Orthography conference convened in Kyiv (02/15/98)

Orthography conference convened in Kyiv

by Larissa Onyshkevych

KYIV - The Conference on Ukrainian Orthography convened in Kyiv on December 12-13, 1997. It was organized by the National Committee on Orthography (Mykola Zhulynskyi, chairman) and the Shevchenko Scientific Society (Larissa Onyshkevych, executive vice-president) in collaboration with the Ukrainian Language Institute and the Ukrainian Language and Information Fund of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Ukrainian language specialists and other scholars from all over Ukraine were invited to attend; over 60 speakers represented all regions of Ukraine. Also present were two scholars from the U.S. (Assya Humesky and Dr. Onyshkevych) and one from Canada (Andrij Hornjatkevych).

Most of the participants voiced opinions that many rules should be changed in order to let the Ukrainian language be allowed to develop in accordance with the Ukrainian tradition and linguistic system, and that foreign words should be transliterated directly from source languages, rather than through an intermediary (as was required during the Soviet period).

Excessive reliance on the use of many foreign words, which were introduced into Ukrainian during the previous decades (and lately also a deluge of English words), was criticized; it was suggested that Ukrainian words be brought back and be given an opportunity to exist as synonyms.

However, at this time, some advised caution in the way that changes are introduced into Ukrainian orthography, and many suggested that dual rules be tolerated for a while. Prior to the conference, theses of the papers were published in a special 110-page booklet; the complete texts will be published in the spring.

The conference was convened in order to mark the 70th anniversary of the All-Ukrainian Conference on Orthography, held in Kharkiv in 1927, which resulted in a modern and unified set of rules of orthography and grammar for all Ukrainians. However, the Soviet government intervened with new rules in 1933, 1942, 1946 and 1960 in an attempt to bring the Ukrainian language closer to the Russian. Ukrainians in western Ukraine adhered to the Kharkiv orthography until 1946, and most Ukrainian publications in the Western diaspora still do.

The Kyiv meeting was an attempt to allow the Ukrainian language to develop according to its own traditional norms and provide a contemporary orthography for independent Ukraine and the diaspora.

The Kyiv conference was the second scholarly gathering in 1997 honoring the 70th anniversary of the Kharkiv event; the first one was held in June at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Proceedings of the Urbana conference have now been published by the Shevchenko Scientific Society of the U.S.; the 238-page publication (edited by Dr. Onyshkevych, Andriy Danylenko, Dr. Humesky, Dmytro Shtorhyn and Maria Zubrytska) is now available for $5 (plus shipping and handling).

Please call the society, (212) 254-5130, for more information.

| Home Page |