Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 29 – Officials in
Daghestan, the most linguistically diverse republic in the Russian Federation,
are preparing a new language law that calls for official support of 28
languages and effectively makes the others “illegal” by depriving them of any
chance for support and in some cases for survival, according to “Kavkazskaya
politika.”
While such legislation would affect
only some of the smaller language groups in one North Caucasian republic, it
could easily become a precedent for other regions and republics in the Russian
Federation given the provisions of the October 1991 Russian Federation law on
languages that still remains on the books.
And that in turn could open the way
for the destruction of many languages already identified by the United Nations
as being at risk, either as the result of a political decree from above as has
often been the case in Russia or as the result of a new ethnic politics in
which some larger groups refuse to recognize smaller ones lest their own
numbers be reduced.
The portal’s Said Ninalalov, a
speaker of Kubachi which is one of the Daghestani languages that is at risk, points
out that the 1991 Russian law guarantees “all peoples regardless of their
number the right to preserve and develop their native language and the freedom
to choose it as a language of instruction (kavpolit.com/articles/jazyki_vne_zakona-10643/).
Because almost all of the federal
subjects are multi-ethnic, the 1991 law calls for each of them to adopt a
corresponding regional law. Several
times, officials and politicians have tried to do so, Ninalalov says, but
nothing has come of it, with all the attempts fading quietly away. Now,
republic head Ramazan Abdulatipov is making another attempt.
In January, he called for the
adoption of such a law and said that it must include a listing of “all the
indigenous languages” of Daghestan as well has specifying what must be done to
ensure “their support and development.” Obviously, in a republic as ethnically
and linguistically diverse as Daghestan, doing so is no easy task.
There are more than 30 ethnoses,
some autochthonian and others representatives of neighboring peoples like the
Chechens and Azerbaijanis or those further afield like the ethnic Russians and
Ukrainians. Many of the smaller
linguistic communities are classified as non-literary and thus at risk of
disappearing if parents do not pass on the language to their children.
In modern times, the number of
officially recognized languages in Daghestan has been changed time and time
again, Ninalolov says. Up until 1938,
people could describe themselves as they wanted to, but in that year, “at the
initiative of that well-known specialist on linguistics Joseph Stalin, many
languages were officially suppressed.”
As a result, only 14 “so-called
titular peoples” remained: the Avars, the Aguls, the Azerbaijanis, the Dargins,
the Kumyks, the Lakses, the Lezginsk, the Nogays, the Russians, the Rutuls, the
Tabasarans, the Tats, the Tsakhurs, and the Chechens. Each has subdivisions which it is reluctant
to acknowledge lest its relative size in Daghestan as a whole be reduced.
There is a second Russian law which
affects Daghestan in this area, Ninalolov says. That is the law on the
guarantees for the rights of small indigenous peoples of the Russian
Federation. It too requires the regions to adopt a corresponding law, and
Daghestan has done so, declaring the 14 languages “officially” recognized to
fall under its terms.
At the present time, the journalist
continues, Daghestani officials are preparing draft legislation to meet the
1991 requirements. There are two drafts.
They vary in many respects, but they are identical regarding the number
of peoples of ethoses. Both specify that there are not 14 or 33 but 28 (kavpolit.com/articles/filkina_gramota_dlja_mezhnatsionalnoj_naprjazhenno-8780/).
But this list is “to put it mildly”
incomplete, Ninalalov says, pointing out that it does not include his own
language, Kubachi, even though the latter is now very much a literary language thanks
to the efforts of local teachers and his own father who has financed the
publication of books in Kubachi.
He points out that since the time of
Stalin, Kubachi has been considered “a non-literary dialect of Dargin,” but “by
generally accepted scientific criteria, it is a separate language,” one that is
more different from Dargin than “for example, Ukrainian is from Russian.” At a
minimum then, Daghestan should have 29 languages receiving support, but in
fact, the number is much larger.
Just
how many languages Daghestan has should be decided not by politicians
interested in boosting their own group or officials concerned only with
controlling the situation, but by scholars working in the area, he says.
Daghestan has such scholars. They should be allowed to do their job and only
after they do can anyone accurately compile a list of the languages of
Daghestan’s peoples.
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