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Comment by haydar_ai | Hacker News Reader

The fact that some people speak Russian in Ukraine/Belarus does not mean that it’s better to do it there. This is like trying to make an English-language podcast initiative in Republic of Ireland just because English is also the language spoken there. Furthermore, as far as I know Ukraine try to promote Ukrainian language more to distant further from Russia. Hence I don’t think it’s that crazy that they opt for Russia-based office rather than elsewhere, also the fact that there are more Russians meaning that they have bigger target audience.

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Full quote, emphasis mine:

> Here we may take a break to consider the fact that Russian is not only the language of one country, Russia. It is also the native language for millions of Ukrainians and Belarusians. Therefore it is far from obvious that a Russian-language podcast initiative should be based in Russia. For an organization serious about defending free speech, it might have made more sense to locate the office in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv: a predominantly Russian-speaking city, which in recent years has also served as a refuge for many dissidents from Russia and Belarus.

Also, earlier:

> Yet, a better alternative would have been to keep operating, while declaring openly that their media machine will be available for the dissidents in Russia

To read an article like that and and come away thinking the argument being made is "Russian is spoken in Ukraine and Belarus therefore it should be based there" is... well, unlikely tbh.

I wanted to add a bit of footnote commentary on how I understand Russian to be spoken in Ukraine.

Millions of native Ukrainians, especially in the eastern side of Ukraine, exclusively speak Russian, and in fact speak it much better than Ukrainian. [1] (Almost all Ukrainians understand Ukrainian perfectly fine, and even study it in school, but a large contingent don't speak it as their mother tongue.) It's much, much more than just "some Ukrainians", and in fact, it's part of what characteristically and culturally distinguishes some eastern and western/rural and urban regions of Ukraine. [2]

Going into anecdotal territory: This was surprising to me. I hosted a family native to Kharkiv and discussed this topic. I'd think speaking Ukrainian would be a part of one's heritage worth preserving, so it was surprising that speaking Ukrainian wasn't a fluent affair for them, and they also didn't have much interest in promoting the language. Their remarks, extremely simplified, were basically that Russian is so broadly understood that it is just efficient to use, especially because of the internet. They don't want the Ukrainian language to die, but they also don't find it as a practical "daily driver". Their children know Ukrainian from having to learn it in school (but don't really speak it), and their grand-children—who moved to the USA—don't know it at all and only speak Russian.

I'm less familiar with Belarus, but it was an almost identical sentiment about Russian and Belarusian for a Minsk-native family that hosted me.

[1] "Russian is the native language of 29.6% of Ukraine's population [...]." "According to a survey conducted in 2006-2007 by Gallup, 83% of the respondents preferred to conduct the Gallup interview in Russian." "For the preferred language of work, an equal amount chose either Ukrainian or Russian (37%) and 21% communicated bilingually. The study polled 10,071 individuals and held a 1% margin of error." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Uk...

I think it can be compared to e.g. The Irish learning Gaelic. It's part of the identity for some and spoken in the west of the island by a few. The government invests in keeping the heritage alive and you see it e.g. in how names are written. But many Irish don't speak a word of Gaelic without feeling less Irish as a result. Ukrainian is a bit like that except it's easier to learn if you already speak Russian.

I am not sure if how well a language is spoken is a good metric.

As an example, a lot of older people do not speak fully correct Catalan, since it was prohibited during decades and they could not learn it formally.

This happens also in catalonia (Spain) where I'm from.

Internet has made the breach greater, we might have great catalan poets from centuries ago, and a rich culture and history, but no youtuber will stream in catalan when in spanish they reach a 100x audience for example...

I'm glad I learnt it as my mother tongue though, being bilingual makes both learning other languages easier, and latin is like the wildcard of word roots for all of 'em (I can speak well English, Spanish, Catalan, and some French)

YMMV

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