Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the victim. Our choice of words should reflect that, writes NZ-based Ukrainian-American linguistics professor Corrine Seals.
Words are powerful. That’s the reason why speeches are given to encourage troops before battle and teams before games. Words have also assisted the current president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in rallying support for Ukraine from around the world and in turning world leaders’ expressions of “concern” into action.
Word choice, and even choice of language, matters in all contexts because of the meaning words carry.
When we call the current events in Ukraine a “crisis”, “conflict”, or “war”, each word carries with it a particular meaning. When Russia illegally occupied Crimea in 2014, Russia officially violated Article 2 of the 1949 Geneva Convention and entered into an act of war. Likewise, when Russia entered Ukraine with troops and artillery without provocation on February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine and initiated war against the entire country.
Yet, a number of countries around the world such as China, India and (until recently) Turkey have avoided the terms “invasion” and “war”. Why?
Calling something a “war” linguistically and philosophically implies there is a political aggressor from the outside. This is markedly different from calling the same event “crisis”, which implies that the problem originates from within the country receiving the impact. Furthermore, if you call that same event a “conflict”, you imply that there is equal responsibility between the two parties involved.
When the Russian invasion of Ukraine is called a “conflict” it removes direct responsibility from Russia as the aggressor and instead assigns equal responsibility to Ukraine and Russia. Even more serious, calling the current war against Ukraine by Russia a “crisis” implies that it is primarily Ukraine’s responsibility to resolve these issues. Insisting on the terms “invasion” and “war” assigns responsibility to Russia as the aggressor on Ukrainian soil.
The significance of meaning behind terminology is why Ukrainians around the world have pushed for the current events to be referred to as “war” and “invasion”, not “conflict” or “crisis”. This insistence has picked up media attention when certain countries have avoided the correct terminology or have outright rejected it. For instance, at present, Russia’s allies China and India have continued to avoid any language of responsibility towards Russia. Instead, China’s assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying made headlines for refusing to use any language condemning Russia or to answer any questions on the issue, instead deflecting to discussions about the United States. Other Chinese officials have repeatedly used the neutral terms “Russia’s operation” and the “current situation”. Likewise, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has called for “an immediate cessation of violence” which, like the term “conflict”, removes direct responsibility from Russia.
Interestingly, Turkey recently had a change of heart when it comes to terminology. Until a few days ago, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Ergodan was willing to condemn Russia’s actions against Ukraine but not to use the word “war”. Instead, Erdogan referred to Russia’s actions as a “heavy blow to regional peace and stability” and a “military operation”. However, on Sunday, Ergodan changed his terminology, instead referring to the Russian invasion as “war”. The power of words can be seen directly here, as this particular shift in terminology now allows Turkey to enact the articles of the 1936 Montreux Convention, limiting Russia’s access to the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits, which Russia is using to invade Ukraine.
For Ukrainians, the issue of terminology goes beyond the invasion being referred to as a “war” or a “conflict”. The current spotlight on language has allowed Ukrainians to point out other similar faux pas that people around the world tend to make every day regarding Ukraine, which is a sovereign nation with a history independent of Russia going back thousands of years.
First, when referring to the country of Ukraine, there is no “the”. It is not “the Ukraine”; it is “Ukraine”. Referring to “the Ukraine” is like saying “the New Zealand”. The misplaced article at the beginning (“the”) is left over from Soviet times and is how Ukraine is referred to in Russian grammar, not in Ukrainian. Ukrainian and Russian are not the same language. They come from the same language family (similar to English and German both being Germanic), but Ukrainian is its own language with a history going back to the 17th century (the same as modern English) and has over 45 million speakers.
Additionally, the capital of Ukraine is Kyiv (pronounced often in English as KEEV), not Kiev (pronounced as KEY-ev). “Kyiv” is how the capital’s name is spelled following Ukrainian transliteration, while “Kiev” is how it’s spelled following Russian transliteration. While everyone should refer to Ukrainian norms when discussing Ukrainian language issues anyway, right now is an especially good time to learn.