Although I can write in English, my trouble is with my native language, Ukrainian. In layman's terms, historically speaking, Ukraine was occupied by Russians, and Russian for a long time was considered a "more cultured" language in Ukraine, while Ukrainian was thought the language of the countryside, of rednecks etc. Russian was everywhere, in schools, on TV, in press, so even in villages (where I grew up) most people didn't speak proper Ukrainian, but a creole language, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian called "surzhyk". The problem is many people can speak proper (literary) Ukrainian, but in central and eastern Ukraine proper Ukrainian is not a spoken language, it's more a language of writing. People speak "surzhyk", but write in Ukrainian. Few people manage to sound natural and fluent speaking proper Ukrainian. I know I don't. I have spoken "surzhyk" all my life, but I can't write in this deformed hybrid. I can use it in my writing to make a point about a character, but not continuously. It's like writing in two languages at once, none of them sounding right. So for now I am training myself to use my own language, to make it mine. And it's a harder task than studying English.
How can I be original? - Start Writing Fiction - The Open University [www.futurelearn.com]
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