Sprachen in der Sowjetunion
Languages of the Soviet Union were hundreds of different languages and dialects from several different language groups.
In 1918, it was decreedVorlage:Who that all nationalities in the Soviet Union had the right to education in their own language. The new orthography used the Cyrillic, Latin, or Arabic alphabet, depending on geography and culture. After 1937, all languages that had gotten new alphabet after 1917 began using the Cyrillic alphabet. This was so it would be easier for linguistic minorities to learn to write both Russian and their native language. In 1960, the school educational laws were changed and teaching became more dominated by Russian. The teaching of minority languages dropped sharply and by the end of the USSR almost all teaching was done in Russian.
In 1975, Brezhnev said Vorlage:Quotation
Distribution and status
East Slavic languages, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, dominated in the European part of the Soviet Union, while the Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian, and the Finno-Ugric language Estonian was used next to the Russian in the Baltic. In the Caucasus there was the Turkic language Azeri used alongside Armenian and Georgian. In the Russian far north, there were several minority groups who spoke different Uralic languages; most of the languages in Central Asia were Turkic with the exception of Tajik, which is an Iranian language.
The USSR was a multilingual state, with over 120 languages spoken natively.Vorlage:Fact Although discrimination on the basis of language was illegal under the Soviet Constitution, the de-facto status of these languages differed.
Although the USSR did not have de jure an official language over most of its history, until 1990,[1] and Russian was merely defined as the language of interethnic communication (Vorlage:Lang-ru), it assumed de facto the role of official language.[2] For its role and influence in the USSR, see Russification.
On a second level were the languages of the other 14 Union Republics. In line with their de jure status in a federal state, they had a small formal role at the Union level (being e.g. present in the Coat of arms of the USSR and its banknotes) and as the main language of its republic. Their effective weight, however, varied with the republic (from strong in places like the Armenian SSR to weak in places like the Byelorussian SSR), or even inside it.Vorlage:Fact
Of these fourteen languages, three are often considered varieties of other languages: (Azerbaijani of Turkish,Vorlage:Fact Tajik of Persian, and Moldovan is nearly identical to Romanian). Strongly promoted use of the Cyrillic alphabet in many republics however, combined with lack of contact, led to the separate development of the literary languages. Some of the former Soviet republics, now independent states, continue to use the Cyrillic alphabet at present (such as Kyrgizia), while others have opted to use the Latin alphabet instead (such as Turkmenistan) or are actively attempting to adopt it (Moldova, where the official switch to Latin met with strong controversy and contributed to War of Transnistria; the unrecognized Transnistria officially uses the Cyrillic alphabet).
The Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union and other subdivision of the USSR lacked even this de jure autonomy, and their languages had virtually no presence at the national level (and often, not even in the urban areas of the republic itself). They were, however, present in education (although often only at lower grades).Vorlage:Fact
Some smaller languages with very dwindling small communities, like Livonian, were neglected, and weren't present either in education or in publishing.Vorlage:Fact
Several languages of non-titular nations, like German, Korean or Polish, although having sizable communities in the USSR, and in some cases being present in education and in publishing, were not considered to be Soviet languages. On the other hand, Finnish, although not generally considered a language of the USSR, was an official language of the Karelian ASSR and its predecessor, the Karelo-Finnish SSR.Vorlage:Fact Also Yiddish and Romany were considered Soviet languages.Vorlage:Fact
See also
References
Bibliography
- Bernard Comrie. The Languages of the Soviet Union. CUP 1981. ISBN 0-521-23230-9 (hb), ISBN 0-521-29877-6 (pb)
- E. Glyn Lewis. Multilingualism in the Soviet Union: Aspects of Language Policy and Its Implementation. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1971.
- Языки народов СССР. 1967. Москва: Наука 5т.
- ↑ In early 1900s there had been a discussion over the need to introduce Russian as the official language of Russian Empire. The dominant view among Bolsheviks at that time was that there is no need for state language. See: "Нужен ли обязательный государственный язык?" by Lenin (1914). Staying with the Lenin's view, not state language was declared in the Soviet state.
In 1990 the Russian language was declared as the official language of USSR and the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. See Article 4 of the Law on Languages of Nations of USSR. Vorlage:Ru icon - ↑ Bernard Comrie, The Languages of the Soviet Union, page 31, the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1981. ISBN 0-521-23230-9