Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 3 – Russia’s smaller
nationalities may “wither away” as a result of the revolution in information technology
and of the threat that fast food poses to their national cuisines unless
special measures are taken soon, according to speakers at a UNESCO-sponsored
conference in Yakutsk and others at a forum on tourism in Khakassia.
At the Third International Conference
on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace in Sakha, speakers noted
that only five percent of the world’s languages are represented on the
Internet, a pattern that undermines efforts to keep the most threatened
languages alive (nazaccent.ru/content/12262-ekspert-vyzhivut-yazyki-kotorye-ekonomicheski-vygodny.html).
This is a particular problem in
Sakha, that republic’s head Yegor Borisov told the group. In his republic,
there are representatives of more than 120 different ethnic group, and many of
them can go online only in a language other than their own. That can be changed
only by the actions of the state because small groups do not have the economic
clout to attract business support in this area.
According to UNESCO officials,136 of
the languages of peoples of the Russian Federation are in the group at risk.
Twenty are considered to have disappeared already, 22 are in critical
condition, 29 are under serious theat, and 49 other, including Kalmyk, Udmurt,
and Yiddish are approaching that state.
Some Russian scholars dispute these
findings and conclusions. Valery
Tishkov, the director of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology,
has argued that despite such alarmist predictions, “language diversity will be
preserved among contemporary nations and the broadening of the language repertoire
of individuals” (nazaccent.ru/content/9862-akademik-ran-v-rossii-stali-bolshe.html).
But many others, both Russian and
international scholars and also representatives of smaller nationalities, view
Tishkov’s position as one that promotes first bilingualism and then accepts the
gradual decay and ultimate disappearance of the smaller language groups and the
nations they hold together.
Meanwhile, at the Fourth
Cultural-Tourist Forum Siber Il in the Khakass Republic, Sergey Smolkin, a St.
Petersburg expert from the National Institute of Health, warned that
non-Russian groups face a threat from another direction: the rise of fast food
and the decline of national cuisines (19rus.ru/more.php?UID=59472 and nazaccent.ru/content/12252-v-hakasii-fastfud-zamenyat-nacionalnoj-kuhnej.html).
Traditional national foods as in
Khakassia, he continued, are well adapted to local conditions and help the
population stay healthy. But many of the fast or convenience foods sold in new
restaurants and stores are not, and the shift from traditional to fast food is
undermining the health and well-being of the nation.
Pointing to the impact of a Finnish
program to promote healthy eating which has cut mortality rates significantly,
Smolkin called for the development of “a useful Khakass national fast food”
that would combine the virtues of national cuisines with the convenience of
fast foods and thus ensure better public health.
Other speakers said this problem is
widespread and affects many of the non-Russian peoples in Siberia and the
Russian Far East. One, biophysics specialist Igor Shein said that what will
happen in the future depends on the current generation: If we make the right
choice, he suggested, “Siberian cooking in all its variety will remain.”
If we fail to do so, the scholar said, “the
only thing that will remain from it is pelmeni and vodka,” anything but a
healthy diet.
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