Sunday, September 15, 2019

Moscow Exaggerates Number of Peoples and Languages in Russia to Justify Not Supporting Them, Gyylman Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 11 – Vladimir Putin says and his propagandists repeat that “more than 190 peoples live in Russia who speak more than 200 languages” and that “over the country’s entire history not a single people or language has disappeared.”  But in doing so, they are not being accurate or solicitous of these nations and languages, Nail Gyylman says.

            The 7x7 reginal portal blogger says that the actual numbers are far lower – less than 90 – with the 25 largest non-Russian nations accounting for 96 percent of all of them and that Moscow’s claims that n languages have died or are at risk of doing so are simply untrue (zamanabiz.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_17.html).

            The reason Moscow officials give the higher numbers is justify not supporting most of these languages. Indeed, Academician Valery Tishkov, a senior advisor to Putin on ethnic issues, says that the enormous number of nations and languages in Russia is why Moscow can’t ratify the European Language Charter.

            Gyylman points out that of the 194 peoples and nationalities listed in the 2010 Russian census, “more than 40 percent or about 82” were members of the nationalities of foreign countries.  And while some have been living in what is now the Russian Federation for a long time, “the absolute majority are not indigenous.

            There are thus only 76 indigenous peoples and 36 ethnic groups “which are counted separately and at the same time are include within one or another indigenous people.” For example, the blogger continues, there are 14 ethnic groups counted within the Avars of Daghestan.

            “It is impossible to offer an exact number of peoples,” he says. “For example, the Mordvins are a union of two ethnoses, the Erzya and the Moksha, but in the census more than 90 percent of these indicate they belong to a single people.” The same thing is true of the two ethnoses who make up the Maris.

            At the same time, “the number of languages used does not correspond to the number of peoples,” Gyylman says. Some peoples – the Maris, the Mordvins, and the Altays – have two officially recognized languages. Others – the Karachays, Balkars, Kabardins and Cherkess – share a common language. 

On the basis of the 2010 census, one can say that, if one excludes Daghestan, there are about 56 or 57 languages being used by Russia’s indigenous peoples. Including the 24 languages being used in Daghestan, that number rises to about 80 – far fewer than the 200 plus Putin and his regime claim. 

Of these 80, a significant fraction is spoken by only a relatively few people: Twelve of the languages listed in the census are spoken by fewer than 100, and 11 more by groups numbering from 100 to 300.

UNESCO experts, Gyylman says, count 133 languages in Russia and say that 15 are dying and 23 more are in critical condition. Indeed, the international body suggests that all the languages of the Russian Federation except for Russian and Tatar are ultimately at risk of disappearing.  And Tatar may be as well given that fewer and fewer young people speak it.

There are thus about 75 indigenous national minorities in Russia which use approximately 80 languages. Of these, two, one with one speaker and a second with four, may be considered near death. Others have died in Russia during the 20th century – the Kamasintsy, the Alyutortsy, and the Ubykhs. And there are 12 more peoples now with fewer than 1000 members. 

At the other end of the scale there are four non-Russian nations with more than a million each – the Tatars, the Bashkirs, the Chuvash and the Chechens. Taken together, these four formed 52 percent of all Russia’s non-Russians in 2010. Together with the 25 peoples with between 100,000 and a million, these form 96 percent of all national minorities in the country.us

In Russia at present, Gyylman continues, “there are 16 indigenous peoples who number more than 450,000 each. When responsible officials say that it is impossible to satisfy all the peoples and organize instruction or offer examinations in 100 or 200 languages, this reduces the situation to the absurd with the purpose of avoiding a solution to the problem.”

Approximately 50 languages of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation are partially supported in the schools, and they encompass “99.9 percent of the indigenous national minorities.” It would certainly be possible to offer comprehensive instruction and graduation examinations in 25 to 30 of the largest of these.  

“The language question is the most important political question for any people,” Gyylman says. “And it impossible to preserve it when it is spoken only within the family. A language can be preserved only on a definite territory in districts of the compact settlement of the people.”

            As he points out, “that is one of the main functions of the national autonomies in any federation.” The Russian constitution recognizes this fact, but over the last decade Moscow has increasingly ignored the rights of the national minorities.

            The last time Moscow published comprehensive official statistics on language use in the schools was in 2002 when instruction was being carried out in 26 languages of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation. Since then, things have gotten worse.

            According to one study, between 2002 and 2010, the number of non-Russian language classes fell by two-thirds, and the number of pupils in them by slightly more than that. This led to a 16 percent decline in the number of speakers of non-Russian languages.  At present Russian schools offer classes in about 30 languages of the Russian Federation but far fewer offer instruction in all subjects in them. 

            If the situation is to be saved, Gyylman argues, these languages must be taught on a required basis not only in the national republics but also “in other regions and settlements where the fraction of the local ethnos is more than two-thirds of the population.” If the non-Russian languages disappear, Russian will lose the enrichment to itself they provide.

            Those who talk about the need to “strengthen” the position of Russian ignore the fact that this is impossible “since already three generations of non-Russian peoples have studied it and know it better than their native tongue, just as migrants from the countries of the former USSR do.”

            According to Gyylman, Moscow is openly hostile to the development of the languages of the national minorities and quite prepared to openly discriminate against them. Indeed, one can say that at the present time “there is being carried abut a policy directed toward the assimilation of the national minorities.”

            “Ideologically,” he says, “everything has been turned upside down. The state sees a threat to itself in the development of the languages of the national minorities although historical experience shows that on the contrary, ignoring the rights of peoples and a policy of russification was one of the main causes of the destruction of both the Russian Empire and the USSR.”

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