Moscow Set to Divide Russia’s Languages into Three Categories: Living, Dormant and Extinct

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – New details are emerging about Vladimir Putin’s order to create a registry of the languages spoken in the Russian Federation, a step the Kremlin will use to further restrict the use of many of them (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/by-calling-for-state-register-of.html).
    Andrei Kibrik, head of the Moscow Institute of Linquistics, which apparently will play a key role in developing the list, says that his branch of the Academy of Sciences has developed a system of classification for languages (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2025/01/09/1085170-zakon-o-yazikah-narodov-rossii and nazaccent.ru/content/43366-v-rossii-poyavitsya-gosudarstvennyj-reestr-yazykov-narodov-strany/).
    “The institute divides all the languages of the country into three groups: the living, the dormant and the extinct,” Kibrik says. “Living languages are those which are constantly used in communication. Dormant languages are those which some people know some words. And extinct languages are those no one speaks any longer.”
    Until recently, most post-Soviet Russian writers have denied that there are any languages being added to the last category despite evidence that some are. (See, for example, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/moscow-announces-plans-to-save.html.) Moscow will likely use the “dormant” category to muddy the waters about those headed toward extinction.
    And to the extent that happens, ever more non-Russian languages will be deprived of the support that might allow them to survive, and ever more of those who still spoken them at least in part will be forced to shift over to the Russian language, a move that will undermine the possibility of the survival of their nations.