Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 19 – Refugees from
Ukraine apparently will not have to study non-Russian languages as required by
the legislation of the non-Russian republics but instead will be exposed to
more intensive Russian language instruction, yet another way in which Moscow is
undermining the status of non-Russian tongues.
Because of the sensitivity of
language issues in many republics, the authorities are not advertising this
plan. In fact, officials in Cheboksary, the capital of Chuvashia, confirmed it
only after an anonymous visitor posed the question on that city’s website (irekle.org/news/i1955.html
citing gov.cap.ru/Questions.aspx?gov_id=81#QuestionId55786).
City
officials said that the 199 school-age refugees from Ukraine would not be
required to take courses in Chuvash and be tested as to their proficiency in
that language. Instead, “great attention will be devoted to additional training
in Russian,” given that the knowledge of Russian among these children “leaves
much to be desired.”
As
Irekle.org notes, Chuvash activists have been pushing for more Chuvash
instruction while officials have been taking a variety of steps to reduce the
amount of instruction and the use of the national language there, including
taking down signs in Chuvash before Vladimir Putin’s visit and proposing to
replace classroom instruction in Chuvash with distance learning.
More
than a million Chuvash say they speak that Turkic language, but international
organizations have identified it as a language at risk because of the expansion
of Russian language use there and because it is not mutually intelligible with
other Turkic languages and thus Chuvash cannot save their language by getting
training in other Turkic republics.
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