Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 1 – As Russian
schools reopen, only three of Russia’s non-Russian nations – the Tatars, the
Khakass and the Yakut -- have government-approved textbooks in their native
languages, something that makes a mockery of Moscow’s claims that it is
supporting instruction in various subjects in 24 languages and offering language
courses in 73 of them.
That situation, the product of a
Russian law adopted in 2012 which specified that only textbooks approved by
Moscow could be used in schools, is only one of the increasing number of
factors working against the survival of many of these languages and hence of
the nations who speak them (nazaccent.ru/content/17403-voyuem-ne-kolichestvom-a-kachestvom-i.html).
Unfortunately, Elena Koshkina says, “far
from every republic is ready now to find people [who can prepare such textbooks]
and finance their difficult work,” which involves not only the composition and
publishing of such texts but securing federal approval, all unfunded
liabilities imposed by Moscow.
But that is far from the only threat
to non-Russian languages. Many parents do not want their children to study them
lest they not learn Russian well enough to do well in state examinations and
careers or lest the study of those languages cuts into time spent on other
subjects. Now another threat looms, albeit one whose full extent is not yet
clear.
Today, in “Rossiiskaya gazeta,”
Russian Education Minister Dmitry Livanov said that as of this academic year,
all students in the fifth class and above will be required to study not one
foreign language but two. That will put even more pressure on non-Russian
parents and schools to reduce time spent on domestic non-Russian languages (rg.ru/2015/09/01/livanov.html).
No comments:
Post a Comment