Reply To: Russian Tensions
Oh my aching sides: Russia limits use of foreign words
Russian senators have upheld a bill ordering all public and private entities to use only Russian words in their official communication. The legislation adopted on Wednesday by the parliament’s upper house – the Federation Council – states that the only exception is words that have no Russian equivalent.
So, after waging a war, in part, because the language rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine were suppressed, ‘Multi-ethnic’ Russia attacks it’s minority languages.
As Wikipedia notes:
On 19 June 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that made education in all languages but Russian optional, overruling previous laws by ethnic autonomies, and reducing instruction in minority languages to only two hours a week. This bill has been likened by some commentators, such as in Foreign Affairs, to a policy of Russification.
and
In 2020, a set of amendments to the Russian constitution was approved by the State Duma and later the Federation Council. One of the amendments is to enshrine Russian as the “language of the state-forming nationality” and the Russian people as the ethnic group that created the nation. The amendment has been met with criticism from Russia’s minorities who argue that it goes against the principle that Russia is a multinational state and will only marginalize them further.
It’s enough to make a cat laugh. There are 100 minority languages in Russia…
