The current situation of the Polish language in Carpathian Bukovina

Abstract

The use and the state of preservation of the Polish language in Carpathian Bukovina is very diverse for a number of reasons. There are villages in which it is not only spoken in the family domain by people invited to take part in this study, but also serves as the basic code of communication in public space: all local residents, including those of origin other than Polish, know it. This is the case in Nyzhni Petrivtsi, Pleşa, Poiana Micului, Stara Krasnoshora, Soloneţu Nou and Terebleche. In turn, the town of Rǎdǎuţi and such villages as Bulai, Cacica, Davydivka, Davydivka Zrub, Frumoasa, Gura Humorului, Hlyboka, Pǎltinoasa, Racovǎţ, Seret, Sfántu Ilie, Vičani and Verkhni Petrivtsi have quite a few Polish families; their members, however, speak Polish very rarely, only on exceptional occasions. In some places in the region all that remains is the local memory of Poles who once lived in the area and of Polish speech that could be heard there in the past; this memory, however, seems to be disappearing. We can find traces of their historical presence: houses, cemeteries, churches and so on in Arbore, Banyliv, Budenets', Dubivtsi, Ispas, Miliieve, Nova Zhadova, Rokytne, Solca, Stara Zhadova, Vashkivtsi and Vytylivka. Places that once had Polish communities and are now dominated by Ukrainian or Romanian speakers include the villages of Banyliv, Boiany, Cheresh, Chudeǐ, Komarivtsi, Krasnoïl's'k, Lashkivka, Lukivtsi, Luzhany, Mihoveni, Nova Krasnoshora, Ridkivtsi, Vǎşcǎuţi and Zhadova, and the towns of Cámpulung Moldovenesc and Vyzhnytsia. There are some individual elderly people living there whose first language was Polish. Considering that they function in the Ukrainian-or Romanian-speaking environment, they use it sporadically as all spheres are served by Ukrainian/Romanian or their dialectal variations. The functionality of Polish in such villages and towns as Kitsman', Korchivtsi, Panka, Sadhora, Storozhynets', Zastavna and Zelenyǐ Haǐ is very limited indeed: local Poles no longer speak it in the family or the neighbourhood, but only on special occasions, such as encounters with visitors from Poland, which do not occur very often.