Moscow Plan to Study Grammars of Numerically Small Peoples has Profoundly Political Ends, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 31 – Earlier this month, the ministry responsible for primary and secondary education announced plans for an expert study on the grammars of the languages of numerically small peoples of the Russian Federation (edu.gov.ru/press/5601/v-rossii-sozdadut-grammatiki-i-pravila-orfografii-i-punktuacii-yazykov-korennyh-malochislennyh-narodov/).

            Among the tasks the experts have been set are to “check the texts of grammatical descriptions for the presence of anti-constitutional statements, signs of exacerbation or inter-ethnic hostility and a lack of respect to the state and its leadership,” the IdelReal portal says (idelreal.org/a/32002131.html).

            At the very least, these are unusual standards against which to check grammars; and the portal turned to two experts from their evaluation of what is going on, Vlada Baranova, a socio-linguist at the Higher School of Economics, and an activist in the Country of Languages movement who spoke on condition of anonymity.

            Baranova said that these last criteria opened the door to repression of the authors of any grammars and look intended to frighten them. As such, she continued, the principles of evaluation are in reality “a mechanism of censorship, ideological control, and repression” of those involved and the languages they have compiled grammars for.

What the ministry and its assembled experts should be concerned about, she said, was “not the introduction of new testing procedures but the simplification of the requirements which are required to meet the Federal State Educational Standard. Anything more should be done at the local or regional level, not at the federal one.

The activist from the Country of Languages movement agreed and was equally appalled by the dangers this new set of criteria pose to the future of the languages and of the people who speak them. Of course, there have to be grammatical standards for a language to exist, but those should reflect natural trends rather than an order from above.

He pointed out that over time, the role of one dialect on the language as a whole may change relative to others and that should be reflected in the grammar of that language. But this should not happen on order from Moscow but as a result of the natural choices individual writers and editors make.

And the activist expressed particular horror about the consequences of Moscow’s concern about the attitudes of grammarians toward the state. Such concerns, he said, reflect an obsessive centralization and resulting commitment to Russianization rather than respect for all the languages of the country.