Scholarly symposium hears proposals for revision of Ukrainian orthography
by Dr. Swiatoslaw Trofimenko
NEW YORK - At a symposium hosted here by the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) on December 10, 1999, Dr. Vasyl V. Nimchuk, director of the Institute of Ukrainian Language at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, presented to diaspora linguists and scholars the most recent proposal for the revision of Ukrainian orthography. This lengthy and detailed proposal was based on work performed by the State Orthography Commission over the course of many years.
It is the first major attempt to reverse the process begun by the Soviet government in the 1930s of systematically altering the Ukrainian alphabet, grammar, vocabulary and orthography in order to forcibly bring the Ukrainian language as close to the Russian language as possible.
The symposium was organized and chaired by Dr. Larissa Onyshkevych. Its participants were Academician Prof. George Shevelov of the United States and Prof. Andriy Horniatkevych of Canada, the only two diaspora members of the Orthography Commission and Profs. Asya Humesky, Myroslava Znayenko, Natalia Pazuniak, Martha Trofimenko, Swiatoslaw Trofimenko, Andriy Danylenko (Kharkiv University), and Academician Oleh Romaniv.
The symposium was a veritable working session. Based on Dr. Horniatkevych's lengthy list of suggestions for changes to be made in the proposed orthography, and after a detailed discussion of specific issues, a working document was put together for submission to the Orthography Commission in Ukraine. Both the the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) have called on the the commission to take their comments into consideration, so that the American diaspora could accept a new orthography based on typical Ukrainian liguistic characteristics.
On December 11, 1999, Dr. Nimchuk met with editors and journalists of the Ukrainian-language press in the United States. He answered many questions and clarified some thorny issues of Ukrainian orthography.
Two days later Dr. Nimchuk met with a group of well-established scientists and technologists, discussing the problems encountered in scientific and technical terminology.
He also gave public lectures at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York and at the society's branch in Philadelphia. Lively exchanges with the audience followed both presentations.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 13, 2000, No. 7, Vol. LXVIII
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