Number of tweets in Ukrainian has risen by 87% due to full-scale war

Researchers have drawn attention to an increase in the number of tweets in Ukrainian on the social media platform Twitter (X). The increase took place in several stages, with the biggest jump occurring at the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Source: A study by researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Technical University of Munich and the University of Bath in the UK. The results of the study were published in Communications Psychology.

The researchers analysed almost 4.5 million tweets from nearly 63,000 users. They chose posts from 9 January 2020 to 12 October 2022 for the study. 

First, the researchers used artificial intelligence to filter out tweets containing geoinformation in order to retain only those posted in Ukraine.

In the resulting dataset, they removed duplicates, potential spambots, and users who posted more than 100 tweets per day. This left 2.8 million tweets from almost 42,000 Twitter users for analysis.

The researchers found that the number of tweets in Ukrainian has increased by 87% since February 2022. They believe that the data indicates a "conscious choice towards a more Ukrainian (online) identity and self-definition of being Ukrainian".

"Languages can be the cause of conflict and they are often incorporated in cultural and ethnic identity definition and are the basis for nation building and political change," the researchers noted.

The researchers also noticed an increase in the number of tweets in Ukrainian after Euromaidan [a wave of demonstrations against Russian political influence in Ukraine in 2013-2014 – ed.] and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

"The use of language is innately political, often a vehicle of cultural identity and the basis for nation building," the researchers say, adding that the "steady shift from the Russian language towards Ukrainian" has sped up drastically since the outbreak of the full-scale war.

Background: The number of Ukrainians who exclusively use the Ukrainian language in everyday life has also risen since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. A survey conducted in August 2023 indicated that this is 59% of Ukrainian citizens.

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