Язик до Києва доведе: метаморфози семантики

The paper is focused on the causes and results of the transformational activity of the proverb „Your tongue will get you all the way to Kiev“ in the modern Ukrainian-language discourse. The systematically (vs. linguistically) predictable and socially determined tendencies and vectors of semantics renewal of the proverb as well as the proportion of its substantive, toponymic and verbal components are considered. Ukrainian phraseographic sources and media texts of the last decade, which demonstrate the transformations of the content of the proverb, are the material of the study.