RFE/RL Russian Federation Report No. 27: excerpts
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RFE/RL Russian Federation Report No. 27: excerpts
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL Russian Federation Report
Vol. 3, No. 27, 3 October 2001
A Survey of Developments in the Regions Outside Moscow
Prepared by the Staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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MINORITY LANGUAGES AT RISK OF DYING OUT. An article published in
"Vremya MN" on 26 September on the occasion of Europe's Language Day
said that languages spoken by only a handful of people in Russia are
now at the mercy of the whims of regional leaders rather than of any
central policy as to whether they will survive or die out. These
languages saw their first major decline from the 1950s to the end of
the 1980s when textbooks and instruction in them were reduced by
Moscow's fiat. But since 1991, one of the "small" languages has died
out - Kerek, which was spoken in parts of Chukotka - and many of the
60 others in this category are threatened with extinction, the article
said. It also noted that Russia up to now has never signed a single
international convention on the protection of small ethnic groups and
languages spoken by relatively few people. Dmitrii Nasilov, a language
professor at the Institute for Asian and African Countries at Moscow
State University, told the daily that there are two reasons for the
worsening situation regarding the languages of numerically small
peoples: "The ethnic groups themselves almost do not support
linguistic self-awareness, and all levels of public authorities pay
little attention to the issue of language." The newspaper also cites a
website on languages of Russia that reports that only 42 percent of
the Saami consider Saamii to be their native language, and only 23
percent of the Nivkhii know the Nivkhii language. PG/JAC
VOLGA ETHNIC GROUPS CALL ON ENVOY TO SET UP DIASPORA COUNCIL.
Representatives of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Udmurtia have
recommended that a coordinating council for work with ethnic diasporas
be established in the Volga federal district, Interfax-Eurasia
reported on 28 September. Around 100 representatives of the three
republics gathered on 28 September in Naberezhnye Chelny in Tatarstan
to discuss the problems of diasporas. According to the agency, there
are around 8 million Tatars, two-thirds of whom live outside of
Tatarstan, and there are 800,000 Udmurts, of whom 250,000 live in
Udmurtia. JAC
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Copyright (c) 2001. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
"RFE/RL Russian Federation Report" is prepared by Julie A. Corwin
(JAC) on the basis of a variety of sources, including reporting by
"RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. Regular
contributors are Liz Fuller (LF), and Paul Goble (PG). It is
distributed every Wednesday.
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