Ukrainian Language In Canada

The Fate of the Ukrainian Language in Canada

After waves of migration, the Ukrainian language became one of the best-maintained mother tongues amongst settlers in Canada. Over time, with the influence of English, Ukrainian began to experience significant developments on the phonetic, lexical and syntactic levels. With more than a century of history, the Canadian variant of the Ukrainian language has now approached a transition into endangerment, even with numerous efforts by the government to curb such an outcome.

Although the first wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada is often cited as the 1890s, there is suggestive evidence of an earlier Ukrainian presence on the North American continent. It is reasonable that as early as 1784 there were

Most of these settlers were illiterate peasants from the western Ukrainian regions of Galicia and Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire searching for fresh lands and improved commercial circumstances (Hudyma 2011). These immigrants predominantly congregated in the parkland belt of the Prairie Provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (Swyripa 1999). Gabrielle Roy, in her short story “The Well of Dunrea,” describes a colony of “Little Ruthenians” around 1912 in the midst of Saskatchewan swamp and muddy

These settlers were mostly displaced people, such as those who were forced to work as slave laborers in Germany; when they did not want to return to their homes afterwards, they came to Canada. The third wave included skilled workers, professionals, scientists and musicians. For the most part, they tended to settle in the urban centers (Marunchak 1982). The fourth wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada has started after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In comparison to the first three waves, the fourth is the smallest numerically, by