Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Canada has the third largest population of Ukrainian speakers after Ukraine and
Russia. In 2011 Ukrainians made up Canada’s 9th largest ethnic group. However, only
a small fraction (11.5% in 2011) actively use the Ukrainian language. Because
Ukrainians make up such a large percent of the Canadian population and have been
living there since the late 1800s/early 1900s, the evolution over time of the Ukrainian
language in Canada can be used to model how languages in general evolve when they
existed in Canada almost as long as Ukrainians have lived there, and thus from the
effect of Ukrainian schools on the use of the Ukrainian language in Canada it may be
possible to ascertain possible effects of other language schools on the prevalence and
development of their languages. The ultimate goal of language schools in Canada and
culture. By looking at the evolution of the Ukrainian language in Canada and the history
the Russian language in Canada, and predict whether it will be ultimately possible to
170,000 people, took place between 1891 and the beginning of World War One. The
majority of these Ukrainians came from Western Ukraine, specifically the provinces of
Galicia and Bukovina, which was at the time under Austrian rule. These immigrants
settled almost exclusively in the Prairie region, as a result of the Canadian policy of
granting free “homesteads” to settlers in the Prairies. This first wave established
Ukrainians, arrived between the two world wars. The third wave began in 1946 and
tapered out after 1961, although immigration continues today at a reduced rate. These
three waves of immigration have influenced the way Ukrainian is spoken in Canada.
During the first wave of immigration, a new dialect of Ukrainian arose called
Canadian Ukrainian (sometimes called Ukish). Canadian Ukrainian descended from the
Ukrainian spoken by immigrants in the first wave, which was the variant of Ukrainian
spoken in Western Ukraine rather than the more standard variant from the urban
centers. Canadian Ukrainian has been influenced less by Russian than what is now
standard Ukrainian, and has been influenced more by English. Concepts invented after
the immigration into Canada are expressed as English words adapted to Ukrainian
have shifted to be more like the phonology and sentence structure of English. Although
Canadian Ukrainian is still spoken and is the dialect taught in most Ukrainian language
programs in Canada. Some studies have shown that the difference between dialects is
great enough to create a language barrier between established Canadian Ukrainians
who have lived in Canada for multiple generations and new Ukrainian immigrants. One
recent Ukrainian immigrant to Canada said that the Ukrainians who had already been
living there for several generations “were not speaking the same language […] which
[was] weird because it is the same language, but you have this era in between.4” Given
that Canadian dialects of many languages have been documented (most famously,
Canadian French is significantly different from French in France even though French is
language may evolve away from the standard despite successful preservation
programs.
Shortly after the arrival of the first wave a number of Ukrainian schools were
“prosvitas”, or local reading rooms. Bilingual public schools were founded in 1905 in
Manitoba and Saskatchewan as was the Ruthenian Training School for Ukrainian
Teachers in Winnipeg. In Manitoba the Ukrainian settlers founded and attended many
abolished in 1916 despite protests from the Ukrainian community. Ukrainian schools
were banned in other provinces around the same time due to wartime paranoia and
nationalism, and the pressure for Ukrainians to assimilate into Canadian society
became stronger. After this, Ukrainian education was offered unofficially in community-
run schools in an effort to preserve Ukrainian cultural identity. The bilingual policy in
Manitoba was not reinstated until 1980, at which point English-Ukrainian school
Ukraine and a desire to protect the Ukrainian language from obsolescence, from the
1950s to the 1980s the Ukrainian communities in Canada arranged for Ukrainian to
one of the highest percentages of mother tongue speakers among the ethnic
communities in Canada and were mostly successful in preserving their culture3. Only in
the past few decades has Ukrainian language use declined in Canada.
Census records has shown that, while the numbers of Ukrainian speakers were
relatively stable until the early 20th century, in the last 60 years the number of active
speakers has fallen dramatically. In 1951 there were 352,000 Ukrainian speakers in
Canada, and Ukrainian was the most spoken language other than English and French.
In 1971 there were 309,000. In 1991 there were 175,000, and in 2006 there were
135,000 speakers of Ukrainian in Canada with Ukrainian no longer in the top ten most
spoken languages in Canada. Even more telling is that the numbers of Ukrainian
immigrants to Canada who speak Ukrainian at home is also falling. In 1971, 145,000 out
of 309,000 speakers actually used their language at home. In 1991 that number was
down to less than 80,000. Language spoken at home is especially important because
and passed onto the next generation. While Ukrainian schools are now legal in Canada,
they are becoming increasingly less popular. Most language programs are for
elementary schoolers only, and university courses have seen a decline in student
registration. Between both home and school language use declining, it appears that
the decline in language use is that language ability is ceasing to be an ethnic identifier 4.
decades other forms of demonstrating one’s culture, such as folk dancing, traditional
weddings, and traditional art have become acceptable substitutes for language.
Ukrainian folk dancing is now more popular in Canada than in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians
living in Canada decorate their homes with paintings made by recognizable Ukrainian
artists. One study stated that the “third dimension of ethnic identity—‘doing,’ which
etc.— is the most widely used indicator of ethnic identity”4. This preference of cultural
activities over language proficiency has created a divide between “diasporic” Ukrainian
Canadians and recent immigrants from Ukraine, many of whom doubt the authenticity of
the Canadian Ukrainians’ claim to their heritage. This divide is exacerbated by the fact
that many Ukrainians from Ukraine speak both Russian and Ukrainian, while Ukrainians
Ukrainian music, while many Ukrainians in or recently from Ukraine find it ““quotidian,”
influenced by Soviet heritage, and in the “shadow” of the Russian music industry and
Soviet legacy”. In this way not only is the Ukrainian language in Canada diverging from
Ukrainian language in Ukraine, but the Canadian Ukrainian community is diverging from
the most powerful influence on language use. Language use even began declining
around the same time Ukrainian school programs became common, although there is
no evidence showing a causal relationship between those two things. While use of
to use the language regularly, is a more important factor in determining whether the
language will be taken on by the next generation. Motivation to use the language seems
to stem from wanting to affirm one’s ethnic identity, and now as it becomes possible to
do that through other activities, language use is declining. Furthermore the Ukrainian
language in Canada has been heavily influenced by English to the extent that a
language barrier sometimes arises between Ukrainians in Canada and Ukrainians from
Canadian Ukrainians to use Ukrainian words in English sentences (or vice versa) rather
than speaking only Ukrainian. All this suggests that the dialect will continue to diverge
from standard Ukrainian under the influence of English, which will hasten its
replacement with English in the community. While the Ukrainian community in Canada
remains active and still includes tens of thousands of enthusiastic members who take
part in many folk traditions and keep their cultural heritage alive, the use of the
Ukrainian language in Canada is declining and will likely die out altogether in the next
century unless some new factor comes into play which makes language proficiency
necessary to the community again. From this we can extrapolate that in order to
maintain any active language in Canada, not only must there be language school
programs, but the heritage must be important to the ethnic community and language
RUSSIAN SUMMARY:
двадцатого века. Из-за того, что их население такое большое и оно приехал в
уменьшилось. Некоторые учёные считают, что это потому, что раньше, Украинцы
самых важных факторов для поддержании языка в чужом стране, это то, что
1
Makuch, Andrij. "THE HISTORY OF UKRAINIANS IN CANADA." Toronto Ukrainian Genealogy Group.
N.p., n.d. Web.
2
Duravetz, George. "First Wave of Ukrainian Immigration to Canada, 1891-1914." Virtualmuseum. Taras
Shevchenko Museum, n.d. Web.
3
Hudyma, Khrystyna. "Ukrainian Language in Canada: From Prosperity to Extinction?" University of
Saskatchewan, 2011. Web.
4
Lynn, Susanna. "Ethnic Identity Discourses of Recent Ukrainian Immigrants to Canada: Interactions between
New Ukrainian-Canadians and the Established Ukrainian-Canadian Diaspora." University of Alberta, 2014.
Web.