Hrytsak, Yaroslav. The Forging of a Nation. – NY: PublicAffairs, 2023. – 438 p.

‘National activists claim that language is the core of national identity, believing that it encrypts the cultural code and historical memory of the nation. Switching to another language is treated as the gravest sin."

[Hrytsak 2024: 387].

However, this "sin" is committed on a regular basis by millions of immigrants who dump their native language in search of better career opportunities. Calls like the above mentioned, are never followed.

The Académie Française called on French scholars to publish their works in French. The witty answer was: "Publish in English, or perish in French> 

Gallop Poll about the native language in Ukraine

What might be the motivation behind the proclamation in 1996 of Ukrainian as the sole state language of the country by the Ukrainian Constitution, is a matter of discussion, but in doing so the founding fathers planted a mine under Ukrainian “independence” that was bound to explode one day like it did.

There are approximately 20 languages spoken in Ukraine. According to the 2001 census, 67% of the population speak Ukrainian and 30% speak Russian as their first language. The census relied upon answers to the direct question about one’s mother tongue. The Wikipedia is mistaken here, because the most important questions in public opinion polling techniques are indirect questions, as it was demonstrated by Gallop Poll. So, to the direct question “Which language do you consider your native?” very often an incorrect answer follows. The results of the Gallop Poll for 2008 are clear: the native language for the overwhelming number of citizens of Kazakhstan (68%), Ukraine (83%) and Belarus (92%) is Russian.

Main article: Names of Myanmar
The name of the country has been a matter of dispute and disagreement, particularly in the early 21st century, focusing mainly on the political legitimacy of those using Myanmar versus Burma. Both names derive from the earlier Burmese Mranma or Mramma, an ethnonym for the majority Burman ethnic group, of uncertain etymology. The terms are also popularly thought to derive from Sanskrit Brahma Desha, 'land of Brahma'.

In 1989, the military government officially changed the English translations of many names dating back to Burma's colonial period or earlier, including that of the country itself: Burma became Myanmar. The renaming remains a contested issue. Many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy or authority of the military government.

 Greene, Robert Lane. Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can’t be Tamed. – New York: PublicAffairs, 2018. – 232 p.

“Given people’s passionate attachment to their languages, it is obvious a sudden, surprising and unwelcome change to the status of a language – especially with a big neighbor that speaks that language next door would be a particularly unwise move, like throwing a cigarette end in the general direction of a sign reading “NO SMOKING; JET FUAL’. And yet that’s exactly what happened in the former Ukraine, where disputes over language became proxies for who had the right to run Ukraine. A language dispute helped spark the civil war that dragged in neighbouring Russia, and resulted in Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”
[Greene, 2018: 141]

Like many European rulers of the time who were influenced by the prestige of Louis XIV of France and his court, Frederick adopted French tastes and manners, though in Frederick's case, the extent of his Francophile tendencies might have been a reaction to the austerity of the family environment created by his father, who had a deep aversion for France and promoted an austere culture. He was educated by French tutors, and almost all the books in his library were written in French. French was Frederick's preferred language for speaking and writing, though he had to rely on proofreaders to correct his difficulties with spelling.

Though Frederick used German as his working language with his administration and with the army, he claimed to have never learned it properly and never fully mastered speaking or writing it.  He disliked the German language, thinking it inharmonious and awkward. He once commented that German authors "pile parenthesis upon parenthesis, and often you find only at the end of an entire page the verb on which depends the meaning of the whole sentence"

 Greene, Robert Lane. Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can’t be Tamed. – New York: PublicAffairs, 2018. – 232 p.

“Given people’s passionate attachment to their languages, it is obvious a sudden, surprising and unwelcome change to the status of a language – especially with a big neighbor that speaks that language next door would be a particularly unwise move, like throwing a cigarette end in the general direction of a sign reading “NO SMOKING; JET FUAL’. And yet that’s exactly what happened in the former Ukraine, where disputes over language became proxies for who had the right to run Ukraine. A language dispute helped spark the civil war that dragged in neighbouring Russia, and resulted in Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”
[Greene, 2018: 141]

swashbuckler The term "swashbuckler" originates from boisterous fighters who carried a sword and buckler (a small shield). "Swashbuckler" was a putdown, used to indicate a poor swordsman who covered his lack of skill with noise, bragging, and clamour. Novels, and then Hollywood, altered the word's connotation to make the swashbuckler the hero of the plotline.

What Is a Single-Malt Whisky?

Content: Whiskies from a single distillery.

The root of all confusion lies in the simple word single. A single-malt scotch whisky is nothing more or less than the product of a single distillery. Not the product of a single batch or a single barrel, but a single distillery. A single-malt Lagavulin may contain whiskies from many barrels produced at the Lagavulin distillery, but it will contain only whiskies produced at Lagavulin.

A single-grain scotch whisky varies only in that it contains barley and one or more other cereal grains, usually wheat or corn. Again, single is misleading here: It refers not to a product made from a single grain, but a product made at a single distillery.

The unnatural and erroneous prioritizing of Ukrainian over Russian (the mother tongue for 83% of the citizens) led to a civil war that tore Ukraine  apart and caused its rapid decline and downfall into abyss with millions of its citizens on the run, a demographic collapse, its economy in tatters and the government disorientated and panic-stricken.
Ignorant language planning
Robert Lane Greene's book “You are what you speak” may have offered one of the most devastating pieces of criticism at such an ignorant language planning sponsored by the government. "Create a state that everyone hates and then yoke it to an official language, and both the language and the state may fail. Create a society people want to join, such as the international community of English speakers or a modern, tolerant South Africa, and it is never necessary to force a language on anyone.” [Greene, 2011: 162 - 163]
 

The treaty of friendship
Ancient Greeks distinguished between three different types of friendships between two polities: Philiai, symmachia, and epimachia. Both symmachia and epimachia were types of alliances, with the former committing States to support each other in battle and the latter requiring parties to assist each other if one suffered an invasion. Philiai, then, made the important distinction of denoting friendship between polities but did not give the treaty partners the status of allies. Romans had a similar word amicitia, which was a state of diplomatic relations which could coexist with an alliance, or exist without it. The Romans employed a practice of establishing peace and friendship with polities on its peripheries, though in practice these relationships were usually built on unequal treaties, requiring the neighbour to support Rome militarily, though not necessarily the reverse.[