How about a friendly game of whataboutism? What about if the US right wing succeeded in making English the official language of the United States? What would happen to all the people who speak Spanish primarily?

(Psst... are we not talking about the killings then? All the pogroms and murders sure seem to have gotten left on the wayside of this conversation.)

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If the US introduced that law then anyone who were to print a Spanish publication would also have to print it in English.

Which sounds strange but then you have to consider that Russia has been trying to eradicate the Ukrainian language since Catherine the Great. Ukrainian was actually outlawed. Present-day Ukrainian is simply making sure that Ukraine is the lingua franca of Ukraine and is, as said, in full compliance with the ECRML. Which the US doesn't ratify either btw and it won't because then suddenly they'd have to stop eradicating native languages.

[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Russia has been trying to eradicate the Ukrainian language since Catherine the Great

Even if that was true and not some harebrained ahistorical overgeneralisation what does that have to do with how the Ukrainian state treats it's Russian-speaking population? We are talking about an Ukrainian law, imposed by the Ukrainian state on Ukrainian citizens living on Ukrainian-controlled territory. How is trying to eradicate the Russian language in Ukraine preventing the alleged Russian policy of eradicating the Ukrainian language in Russia? How does one wrong justify another?

Ukrainian has been an official minority language of the Russian Federation since the breakup of the USSR and schools in Russia's new territories are teaching an Ukrainian-language curriculum to students whose families so desires. There's probably plenty of bad things to say about the Russian education system but giving a language you are hellbent on eradicating official status and teaching it at schools seems like an odd thing to do.