The Verkhovna Rada adopted in its entirety Bill No. 14120 on Updating the Official Translation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The main change is that Russian has been removed from the list of languages in need of protection.
The draft has clarified the translation of the Charter. Previously, the term “regional or minority languages” was mistranslated, and the translation was not made from the original (English/French) but from the Russian version. This gave rise to the misinterpretation that the Charter concerns the protection of “national minorities,” rather than languages whose speakers are numerically minorities.
The new translation more accurately conveys the document’s content. It eliminates the possibility of political manipulation regarding the status of the Ukrainian language.
The list of languages covered by the Charter in Ukraine has also been updated. The Russian language was removed from the list because it is not endangered, has historical dominance, and does not require special protection.
The “Moldovan” language was also removed, as Moldova officially recognized Romanian as the state language.
Now the state will apply the support regime to the following languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Crimean Tatar, Modern Greek, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, and Hebrew.
