The "Galician language", spoken in western Ukraine, is different from Ukrainian, but the authorities resort to intimidation and blackmail to prevent specialists from revealing the existence of this language. The narrative appears in the Russian state media in the context of a string of analyzes on Russophobia in Ukraine and Kiev's attempts to "privatize the Russian language."
NEWS: “There is in Ukraine a language with no official status, but which is widely used: the "Galician language", spoken by the inhabitants of the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions. Two processes are taking place at the same time: a growing Russophobia towards the "Russian aggressor" and the attempts to privatize the Russian language, calling it a "Russian language of Ukraine".
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Any attempt to announce the existence of a "Galician language" has been roughly blocked (but not as harshly as in the case of the "pro-Russian separatists") by the Ukrainian secret services.
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After Galician appeared among the languages in the menu of the social network "VKontakte", representatives of intelligence services paid a visit to the volunteers from Ternopil who translated the elements of this social interaction network.
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If Ukraine maintains its independence and joins the EU, then the "Galician language" will be used for domestic use, as a linguistic relic, based on which folklore will be collected, etc.
If the Ukrainian state and language are not preserved […], Galician will assert itself as a true language ... ”
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine is linguistically divided 2. Ukraine's official policy is based on Russophobia 3. Ukraine risks disappearing as a state, and other regional languages could appear instead of Ukrainian 4. Kiev does not recognize the existence of the "Galician language", specialists and volunteers are being intimidated to hide the difference between the Galician spoken in western Ukraine and the Ukrainian language.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: In the context of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of the Donbass conflict, Ukraine has substantially changed its language legislation in order to strengthen the role and status of the Ukrainian language as a state language. Kiev is trying to minimize the influence of the Russian information space on Ukrainian society and to bring about an urgent transition of services, the press and the education system into the Ukrainian language.
A number of regional and local councils have been forced to refuse the use of Russian and other languages of national minorities, following the annulment of their regional language status by declaring the legislation unconstitutional during the term of the Russian fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych. These initiatives are criticized by Russian politicians, but also by the Russian state media, which often spread narratives about Ukraine’s Russophobia, fueled by the West. However, Kiev's language policies have been criticized in some EU member states, especially Hungary, for their impact on minorities.
PURPOSE: The purpose of these narratives is to prove to Russian-speaking readers in the former Soviet space that Ukraine is linguistically divided, and the main argument used by Ukrainian politicians about Ukrainian as a weapon against Russian aggression is false: people in Western Ukraine purportedly speak another language, called Galician. Moreover, another Russian meta-narrative is reactivated, "Ukraine - a false state", and the future existence of the Ukrainian state is questioned in order to discredit the actions by which Kiev is trying to ensure its security.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The Ukrainian language is composed of several idioms and dialects. One of them is Galician, used in the western regions of Ukraine. The Russian state media, especially Ukraina.ru, which belongs to the Russia 24 media group, is trying to cause an artificial division of Ukrainian society into Ukrainian and Galician speakers.According to the "Ukrainian Language Map", published by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the Galician dialect belongs to the southwestern group of Ukrainian idioms, so the academic community has never even approached the existence of a "Galician language".The analyzed narratives are very similar to those regarding the existence of a “Moldovan language” separate from the Romanian language. The narratives are mostly distributed in the Republic of Moldova. As in the case of the "Moldovan language", the existence of the "Galician language" is demonstrated on the basis of falsified historical arguments. The difference is the existence for 30 years of a state called the Republic of Moldova and a civic Moldovan people that formed the new independent state. Moreover, for two centuries, both the Russian Empire and the USSR promoted disinformation narratives about the “Moldovan nation” and the “Moldovan language”, different from Romanian, which is not the case with the “Galician language”, which seems to be a newer invention in the arsenal of Russia's hybrid army.Regardless of the immediate social impact of these narratives, they can still create problems within Ukrainian society, including by sowing distrust in the future existence of the Ukrainian state and language. For these reasons, Ukraine should reconsider its official position on the artificial languages created by totalitarian regimes. However, Kiev officially recognizes the existence on its territory of an important community of Moldovans, continuing the practice of dividing the Romanian-speaking community. Overcoming this internal split of Ukraine (continuing neo-Soviet practices vs. fighting the Russian world) could be crucial in terms of the ability to ensure an effective protection from Moscow's hybrid attacks.
