There are many laws and concepts about languages. They themselves are under threat of extinction
Officials and linguists discussed the problems of its preservation on the eve of Mother Language Day
More than half of the languages in Russia are on the verge of extinction. The speech culture among speakers of absolutely all languages is decreasing. This also applies to Russian. These results were announced by experts on the eve of the International Mother Langauge Day at the Russia Today press center. They discussed legislative initiatives related to the preservation and development of languages in our country. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Will the National Dictionary Fund include other languages?
According to the deputy chairman of the Council under the President of Russia for the implementation of state policy in the field of support of the Russian language and the languages of the peoples of Russia, the head of the Gramota.ru platform Konstantin Derevyanko, the law on the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation is being updated. The draft must be submitted to the lower house of the parliament by May 1, 2025.
All available fundamental dictionaries should be digitised for the system to ensure that the norms of the modern Russian literary language are fixed and updated.
“One of the instructions, which concerns small languages, suggests that, at least, it is assumed that the National Dictionary Fund system can be expanded towards the languages of the peoples of Russia," added Derevyanko, specifying that this is a big serious work that is currently not being carried out systematically at the state level.
He also mentioned the register of languages of the peoples of Russia as part of the draft law on the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation:
“There are certain discussions about which languages should eventually be included in this registry. Should the languages of the diasporas be included there? This document is currently under public, expert discussion, and I hope a position on this issue will be developed.
There is no need to hurry!
“There is an agreement with the government that we are cooperating at the zero level, at the zero reading, so that the document is submitted taking into account all positions," said Ildar Gilmutdinov, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ethnic Affairs. “So that later the problems that will be there will not be discussed publicly. I suggest Konstantin Sergeyevich think about it. We had bills that were not fully thought out. Then we began to overcome them heroically.
Gilmutdinov also reacted sharply to Derevyanko's use of the phrase “small languages”:
“We don't have small languages, we have languages of small peoples. In general, forget about this term. Each nation has its own language — it is dear to them. No matter how many speak it, five or ten.”
He also commented on the formation of the language registry.
“We need to measure it seven more times, consult with everyone, with scientists, with other institutions, regions, so that this register does not cause a conflict situation: why is my language not included, but someone else's is included? For example, diasporas. Azerbaijanis have been living in Dagestan for several hundred years, in their ancestral territories. How do I tell them that you guys are a diaspora, so your language won't be included in our registry?
Kazakhs of Orenburg and Germans in the Volga region and Siberia will have the same questions, Gilmutdinov noted.
The deputy also spoke about the concept of the state language policy in Russia, approved last summer:
“I think it turned out to be a very sound concept that takes into account all directions, all aspects. Russian is also given a lot of attention as our official language, as the language of interethnic communication, taking into account the problems that exist in the development of the Russian language, among other things. The final document did not cause any disagreements among any constituent entities of the Russian Federation.”
Now, Gilmutdinov noted, “the concept needs to be fitted with legs.” There were many offers from various organisations, but...
“So far, the proposed draft plan does not fully disclose the positions and approaches outlined in this concept," the deputy said. “Both in terms of structure and proposals, there are many repetitions with other programs, for example, the program of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. A number of points have not been taken into account. For example, there is no pre-school education in the education system!”
“Nests” will help us
Over the past 50 years, many ways have been developed to help preserve and develop languages in multilingual countries, said Andrey Kibrik, the director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He recalled that the USSR also had a policy of language support, which is probably why some languages of Siberia and the Far East were able to survive then. Then the momentum waned, efforts to support languages were curtailed, only recently has this topic come to the fore.
And it gives results. Similar methods are practiced in Ossetia — and we see that the children there really speak two languages! Kibrik advised those who wish to study the “Program for the preservation of the languages of the peoples of Russia” on the website of his Institute of Linguistics.
“The intergenerational transmission of languages is extremely important," Kibrik said. “It is necessary for the language to survive and be preserved in the modern world under the pressure of various unification and globalisation processes, so that the child learns the language of his ethnicity from his parents before school. If a child comes to school knowing only Russian and is confronted with a subject called “mother tongue”, this causes some stress. Because this language is not really a native language anymore. It is the child's ethnic language, which he may not be proficient in.
Therefore, Kibrik advised to support language activists in every possible way:
“Support for linguistic diversity, as a matter of fact, is outlined in the Constitution, in its wording, which was adopted several years ago in a referendum, and the state is simply obliged to provide this support in order not to violate the Constitution.
There is no contrast between proficiency in, and absolutely complete, Russian, on the one hand, and other languages, Kibrik pointed out.
“In many places on Earth, entire nations were bilingual and multilingual. Even to go to the market and to buy a bag of flour there, you had to speak several languages.”
As for the discussed ban on borrowed words from many languages, Kibrik noted that they do not have a serious impact on the language, the language even reworks them by adding its own suffixes.
“Not everything that grows should be cut," Kibrik summarised.
