More on language legislation in Russia

[curt fredric woolhiser]

>
>RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
>___________________________________________________________
>RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 233, Part I, 13 December 2002
>
>
>DUMA APPROVES BILL ON STATE LANGUAGE IN SECOND READING... The State
>Duma on 11 December approved in the second reading a draft law that
>would establish Russian as the state language, ORT reported.
>According to "The Moscow Times" on 28 November, the bill requires
>that Russian be used in all official contacts and bans "foreign words
>that have commonly accepted Russian equivalents" as well as
>"vernacular, disdainful, or foul" language. However, it does not
>specify how the law would be enforced or how language offenders would
>be punished. ORT noted that contrary to earlier speculation, the
>latest version of the bill does not impose fines for distorting the
>Russian language in public. "The Moscow Times" also commented that
>since the Duma approved the bill in the first reading in June,
>deputies have loosened proposed restrictions on journalists and
>television personalities, who would be able to use prohibited
>language if it is "an inalienable part of an artistic concept." LB
>
>...BUT EXPERTS SAY IT WILL NOT WORK. Professor Vitalii Kostomarov of
>the Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language in Moscow told ORT on
>11 December that while he has long advocated state policies to
>preserve the Russian language, he expects the bill approved by the
>Duma to be a dead letter. Similarly, Professor Maksim Kronhaus,
>director of the Linguistics Institute of the Russian State Humanities
>University, described attempts to legislate foreign borrowings as
>absurd, "The Moscow Times" reported on 28 November. In addition,
>Kronhaus said the draft law under consideration in the Duma is too
>vague to be effective. For instance, it states that the rules on
>using Russian as the state language apply to "activities" of private
>organizations as well as to official contacts by state bodies. It
>also covers advertising but not brand names or "'functional' signs
>such as exit markers or stop signs." LB
>

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