Ukraine’s linguistic commission snubs Russia – POLITICO

Ukraine’s National Commission for State Language Standards has decided that writing words such as “Russia” and “Moscow” in lowercase letters in unofficial documents will no longer be considered an error.

The commission said it made the decision after considering appeals from Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk and official letters from the Ukrainian Language Institute and the OO Potebnia Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences. ‘Ukraine.

From now on, spelling words such as “Russian Federation”, “Russia”, “Moscow”, “Kingdom of Moscow”, “Russian Empire” and “State Duma of the Russian Federation” in lowercase will no longer constitute a ” deviation from the norms of the Ukrainian language in texts of an unofficial nature,” the commission said.

Many Ukrainians, especially on social networks, were already using lowercase letters to designate Russia, since the start of the Kremlin’s large-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv reports contributed.