proficient in English and some other major European language, their country
will finally be ready to join the world-while the tongue-tied Regionnaires
currently running the country will be left behind.