Language policy is a divisive issue in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian and Russian languages coexist in a tenuous balance. Many people see the choice between Russian and Ukrainian as symbolic of two polar political and cultural allegiances: with Russia, or with Europe and the West. Promotion of Ukrainian is meant to counteract its historical subjugation to Russian. At the same time, there is state support for minority languages and cultures, including Russian, to help develop a Ukrainian civic identity not restricted to Ukrainian ethnicity. Legislation designates Ukrainian as the sole state language while also supporting education in Russian and other languages, including Romanian, Hungarian, and Crimean Tatar. The previously low status of Ukrainian has risen greatly since the disintegration of the USSR, and this language is much more widely used than before in education, government, and public life in general. However, Russian continues to dominate in many spheres as it did during the Soviet era. Many people feel that the survival of Ukrainian is still threatened by Russian, and that the recent gains of Ukrainian in status and spheres of use are tenuous. In 2008, struggles over language policies persist and the implementation of existing policies continues to be uneven.

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Contested tongues: Language politics and cultural correction in Ukraine. Laada Bilaniuk (2005) Cornell University Press 230pp. ISBN 0801472792

The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, which encodes the termblue; Russian, which encodes two terms, sinij[dark/navy blue] andgoluboj[light/sky blue]; and Ukrainian, which encodes the termssynij[dark/navy blue] andblakytnyjandgolubyj[light/sky blue]. Five groups of participants took part in the study: (1) 30 L1 speakers of English, (2) 30 L1 speakers of Russian, (3) 30 Russian–English bilinguals, (4) 30 English–Russian bilinguals, and (5) 25 Ukrainian–Russian–English trilinguals. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that L1 Russian speakers referred to different types of blue significantly more frequently than all other groups, while bilinguals patterned with L1 English speakers. These findings suggest that classroom exposure to L2 Russian does not make the distinction betweensinijandgolubojcommunicatively relevant for L1 English speakers and that everyday use of L2 English may trigger attrition of the contrast in L1 Russian.