BORDERS OF IDENTITY AND ACTUAL LANGUAGE USE IN UKRAINE: AN ANALYSIS OF GEOTAGGED TWEETS
Journal: Japanese Slavic and East European Studies
Year: 2015

The ongoing controversy regarding Ukraine’s language laws has highlighted the need for empirical research on language use in the country. Election and census results show that the country has two internal north-south borders: an electoral fault line that runs northeast to southwest along the eastern borders of Poltava and Kirovohrad oblasts (regions), and a linguistic border based on self-reported mother tongue that divides Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea from the rest of the country.