By Walter Kish

One of the most contentious issues that Ukrainian organizations here in Canada have to deal with is language. One would naturally suppose that the working language for such organizations should be Ukrainian, and when they were formed such was the case. Several generations later however, things are not quite so clear cut. As most of you who read my editorials are well aware, the majority of Canadians who have Ukrainian ancestry speak little or no Ukrainian.

The dilemma thus for Ukrainian organizations is painful – do you stick to the mother tongue and write off this majority who are linguistically limited, or do you accommodate them and switch to using English or some bilingual mode of communication? This paper has obviously adopted the latter approach, and has in consequence been sharply criticized by some members of the Ukrainian community.

Whether this path is the correct one is certainly open to debate, however I do not propose to make it the subject of this column. Rather I would like to deal with the related issue of the availability of what I call USL (Ukrainian as a Second Language) courses, material and resources available to all those Canadian-born, middle-aged and somewhat assimilated Ukrainians. There are many who would dearly love to be able to learn and improve their Ukrainian language skills, but have no viable, practical options to do so.

To be sure, there are some excellent evening and Saturday morning Ukrainian schools (“Ridna Shkolas”), but these are geared for children and not adults. It would be hard on the ego if not the posterior, for someone my age to squeeze into your typical student desk/seat and try to keep up with all those bright, young teenagers! There are also evening language courses run by various universities, colleges and school boards, but these tend to be more academically oriented, focussed on grammatical rules and structures, and employing a formal, structured curriculum. What most linguistically lapsed middle and older age Ukrainian Canadians need are courses and materials with a conversational focus and plenty of opportunity for practice in an informal and non-intimidating atmosphere.

This is precisely where existing Ukrainian Canadian organizations can be of significant help in attracting and assisting all those second, third and fourth generation Canadian-born Ukrainians in re-discovering and learning the language of their ancestors. They could bring their expertise and resources to bear in creating relevant USL materials and then run informal weekly sessions for those with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Each session would revolve around a particular theme, such as eating out in a restaurant, going out on a date, applying for a job, etc. The focus would be on conversational usage with everyone encouraged and given an opportunity to practice. Vocabulary and grammar would be introduced in limited doses. Even the environment could be made informal and adaptable to the theme, with sessions being held in pubs, clubs, restaurants, rec rooms, libraries and other informal venues. The key would be to enable learning in a fun environment that would minimize an individual’s self-consciousness with his limited knowledge of Ukrainian and encourage and motivate them to learn and improve their language skills.

Once self-confidence and a working knowledge of conversational Ukrainian is attained, I am sure that many would require little encouragement to then proceed to enlist in the more formal, academic Ukrainian language courses currently being offered today by existing educational institutions.

The preservation of Ukrainian culture in Canada depends on our ability to preserve the Ukrainian language. We know that many Ukrainian Canadians have significant limitations in this area. It should therefore be only common sense that support for the language and language instruction should be one of the top priorities for all Ukrainian organizations.