Підляські говірки та нова українська літературна мова: дивергенція, конвергенція, конфронтація?

The article examines the processes of convergence and divergence between the dialects of Northern Podlasie (Poland) and the new standard Ukrainian literary language from the late 20th to the early 21st century. The Podlasie dialects belong to the peripheral dialectal systems of the ancient northern variety of the Ukrainian language. In this region, the new Ukrainian literary language had long remained inactive, as after World War II, speakers of the Podlasie dialects were officially recognized as Belarusians. This contributed to the use of the new Belarusian literary language in the media and in the national-cultural organizations of the said minority. Since the late 1980s, a Ukrainian cultural movement has emerged in Northern Podlasie, and the new Ukrainian literary language began to compete with Belarusian for the right to perform the emblematic function for this minority group. Today, some speakers of the Podlasie dialects identify as Belarusian, while others identify as Ukrainian. The linguistic awareness of most dialect speakers is vague, and active processes of Polonization are underway. Heated debates take place between dialect speakers with different identities (Belarusian and Ukrainian) concerning the role and place of the Podlasie dialects within the linguistic landscape of Central and Eastern Europe. Texts written in Podlasie dialects should become an important source for characterizing the linguistic consciousness of dialect speakers and for providing a sociolinguistic profile of the dialectal space as a whole. The use of dialectal expressive means in artistic and journalistic works performs a protective function and also motivates some speakers of these dialects to raise the issue of codifying a so-called “Podlasie literary microlanguage”. The formation of a stable practice of such a microlanguage depends on numerous extralinguistic factors, which have not yet materialized in Podlasie. Should a literary microlanguage based on the Podlasie dialects emerge in the future, it would constitute yet another idiom within the Ukrainian diasystem.