“Blog” and Its Ukrainian Equivalents: Linguistic and Sociocultural Aspects of the Search for an Indigenous Term

Yuliia Vaskiv

Information about the author:  

Postgraduate student, Institute of the Ukrainian Language of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8624-3778

e-mail: vaskivu@gmail.com

Title: “Blog” and Its Ukrainian Equivalents: Linguistic and Sociocultural Aspects of the Search for an Indigenous Term

https://doi.org/10.37919/2221-8807-2025-8-40

Rubric: Term in the Text

Abstract: The development of IT technologies and online communication has significantly contributed to the influx of foreign terms–primarily Anglicisms–into the Ukrainian language. While some borrowings are necessary to name new concepts, the phenomenon of barbarization, i.e., unjustified borrowing, has become increasingly common. This study aims to assess the appropriateness of the borrowed term blog and analyze the pros and cons of its native Ukrainian equivalents, taking into account sociocultural factors. Scholars such as I. Farion, I. Andrusyak, and O. Zhyhalina have ex-plored this issue. The term blog entered Ukrainian through persononymy, as an English neologism representing a new reality in the recipient language. Although a few languages–such as Polish, Czech, French, Icelandic, Finnish, and Hungarian–have proposed native equivalents, the borrowed form remains dominant in most cases. The exception is Arabic, where native usage prevails. In Ukrainian, terms like network diary or web journal exist but are less common. Other alternatives (e.g., dennyk, samopys, rozdumnyk) appear on platforms like “Slovotvir” and “StackExchange.” Although the borrowed term is currently widespread and productive, the search for an appropriate native equivalent remains ongoing.

Keywords: blog, online diary, term, personal naming, barbarization, anglicism.

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