Almost half of Ukraine's citizens, 47%, speak Ukrainian in their day-to-day life, according to a poll conducted by the Research & Branding Group from August 12 to August 22, 2011.
The poll found that 37% of people speak Russian in their day-to-day life. The number of Ukrainian citizens speaking Russian and Ukrainian at home is equal: 15%.
The overwhelming majority of people living in western regions – 95% – and 60% of the citizens in the central regions prefer to speak Ukrainian at home. While 66% of citizens speak Ukrainian in the southeast of Ukraine.
Some 45% of Ukrainians speak Ukrainian mainly because of work or studies, while 35% of people speak Russian for these reasons. Eighteen percent of the respondents described themselves as bilingual.
The overwhelming majority of citizens from the western regions – 93% – and over half of the citizens in the central regions – 54% – speak Ukrainian because of work or studies, while 63% of citizens living in the southeast regions of Ukraine prefer the Russian language.
Concerning the choice of the state language, respondents’ points of view divided equally: 48% of citizens support the Ukrainian language as the only state language today, and 49% of Ukrainians are for two state languages: Russian and Ukrainian.
Some 88% of the people in the western regions and 65% of the citizens in the central regions support a single state language, Ukrainian, while in the southeast of Ukraine 76% support there being two state languages.
The sociologists polled 2,075 people in individual interviews in 24 regions of Ukraine and Crimea. The respondents were selected with a view to their place of residence, gender and age. The poll’s margin of error is around 2.2%.
