УКРАЇНСЬКА МОВА: ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ МАЙБУТНЬОГО ЧИ МАЙБУТНЄ БЕЗ ПЕРСПЕКТИВ? 1

Abstract

The article contains an attempt to predict the future of the Ukrainian language based on such parameters as demographic power, economic power and communicative power. Due to low birth rate, early mortality, and high emigration, Ukraine suffers from depopulation for the last 30 years. According to the UN forecast, by the end of the XXI century the population of the country will be reduced by half (up to 24 million). Perhaps the only way to avoid a demographic catastrophe is the growth of immigration, in particular from the countries of the Middle East and Africa. In order for immigrants and their descendants to integrate naturally into the Ukrainian-speaking society, immigration should not be violent, but gradual, moderate, ethnically diverse (without a marked predominance of any ethnic group). An efficient economy is an essential factor of language sustainability. Therefore, the future of the language must be ensured not only legislatively and demographically, but also economically. Due to the backwardness of the national economy (agricultural and raw-material specialization, low labor productivity, lack of investment and modern technologies), the economic power of the Ukrainian language remains minimal. The Ukrainian language will be fully established with the development of an innovative, high-tech, competitive economy, when Ukraine becomes a profitable and equal partner of the world’s leading states. The strong position of the language also depends on its communicative power. This parameter implies not only the presence of language in all important areas of communication, but also the availability of cultural and intellectual products created in it — significant in quantity, high in quality. This will increase the prestige of the Ukrainian language and create conditions for it to achieve communicative parity with the world’s leading languages. The general prognosis for the Ukrainian language is favorable, provided that the active cultural activity of its speakers and the comprehensive success of the Ukrainian state.