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18 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 2014 non-academic and non-specialized Ukrainian text, and make sense of it with the help of a dic- tionary. Those few heritage speakers of Ukrainian who take these classes usually find out that they have much to learn, despite their background in Ukrainian. The added benefit which university stu- dents of Ukrainian often have is the small class size, which allows the instructor to tailor his or her materials to the students’ varying levels of language ability. This makes it possible for more advanced students, such as the heritage learners, to learn faster than others in the class. Students of Ukrainian from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a recent field trip to Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. (Only one of these students is of Ukrainian descent...) One objection to studying Ukrainian which I sometimes hear from the current genera- tion of Ukrainian-American students (which is quite pragmatic!) is that taking Ukrainian classes is impractical for them. Ukrainian is not a major world language, they say, and if they go on to have careers in business, politics, or government, learning other foreign languages makes more sense. At this point, most of them add the familiar argument that they already know enough Ukrain- ian to speak to their parents and grandparents at home. It is sad to hear such reasoning not only because it seems unpatriotic but also because it unintentionally perpetuates the unfortunate, age- old stereotype about Ukrainian as a language that belongs primarily in the home. Since Ukraine’s independence, the various restrictions placed on Ukrainian by foreign governments in different eras have finally become a thing of the past. (At least, let us hope so!) Yet we, Ukrainians who live abroad, often unconsciously continue to think of Ukrainian as a “lesser” language—not well known, not popular, not “useful” in this globalized world. Is it not largely up to us, the speakers of Ukraini- an, to bring it out into the arenas of world busi- ness, politics, and government which we enter? One other reason why I cannot agree with such “pragmatic” thinking is that the students of Ukrainian descent who choose to take up other foreign languages instead of (rather than in addi- tion to) Ukrainian miss a precious opportunity to become truly bilingual. In those couple of years which they spend learning French, or Russian, or Chinese from the very beginning, they will not be able to reach a high enough level of proficiency to be considered fluent speakers of these languages. But with Ukrainian, in which they have enjoyed a head start since their childhood, they have a real chance. Aside from the practical value of knowing two or more languages equally well, scholars of language acquisition describe numerous other benefits to being completely bilingual: bilingual children are known to have sharper memory and perform better in various cognitive tasks; bilin- gual students and adults have greater ability to focus and solve complicated problems quicker; and elderly bilinguals are considerably less likely to develop dementia. In a word, being bilingual makes you smarter and potentially healthier! For all of these reasons, I want to urge our read- ers—the parents, grandparents, and great- grandparents of young Ukrainian-Americans—to encourage this new generation to study Ukraini- an. Let them begin early at home, let them go on to learn it in Ukrainian kindergartens and Satur- day schools, but let them not stop at that! Few universities in the United States actually offer courses in Ukrainian, but if your children and grandchildren happen to attend one that does, urge them to take advantage of these classes. Let their goal be not just to speak a limited amount of Ukrainian at home, but rather to become fully functional in modern, standard Ukrainian.
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