The Russian language will be restricted in the schools of the southern Ukrainian city of Nikolayev, City Council Executive Committee member Ekaterina Stokolias said on Saturday. In a Facebook post, she stated that the decision was made by the committee on Friday. “From September 1, no clubs, courses, junior classes …
Read More »The Russian language in post-Soviet Ukraine: 30 years of discrimination against the country’s most popular tongue
If you go to Ukraine and walk through the streets of Kiev, Vinnitsa, Chernigov, or Kharkov, it may seem like you’re in Moscow or Rostov-on-Don, as the majority of the people in these cities speak Russian. At the same time, Ukraine is a country with one of the harshest language …
Read More »UK police & parliament asked to ditch ‘gendered’ language – media
UK police have been ordered to use “gender-neutral” forms of address rather than calling people “sir” or “ma’am,” according to training materials distributed to officers seen by the Daily Mail on Sunday. Titled “How to Be LGBT+ Friendly”, the materials urge cops to “avoid making assumptions about a person’s sexual …
Read More »FIFA holds vote on Russian as an official language
Russian will become one of global football governing body FIFA’s official languages after a vote in favor of the proposal at the organization’s congress in Qatar on Thursday. The FIFA Council submitted the proposal to amend Article 9 of the FIFA Statutes, with 210 members present for the vote in Doha. …
Read More »White House complains about Russian language expression in English
An offhand remark made by Russian President Vladimir Putin towards his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Monday has earned the Kremlin a reprimand from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, after a reporter claimed that the Russian leader’s jibe was a crude joke about rape. The controversy began after Putin’s …
Read More »Kiev forces Russian-language media to publish in Ukrainian
Russian-language media in Ukraine will now be forced to publish a secondary version in the country’s official tongue under a new law that selectively bans “foreign” language publications that don’t come with a translation. According to the law, which was passed in 2019 but came into force on Sunday, all …
Read More »MoD ‘woke’ language rules withdrawn – reports
The rules outlined in the Inclusive Language Guide 2021 were produced by the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Diversity and Inclusion Directorate. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was reportedly “unhappy” with the 30-page document and ordered it to be revised, senior ministry sources told the Daily Mail. According to the paper, the …
Read More »So, the word ‘spooky’ is racist now? Actually, what’s really frightening is this policing of language!
The National Theatre of Scotland has decided that the use of the word ‘spooky’ has ‘racist’ and ‘oppressive’ connotations. Since it is unlikely that anyone has used ‘spooky’ as a “racial slur,” it is evident that potentially any term can become a target of the language police. Philip Roth, the …
Read More »RT appeals against YouTube deletion of German-language channels, as Moscow vows ‘zero tolerance’ stance to censorship by Big Tech
The popular services were abruptly deleted earlier this week, with YouTube accusing them of trying to circumvent a ‘community guidelines’ strike handed down for ‘medical misinformation’ in four videos related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. RT DE and DFP appealed the video-hosting platform’s decision late on Thursday, urging it to …
Read More »As Merkel fashions her exit, the blocking of RT’s German-language YouTube may not be the only Russia crisis her successor inherits
On Tuesday, YouTube banned two channels belonging to RT’s German-language affiliates in a move that the Russian Foreign Ministry has said amounts to “censorship” and “aggression.” The response has been furious, with Moscow threatening to block the site altogether and insisting it could have only taken place with the “obvious …
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