[ganeemead]

I say again... Pronouncing 'Worcestershire' like 'Woostershire' strikes me as reasonable and could be ascribed to simple laziness; conversely, I do not see a reasonable way to get from "Vladimir" to "Volodomir". I view that as evidence of some kind of a deep-seated inferiority complex amongst Ukrainians that probably dates from around the time of the Mongol invasions. It might have something to do with the fact that the Ducks of Kiev were totally unable to protect the Slavic world from the Mongols. Moscow was pretty much behind every success that Slavic people ever managed against Mongols.

There seems to be some sort of a psychic need to outdo Russians at every turn. A name like 'Volodomir' is likely part of that; this hoho claim of too many Russian words for lying and truth could also be part of it.

The idea of wanting to ban the use of Russian in Ukraine is part of the same thing.

The good news about the Ukrainian language is that in 20 years from now, it will be gone, along with all the other dead languages that small nations still use for anything. TV and the internet will have killed it just like they have killed the Southern accent in Texas. Russian will still be here.

[ganeemead]

When Europeans first got to Australia, from one valley to the next to the next, as I’ve read it, there were several hundred languages, no two of which resembled each other any more than English resembles Chinese or Japanese. Now they all just speak English... That has to make life easier.