In the near future, two thirds of bilinguals plan to switch exclusively to Ukrainian.
Over the last ten years, the number of those who consider Ukrainian their native language from 57% in 2012 has grown to 76% in 2022. In turn, the Russian language in 10 years has lost those who call it native, from 42 to 20%. At the same time, the main changes in self-identification occurred between 2012-2016, according to a poll by the Rating group.
At the same time, in practice in 2012 the share of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in everyday life, who consider Ukrainian their native language, was about 40%, at the end of 2021 – 26%, and at the beginning of the war – 18%. The “flow” of Russian-speakers occurs in the segment of “bilinguals” (from 15 to 32%). The number of those who constantly use only Ukrainian homes has increased slightly from 44% to 48%.
At the same time, two thirds of those who now use two languages in everyday life, plan in the near future to switch exclusively to Ukrainian. Among exclusively Russian-speaking – such a third.
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The poll was conducted by the sociological group “Rating” on March 19, 2022 among the population of Ukraine aged 18 and older in all areas except the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbass. The sample is representative by age, sex and type of settlement among 1000 respondents. Survey method: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews). Error of representativeness of the study with a confidence level of 0.95: not more than 3.1%.
