[lg policy] Andrey Petrov on Vesti.FM: Azerbaijani and Ukrainian will not cease to be the official languages ​​of Russia

[Harold Schiffman]

Andrey Petrov on Vesti.FM: Azerbaijani and Ukrainian will not cease to be
the official languages of Russia
8 Dec in 17:20
[image: Andrey Petrov on Vesti.FM: Azerbaijani and Ukrainian will not cease
to be the official languages of Russia]
<http://vestnikkavkaza.net/upload2/2018-12-08/15442787515c0bd2dff205f6.41372854.jpg>

The state status of republican languages in Russia does not depend on the
relations of the Russian Federation with those countries where these
languages are spoken and, in particular, are official, the senior analyst
of Vestnik Kavkaza, Andrey Petrov, said in the National Question program on
Vesti.FM, speaking about the issue of preserving the culture of the
post-Soviet countries in Russia, often questioned by political opponents
from the Baltic states and Ukraine.

First of all, the analyst recalled that Russia is a country of the most
liberal language policy. “Not everyone knows that there are more than 30
state languages in Russia, and this includes the official languages of
foreign countries. In 64 regions, there is only one such language -
Russian, but in 21 regions - in the republics - indigenous languages also
have the status of state languages. Perhaps this is due to our legislation,
according to which the republics in the Federation have a special form of
statehood of the Russian peoples: they live according to their own
constitutions, which, as a result, allows them to establish their own state
languages along with Russian, ” he said.

“For today's topic, Dagestan and Crimea are the most interesting regions.
In most republics, the second state language is one — Mari in Mari El,
Buryat in Buryatia, Ingush in Ingushetia, Chuvash in Chuvashia, and so on,
in Mordovia and Kabardino-Balkaria there are two official languages, in
Karachay-Cherkessia there are four, and in Dagestan, the Constitution
establishes that the languages of all Dagestan peoples are state. De facto,
we are talking only about 13 languages that have written form, including
the official language of a foreign state - Azerbaijani, ” Andrey Petrov
said, adding that the case of the Azerbaijani language is a good example of
the Russian language policy.

"Azerbaijanis are the indigenous people of Dagestan, a third of the
population of the well-known Derbent are Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijani was once
the language of interethnic communication in the south of the region,
therefore, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Azerbaijan turned out to be
a foreign state for Russia, no discussions arose what to do with its
language. Azerbaijani has become the Russian state language together with
other languages of the peoples of Dagestan, because in Russia the language
issue is resolved simply: people have the right to speak, write and read in
their native language if they want, including in the schools, media and
official documents. The Azerbaijani people declared independence, but the
Dagestan Azeris did not cease to be Russians and have the same rights as
other Russian peoples, ”the senior analyst explained.

The same policy was applied to Crimea when the republic became the part of
Russia. “The Crimean constitution proclaimed Russian, Ukrainian, and
Crimean-Tatar state languages, and when Crimea and Sevastopol became
subjects of the Russian Federation, all that remained. Crimean-Tatar, in
fact, first received the status of the state language, since unitary
Ukraine has only one official language. The status of Ukrainian as the
state language of Russia is not disputed by anyone, despite the complexity
of the Russian-Ukrainian relations and the fact that for more than 20 years
Ukrainian has been a foreign language. This status will not be changed in
the future: Ukrainians are now one of the indigenous peoples of our country
and have the right to speak, write and read in their native language, ”
Andrey Petrov said.

He also noted that this right is enshrined in Article 26 of the 2nd chapter
of the Russian Constitution: “Everyone has the right to use his native
language and to a free choice of language of communication, education,
upbringing and creativity.”

2480 views

   - Crimea <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/crimea>
   - Vesti FM <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Vesti FM>
   - Russia and Ukraine <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Russia and Ukraine>
   - Russia and Azerbaijan <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Russia and
   Azerbaijan>
   - Russian language <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Russian language>
   - Andrey Petrov <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Andrey Petrov>
   - Azerbaijani language <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Azerbaijani
   language>
   - National Question <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/National Question>
   - Ukrainian language <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Ukrainian language>
   - Crimean-Tatar language <http://vestnikkavkaza.net/tags/Crimean-Tatar
   language>
   - Ещё .



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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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