ABSTRACT

However, while the language situation for Russian in the United States is growing ever stronger, other Slavic languages do not receive the same recognition. The Ukrainian language, for example, is spoken by over 41 million people worldwide (Lewis, 2009), is a heritage claimed by over 900,000 people in the United States, and is spoken in the United States by over 275,000 people in diaspora communities (US Census, 2004; Seals, 2014). Ukrainian has also gone through a period of regaining legitimacy in Ukraine through Ukrainisation during the past 25 years, replacing the politically dominant Russian language from the Soviet era (see Seals, 2009). However, Ukrainian still has little to no visibility in most of the United States, where only 35 community-run Ukrainian educational programs exist, all in areas with large diaspora communities, and there are only a handful of mainstream programs, all housed at universities (Seals, 2014). Therefore, in most of the United States, Ukrainian speakers are offered Russian courses only-not Ukrainian. As these two communities have a

long contested history and only share 62% of their lexicon (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008, p. 70; Seals, forthcoming), the lack of Ukrainian visibility and resources threatens its vitality in the United States.