Letter to the editor: Ukrainian language necessary (12/28/80)

Letter to the editor

Ukrainian language necessary

Dear Editor:

With reference to Dr. Paul Magocsi's inaugural lecture of the Ukrainian Studies Chair at the University of Toronto (Ukrainian Weekly, November 30), it is self-evident that he does not have to justify the existence of Ukrainian studies in Canada (they're not exactly a strange phenomenon here); he does paradoxically, however, justify the non-usage of the Ukrainian language in lectures in the Toronto Ukrainian Studies Chair.

Dr. Magocsi feels that "Ukrainian will survive, regardless of whether university lectures are presented in that language". That is a highly debatable question considering the language policy of the Soviet Union and the rate of assimilation in the diaspora. His remarks are all the more ironic in Canada in view of the opportunities and all the strivings being made for the preservation of minority languages be they Inuit, Cree, French, etc. in this country.

A Ukrainian Studies Chair (be it in Toronto or Cambridge, Mass.) without the incorporation of at least some form of Ukrainian language lecturing has got to be some kind of aberration.

Maria Boyko
Winnipeg, Man.

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