Ukrainian Language Day, 9 November 2011
A language day greeting, and a note on the date, which commemorates a monk and a script.
A good Ukrainian Language and Writing Day to everyone.
The date is the feast of Nestor the Chronicler, the monk associated with the chronicle written at the Kyiv Caves Monastery, and the day is about writing as much as speech.
I find that a good choice. A spoken language is carried by whoever is alive. A written one survives the people who spoke it, and can be recovered by people who never heard it. Every alphabet, chronicle, dictionary and grammar is an insurance policy against a gap in transmission.
Ukraine has needed that insurance more than once.
To the teachers, editors, translators and archivists whose day this is: my respect.
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