The language policy of Ukraine in the retail and services sphere

This paper explores how the language policy of Ukraine is established in the retail and services sphere. The analysis focuses on the Ukrainian legislation which regulates the use of the official language and other languages in advertising, product information, and services. In the period of the Ukrainian state independence, the language use in the retail and servi-ces sphere is determined by Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine which lays down the basic principles for the operation of languages in Ukraine and the legislative documents which regu-late customer-provider relationships and contain requirements for goods and consumer services.The article states that information should be provided to the consumer in accordance with the lan-guage legislation requirements. The Law “On Languages in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic” (1989) and especially the so-called “Kivalov – Kolesnichenko language law” did not guarantee Ukrainian citizens the right to receive information and to be served in the official language, i.e., in Ukrainian. The 2019 language law, Article 30, however, obliges all service providers to serve consumers and provide information about goods and services in Ukrainian. Keywords: sociolinguistics, language policy, retail and services sphere, Ukrainian language.