Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries 9781847690883

Table of contents :
Contents
Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries: Language Revival, Language Removal, and Sociolinguistic Theory
Language Management and Language Problems in Belarus: Education and Beyond
A Tense and Shifting Balance: Bilingualism and Education in Ukraine
Uneasy Compromise: Language and Education in Moldova
Language and Education Orientations in Lithuania: A Cross-Baltic Perspective Post-EU Accession
Estonianization Efforts Post-Independence
Language Policies of Kazakhization and Their Influence on Language Attitudes and Use
Multilingualism, Russian Language and Education in Kyrgyzstan
Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan

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Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Other Books of Interest Beyond Boundaries: Language and Identity in Contemporary Europe Paul Gubbins and Mike Holt (eds) Bilingual Minds: Emotional Experience, Expression and Representation Aneta Pavlenko (ed.) Bilingualism: Beyond Basic Principles Jean-Marc Dewaele, Alex Housen and Li Wei (eds) Cultural and Linguistic Policy Abroad: The Italian Experience Mariella Totaro-Genevois The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis? Robin Adamson Directions in Applied Linguistics Paul Bruthiaux, Dwight Atkinson, William G. Eggington, William Grabe and Vaidehi Ramanathan (eds) A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism Philip Herdina and Ulrike Jessner Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (4th edn) Colin Baker Forging Multilingual Spaces: Integrating Majority and Minority Bilingual Education Christine Hélot and Anne-Marie de Mejía (eds) Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages Judith Rosenhouse and Rotem Kowner (eds) Ideology and Image: Britain and Language Dennis Ager Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts Kees de Bot and Sinfree Makoni Language Planning and Policy in Europe, Vol. 1: Hungary, Finland and Sweden Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. (eds) Language Planning and Policy in Europe, Vol. 2: The Czech Republic, The European Union and Northern Ireland Richard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan (eds) Minority Language Media: Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies Mike Cormack and Niamh Hourigan Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes David Lasagabaster and Ángel Huguet (eds) Multilingualism in Spain M. Teresa Turell (ed.) Politeness in Europe Leo Hickey and Miranda Stewart (eds) Urban Multilingualism in Europe Guus Extra and Kutlay Yagmur (eds) Words and Worlds: World Languages Review F. Martí, P. Ortega, I. Idiazabal, A. Barreña, P. Juaristi, C. Junyent, B. Uranga and E. Amorrortu

For more details of these or any other of our publications, please contact: Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK http://www.multilingual-matters.com

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries Edited by

Aneta Pavlenko

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries/Edited by Aneta Pavlenko. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Language and education–Former Soviet republics. 2. Multilingualism–Former Soviet republics. I. Pavlenko, Aneta P40.85.F6M85 2008 306.44’947– dc22 2008012757 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-087-6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2008 Aneta Pavlenko and the authors of individual chapters. The contents of this book also appear in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Vol.11, No. 3+4 (2008). All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd.

Contents Aneta Pavlenko: Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries: Language Revival, Language Removal, and Sociolinguistic Theory

1

Markus Giger and Maria´n Sloboda: Language Management and Language Problems in Belarus: Education and Beyond

41

Laada Bilaniuk and Svitlana Melnyk: A Tense and Shifting Balance: Bilingualism and Education in Ukraine

66

Matthew H. Ciscel: Uneasy Compromise: Language and Education in Moldova

99

Tatjana Bulajeva and Gabrielle Hogan-Brun: Language and Education Orientations in Lithuania: A Cross-Baltic Perspective Post-EU Accession

122

Mart Rannut: Estonianization Efforts Post-Independence

149

Juldyz Smagulova: Language Policies of Kazakhization and Their Influence on Language Attitudes and Use

166

Abdykadyr Orusbaev, Arto Mustajoki and Ekaterina Protassova: Multilingualism, Russian Language and Education in Kyrgyzstan

202

Mehrinisso Nagzibekova: Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan

227

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries: Language Revival, Language Removal, and Sociolinguistic Theory Aneta Pavlenko CITE Department, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Introduction In December of 2007, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine announced that starting in 2008 all foreign-language movies shown in the country will have to be translated into Ukrainian via dubbing, subtitles, or synchronous translation.1 There would be nothing attention-worthy about this announcement if the ‘foreign language’ category didn’t also include Russsian, the native language of 30% of the population of Ukraine (www.ukrcensus.gov.ua), and one used and understood by the majority of the remaining 70%. The new law thus was not driven by linguistic needs, as it would be in the case of movies in French, Danish or Hindi. Nor was it driven by economic needs
the demand for Russian-language books and media continues to be high in Ukraine, and the measure may actually be detrimental to the already struggling film industry. In fact, it is the popularity of the Russian-language media
inconsistent with Ukraine’s nationalizing agenda and political aspirations and alliances
that drives the new law whose purpose is to ensure that Ukrainian citizens live in a Ukrainian-language environment. The announcement sparked a stormy debate in the media. Russian media have decried the law as yet another illiberal step taken by the Ukrainian government to deprive consumers of free choice and to impinge on the rights of Russian speakers.2 President Yushchenko contradicted this accusation stating that Ukrainian language policy conforms to all liberal European standards and that Russian is the language of another country that would not allow Ukrainians to identify themselves as Ukrainian.3 This heated discussion is not unusual
rather, it is just another chapter in the ongoing saga of the Russian language in Ukraine (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008).4 Nor are concerns about language status, policies and rights in the postSoviet space limited to Ukraine. As will be shown in this collection, in the past two decades, post-Soviet countries as a whole have emerged as a contested linguistic space, where emotional exchanges over language-related issues are fodder for the daily news5 and where disagreements over language- and

1

2

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Map 1 (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/bo.html) education-related decisions have led to demonstrations and at times even military conflicts and secession (cf. Ciscel, 2008). For decades, and sometimes centuries, many inhabitants of what is now called post-Soviet countries have watched their native languages take second seat to Russian, the lingua franca of the Russian empire and then of the USSR. The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 has created conditions for a unique sociolinguistic experiment, in which 14 countries previously united by the same language and political system could renegotiate this linguistic imbalance, strengthen the status of the titular languages and snatch the safety net from under the feet of monolingual Russian speakers, imposing new linguistic regimes in the process of building new nation-states. A comparative analysis of language shift outcomes and of challenges faced by the 14 states in implementing new language laws and restructuring educational systems offers a unique contribution to contemporary theories of language policy, shift, minority rights and language education. It is all the more surprising then that the post-Soviet context as a whole has been largely ignored in the scholarship on language policy and bi- and multilingualism. Foundational work in this area was conducted by political scientists, most

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

3

Map 2 (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/bo.html) notably Laitin (1998), Kolstø (1995, 2002) and their teams, that rushed to the newly independent countries to document the change of linguistic regimes. Other cross-country investigations have been conducted by the interdisciplinary teams of Smith and associates (1998) and Landau and Kellner-Heinkele (2001), and, in the post-Soviet context, by the teams headed by Lebedeva (1995) and Savoskul (2001). The resulting monographs have documented the initial stages of the negotiation of national identities and laid the theoretical and methodological foundations for the future study of the area. In the years that followed, linguistic anthropologists, sociolinguists and education scholars have joined the fray to examine sociolinguistic and educational changes in single countries (e.g. Bilaniuk, 2005; Ciscel, 2007; Korth, 2005). This work offered nuanced, detailed and theoretically sophisticated sociolinguistic portrayals of the countries in question but without the integrative drive displayed by political scientists. Moreover, until recently, investigations conducted by Western and local scholars proceeded in parallel, rather than in collaboration. At present, we are witnessing a transition to a new stage in the study of postSoviet sociolinguistics, ushered in by pioneering efforts of three scholars intent on creating conditions for sustained and systematic collaboration between East

4

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

and West. The efforts of Gabrielle Hogan-Brun have created conditions for such collaboration between Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latvian scholars and their international colleagues (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Hogan-Brun, 2005a,b; Hogan-Brun et al., 2007). The efforts of Ekaterina Protassova and Arto Mustajoki have united scholars of Russian diaspora from around the world (Mustajoki & Protassova, 2004) and spearheaded a large-scale international investigation of multilingualism in Central Asia under the auspices of the INTAS project (Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008). In the same spirit, the first aim of the present collection is to support and expand the collaboration between scholars working inside and outside of the post-Soviet countries.6 Its second aim is to introduce language developments in the post-Soviet countries to the larger scholarly community. The third aim is to begin the process of integrating and theorizing the findings and to reflect on the challenges these findings present for sociolinguistic theory, in particular with regard to articulation of minority rights of speakers of a ‘postcolonial’ language. Since the post-Soviet context is not particularly well known to the majority of readers, I will use this introduction to provide a general background against which developments in particular countries can be better understood. I will begin by placing these developments in the sociohistoric context of language policies of the Russian empire and the USSR. Then, I will offer a comparative overview of the outcomes of language shift in 14 post-Soviet countries, separated into three geographic groups: Eastern European countries, Transcaucasus and Central Asia. Throughout, I will highlight historic, demographic, linguistic and sociopolitical factors that shaped distinct language shift outcomes in geographically close countries. Then, I will outline the contributions and challenges to contemporary sociolinguistic theory that emerge from this work and point to productive directions for future research.

Language Policies and Practices in the Russian Empire and the USSR Russification in the Russian Empire Despite its multilingual and multiethnic character, until the eighteenth century Russia had no consistent language policy (Belikov & Krysin, 2001; Weeks, 2001). Russification took place slowly or not at all, while Russian administration used translators to communicate with local populations. Peter the Great was the first to formulate consistent language policies with regard to ethnic and linguistic minorities: German was kept as the official language in the Baltic territories, Swedish in Finland, and Polish in the Kingdom of Poland (Belikov & Krysin, 2001). In the mid-nineteenth century, the administration of Alexander II attempted to unify the empire through a number of measures, including the spread of Russian, and thus began articulating its russification policies. Alpatov (2000) and Weeks (2001) argue that these policies were not an across-the-board mandate, rather they applied selectively to particular ethnic and social groups. Thus, russification of Orthodox Christian Slavs, such as non-Catholic

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

5

Ukrainians and Belarusians, was considered critical. Russification of racial and religious minorities, such as Kalmyks or Uzbeks, was considered less important, and russification and assimilation of Jews was often forcefully prevented. Class and social status were also at play
whether through added incentives of social and educational advancement, or through enforcement, russification measures often targeted primarily or exclusively local elites. To give but one example, upon annexation of Georgia the tsarist regime closed all Georgian schools and opened Russian ones, where Georgian was taught as an optional subject. Yet in 1860 Georgia had only 145 primary and secondary schools catering to 7850 pupils (1% of the total population) (Hewitt, 1985). Consequently, these measures did not have a wide-reaching effect. The Georgian example also brings to attention the concomitant policy to limit the uses of other languages, replacing them with Russian. Once again, these measures were not applied across the board. Rather, they were taken in order to reduce the cultural power and influence of particular ethnic groups, such as Poles in Lithuania or Germans in Latvia and Estonia, and to subjugate groups that might foment nationalistic rebellions. Thus, in the European territories measures were taken to limit the uses of Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Moldovan, Lithuanian and German and to replace them with Russian in primary education and in secular secondary and higher education. Russian-language newspapers came to replace local-language and bilingual newspapers. On the other hand, in Central Asia, the Russian language never moved beyond the bureaucratic structures, and native languages enjoyed an unprecedented revival. As Belikov and Krysin (2001) point out, language policies were not consistently applied throughout the empire
rather, there existed numerous contradictions and discrepancies between laws and policies, on the one hand, and specific measures, on the other. Some laws and measures were met with either resistance or dismissal. Nevertheless, by the end of the nineteenth century, throughout the Russian empire, with the exception of Finland, secular secondary and higher education could only be obtained in Russian (Belikov & Krysin, 2001). After the revolution of 1905, a more tolerant language policy was introduced: numbers of minority language schools increased, and literature and periodicals appeared in a variety of languages, including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Georgian, Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian (Alpatov, 2000). The goal of imperial russification policies was bilingualism of the titular elites, and by the time of the 1917 revolution, the elites throughout the empire had integrated Russian into their linguistic repertoires (Laitin, 1998). On the other hand, non-Russian peasants and members of many other social strata had neither incentives nor opportunities to develop competence in Russian. Nativization and Russification in the USSR Following the October Revolution of 1917, Bolsheviks began to remake the country in a new image. To do so, they needed to convey their ideas quickly to people who spoke over a hundred different languages and were often illiterate to boot (Liber, 1991; Smith, 1998). Consequently, early language policies advanced by Lenin and his followers aimed to support and develop national

6

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and ethnic languages on the assumption that the new regime would be best understood and accepted by various minority groups if it functioned in their own languages. This support for national languages was part of a policy known as korenizatsiia (nativization or indigenization), which itself was part of a larger nation-building program that supported national territories, cultures, languages and elites in an attempt to organize the population into economically and administratively viable and stable national-territorial units. In this nation-building process, the Soviets drew and redrew borders, dissolved ethnic groups (e.g. Sarts), created new ethnicities and languages (e.g. Moldavians/Moldavian), reinforced boundaries between fluid identity categories and dialects (e.g. Uzbek/Tajik), formed new national territories (e.g. Turkmenistan), and eventually firmly embedded national categories into the very fabric of Soviet life (Edgar, 2004; Fierman, 1991; Hirsch, 2005; Martin, 2001; Slezkine, 1994). The USSR is commonly viewed as a country that had the longest and the most extensive experience with language planning (Anderson & Silver, 1984). Korenizatsiia of the 1920s involved systematic efforts to ensure that local administrations, courts and schools function in local languages, to translate world literature into local languages, to standardize a variety of languages, to support the development of new literary languages, to create alphabets for languages that did not yet have literacy, to encourage Russians to learn local languages, and to teach local populations to read and write
and sometimes even speak
in ‘their own’ languages (Alpatov, 2000; Edgar, 2004; Fierman, 1991; Kreindler, 1982; Liber, 1991; Martin, 2001; Slezkine, 1994; Smith, 1998). As a result of these initiatives, titular languages began to assume their functions across all domains, albeit to varying degrees. In Armenia and Georgia, two territories with large native intelligentsias, strong nationalist movements, and small Russian populations, national languages quickly assumed hegemonic functions (Martin, 2001; Suny, 1994). Great success was also achieved in Ukraine, despite strong opposition from Russians and russified titulars and minorities; belarusification was also making great strides, with documentation, press, and primary education shifting to Belarusian (Martin, 2001). On the other hand, in republics relying on Turkic languages advances were complicated by illiteracy and difficulties linked to language standardization and Latinization of the alphabets (Edgar, 2004; Fierman, 1991; Smith, 1998). In the 1930s, concerns about bourgeois nationalism led to a wave of repressions and purges of national elites. Coupled with apprehensions about the poor mastery of Russian by non-Russians and the difficulties in implementation of Latin alphabets, these concerns led to retreat from linguistic nativization. The administration began to realize that ‘presiding over 192 languages and potentially 192 bureaucracies was not a very good idea after all’ (Slezkine, 1994: 445) and developed a new appreciation for Russian as a language of state consolidation, industrialization, and collectivization. Language propaganda began to glorify the great and mighty Russian language. However, a course towards the greater spread of Russian did not entail a complete rejection of the nativization policies. Native languages continued to be used in education, the arts and the press. Thus, between 1928 and 1938 the

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

7

number of non-Russian newspapers increased from 205 titles in 47 languages to 2,188 titles in 66 languages (Slezkine, 1994). The russification of the 1930s took a three-pronged approach that involved status and acquisition planning (Russian) and corpus planning (local languages) (Alpatov, 2000; Slezkine, 1994; Smith, 1998). In the area of acquisition planning, a 1938 decree declared Russian an obligatory second language in non-Russian schools. While most schools already offered Russian, the decree established a set of universal standards, centralized the curriculum, increased the number of hours dedicated to Russian, and made textbook publication and teacher training a priority. In doing so, it highlighted the role of Russian as the de facto official language of the country and a necessary prerequisite of a true Soviet citizen. As a standard, however, the decree remained unfulfilled and Russian language teaching in non-Russian schools continued to be uneven, particularly in Central Asia (Fierman, 1991; Smith, 1998). Three decades later, the 1959 educational reform gave parents the right to choose the language of instruction for their children. This law led to an increase in enrollment in Russian-medium schools, which offered opportunities for social mobility, and a rise in Russian-language competence. In the area of corpus planning, a 1935 decree required the transfer of all Soviet languages with Latin alphabets to Cyrillic. Since Latin alphabets had only just begun to be introduced, this decree did not change much in practice7 but it did signal an important shift in language attitudes, as the change facilitated the study of Russian (Smith, 1998). Another corpus planning change involved efforts to base the grammars of local languages on the Russian grammar and to ensure that Russian was the only or at least the main source of neologisms. The result was a massive influx of Russian terms into local languages, in particular in domains concerned with socialism, communism, science and technology. While tsarist russification may have been more blatantly aimed at people, Soviet russification was more pervasive
it was no longer just people who were russified but also languages, their lexicons, grammars, and orthographies, and even territories, russified as a result of state-sponsored migration. This argument, however, requires two caveats. First, to say that russification was pervasive does not mean that it was fully successful. Even when language policies and rapid urbanization supported russification, other factors, such as inefficient instruction, nationalist consciousness, and settlement and occupation patterns, counteracted its spread. In many regions of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus local populations had no need for Russian and little if any knowledge of it. For instance, in Georgia in 1970, 91.4% of rural and 63% of urban Georgians lacked Russian fluency (Suny, 1994). Georgians, Armenians and the titulars in the Baltic republics also engaged in passive resistance, refusing to either learn Russian or to use it even when they knew it (Raun, 1985; Suny, 1994). The resulting low levels of Russian-language competence continued to raise concerns of the Soviet administration that launched another Russian-teaching campaign as late as the 1980s (Fierman, 1991). Secondly, russification in the USSR did not imply
at least outwardly
replacement of local languages with Russian. Rather, the government pursued a dual course, enacting russification policies at the same time that it

8

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maintained and strengthened national institutions (Gorenburg, 2006; Slezkine, 1994; Smith, 1998). As a result of this support and the massive spread of literacy, many national languages enjoyed linguistic and cultural revival, emerging as urban, literary and academic languages (Alpatov, 2000; Fierman, 1982; Snyder, 2003; Suny, 1994). In Georgia, by the 1950s Georgian-language theater, film, literature and scientific research began to flourish and more people spoke, read, and were educated in Georgian than ever before (Suny, 1994). Most importantly, in the titular republics and in some areas of the Russian Federation secondary schools offered a form of bilingual education, whereby Russian-medium schools incorporated the study of titular languages and literatures, and titular-medium schools the study of Russian language and literature (for detailed discussion, see Lewis, 1972; for exceptions, see Smagulova, 2008). Russian, however, received more hours in the titular school curricula than titular languages in Russian-medium schools (Fierman, 1991; Lewis, 1972). Students were also required to study a foreign language, most commonly German, English or French. Education was also offered in nontitular languages, although the number of languages had steadily diminished over the years: in 1934
1940 primary and secondary education was offered in 65 languages, in 1976
1980 in 53, and in 1989 in 43 languages (Anderson & Silver, 1984; Belikov & Krysin, 2001; Lewis, 1972). At the same time, titular languages in the USSR enjoyed the right to autonomy but not the right to equality (Smith, 1998). Minority languages were often disenfranchised
in some republics their speakers were subject to forceful assimilation to the titular languages (e.g. Uzbeks in Tajikistan or Abkhazians in Georgia) (Alpatov, 2000). As a result of this imbalance, Russian speakers could afford to be monolingual, speakers of titular languages aspiring to social advancement had to be bilingual, and minority language speakers had to be either bilingual (with Russian or the titular language as a second language) or multilingual. This situation had changed dramatically in 1991, when the USSR fell apart and Russian lost its status of a supra-ethnic language. Derussification and shift in the direction of titular languages emerged as the key goals of post-Soviet language policy and planning.

Language Shift in Post-Soviet Countries As Fishman (2006: 318) reminds us, ‘most language shift of formal and written language is caused or consciously facilitated’. In the post-Soviet context, unlike in postcolonial Africa (cf. Simpson, 2008), the intended shift was accompanied by a deliberate ‘removal’ of the ‘colonial’ language from the public sphere. This derussification, part of the more general de-sovietization process, included all areas where russification had previously occurred. In language use, it included elimination of Russian from official paperwork, official communication, the state-sponsored media and public signage. In language acquisition, it involved the closing or reduction in number of Russian-language schools and Russian-language tracks in higher education and either elimination of instruction in Russian as a second language or reduction in the number of Russian-language classes per week. In the area of

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

9

orthography, several titular languages replaced Cyrillic with Latin. In language corpora, some Russian neologisms were replaced with alternative terms, and geographic names underwent what Smith and associates (1998: 147) refer to as a ‘toponymic overhaul’, whereby Russian names were changed to local-sounding names (e.g. Frunze
Bishkek; Tselinograd
Akmola
Astana). Territorial derussification involved out-migration of Russian speakers (for a detailed discussion of the out-migration trends see Korobkov & Zaionchkovskaia, 2004). Both language shift and derussification would have been fairly unproblematic if the populations of all 14 countries were homogeneous and consisted mainly of titulars who favored the titular language. Yet this was not the case. Four factors complicated the implementation of language shift and removal in post-Soviet countries, even though they did not apply to all countries across the board: (a) large populations of monolingual Russian speakers; (b) russification of members of the titular population; (c) multiethnic populations accustomed to relying on Russian as a lingua franca of interethnic communication; and (d) functional limitations of some of the titular languages. To begin with the first factor, in 1991 the 14 countries were home to 25 million ethnic Russians and 36.5 million native speakers of Russian. Table 1 provides information on the numbers and proportions of titulars, ethnic Russians, and first language (L1) Russian language speakers, in each of the countries. The numbers of L1 Russian speakers are invariably higher than those of ethnic Russians because they include russified members of other ethnic groups (both titulars and minorities). Thus, in 1989, in Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine, L1 Russian speakers constituted between 23 and 47% of the total population. Immigrants come to a new country with full awareness that its inhabitants speak a different language and that they need to learn this language in order to conduct their business. The Russian-speaking population in post-Soviet countries does not easily fit this description because they woke up one morning to a political and linguistic reality not of their doing and found themselves involuntary
and at times unwelcome
migrants in what they had previously considered their own country. Their native language, previously used throughout the country, was no longer sufficient to ensure employment and educational opportunities. In Latvia and Estonia, Russians who could not trace their residence to the pre-1940 states also found themselves stateless8 and threatened with deportation (Laitin, 1998). The presence of this largely monolingual, Russian-speaking population created major challenges for the nation-building efforts of local authorities. The second factor that complicated the intended language shift in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, were the high levels of russification among the titulars, in particular those living in urban centers (see Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Giger & Sloboda, 2008; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008). These titulars had shifted to Russian and, in many cases, displayed low levels of competence in the titular language. The new language shift in such contexts had to reverse the effects of the previous language shift. The third complicating factor in some of the countries was the multiethnic and multilingual composition of the population, with Russian traditionally

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

10

Table 1 Numbers and proportions of titulars, ethnic Russians and L1 Russian speakers in Soviet republics in 1989 and in post-Soviet countries in 1999
2004 (based on the 1989 USSR Census and respective post-Soviet Censuses)

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Estonia

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Latvia

Lithuania

Moldova

Tajikistan

1989

1989

1989

1999 2004




1999 2004

1999 2004

Titulars

Russians

L1 Russian speakers

Titulars

Russians

L1 Russian speakers

51,555

67,519

3,145,354

14,660

29,563

93.3%

1.6%

2.0%

97.9%

0.5%

0.9%

5,804,980

392,304

529,723

7,205,500

141,700

N/A

82.7%

5.6%

7.5%

90.6%

1.8%

7,904,623

1,342,099

3,274,235

8,159,073

1,141,731

77.9%

13.2%

32.3%

81.2%

11.4%

62.8%

963,281

474,834

551,551

930,219

351,178

406,755

61.5%

30.3%

35.2%

67.9%

25.6%

29.7%

3,787,393

341,172

483,733

3,661,173

67,671

N/A

70.1%

6.3%

9.0%

83.8%

1.5%

6,534,616

6,227,549

7,800,575

7,985,039

4,479,618

39.7%

37.8%

47.4%

53.4%

30.0%

2,229,663

916,558

1,091,334

3,128,147

603,201

52.4%

21.5%

25.6%

64.9%

12.5%

1,387,757

905,515

1,133,298

1,370,700

703,200

52.0%

34.0%

42.5%

57.7%

29.6%

2,924,251

344,455

444,390

2,907,300

219,800

277,318

79.6%

9.4%

12.1%

83.5%

6.3%

8.0%

2,794,749

562,069

1,008,486

64.5%

13.0%

23.3%

75.8%

5.9%

16.0%

3,172,420

388,481

495,616

4,898,400

68,200

N/A

62.3%

7.6%

9.7%

79.9%

1.1%

333,892

421,332

N/A

N/A

9.5%

12.0%

72.0%

Uzbekistan




3,083,616

Turkmenistan 2,536,606

Ukraine




N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

37,419,053 11,355,582 17,081,347

37,541,700 8,334,100

72.7%

33.2%

77.8%

17.3%

29.6%

14,142,475 1,653,478

2,153,599

N/A

N/A

N/A

71.4%

10.9%

22.1%

8.3%

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

11

functioning as a lingua franca in interethnic communication and in communication between minority communities and the state authorities. To give but one example, in Georgia, even today, Russian may be used in oral and written communication between Armenian and Azeri communities and the state authorities because Georgian authorities are much more likely to understand documents in Russian than in Armenian or Azerbaijanian, while members of the local communities may be more fluent in Russian than in Georgian (Bezyrganova, 2006a; Bulghadarian, 2007; Kock Kobaidze, 2001; Popjanevski, 2006; Wheatley, 2006). Last but not least, in some countries, most notably Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, titular languages were not sufficiently developed to immediately assume all relevant functions and required further corpus planning and standardization (Alpatov, 2000; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008). As will be seen below, these four complicating factors, coupled with the historic, demographic, economic, social and political particularities of individual countries, have shaped distinct outcomes of intended language shift and removal. Eastern Europe Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine are located in the European territory of the former USSR (see Map 1). Between 1988 and 1990, all six countries proclaimed their titular languages to be the sole state languages. Upon achieving independence, they have begun implementing these laws. Since then, only one major change has occurred in these laws, when Belarus adopted Russian as a second state language in 1995. By 2007, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine have managed to raise the status of the titular languages and to spread their use to all areas of public life. They have also made significant steps towards derussification of the public sphere, which resulted in decreases in Russian-language competence among the titular populations (Arefiev, 2006; Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Ciscel, 2008). The degree of the shift however varies from country to country, with Belarus being the least and Lithuania most successful in shifting towards the titular language. In Belarus, the adoption of Russian as a second state language has effectively hampered Belarusian language revival. At present, Russian functions as the de facto main language, while Belarusian plays a symbolic function, indexing the nation in official documents and public spaces (Brown, 2007; Giger & Sloboda, 2008). Secondary education in Belarus is offered in the two state languages, Belarusian and Russian, and two minority languages, Lithuanian and Polish, with 76% of the children attending Russian-medium schools (Giger & Sloboda, 2008). Both state languages and one foreign language are obligatory in secondary education. Higher education functions in both state languages, with the predominance of Russian. The population also favors Russian-language literature, TV and print media (Koriakov, 2002). This language situation makes Belarus a welcome refuge for Russian-speaking immigrants from other post-Soviet countries (Nechapaika, 2007). Ukraine has succeeded in making Ukrainian the main language of the state government and political life and in spreading its use to all spheres of public

12

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

life. The presence of Russian, while reduced, has not been eliminated and in the eastern part of the country Russian is still used on a par with Ukrainian (Bilaniuk, 2005; Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Taranenko, 2007). This use is not restricted to members of the older generation
in eastern Ukraine, Russian still has a high status among the youth (Bilaniuk, 2005; Marshall, 2002). Secondary education is offered in Ukrainian (78% of all students) and in minority languages, most prominently Russian (21%) and also Moldovan, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Crimean Tatar (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Report, 2006a). The choice of the language of schooling is not fully up to the parents; rather, local authorities determine the number of schools operating in particular languages on the basis of the ethnic composition of the population, which may obscure the preferences of russophone Ukrainians (Hrycak, 2006). In some places the policies are established without any recourse to demographics. For instance, in the national capital Kyiv, Russian-language schools (with Ukrainian as a second language) have been largely eliminated and Russian-speaking parents have no choice but to send their children to Ukrainian-language schools where Russian literature is taught in Ukrainian translation. Higher education is offered in Ukrainian and in some regions, such as Crimea, in Russian. The informational space functions mainly in Ukrainian and Russian, only a few publications are available in other minority languages (Report, 2006a). This space continues to be a terrain of struggle, where policies privilege Ukrainian, while the free market forces favor Russian, in particular in the media and the book market (Taranenko, 2007). Moldova has succeeded in shifting to the Latin alphabet, in restoring the titular language across all domains, and, to a degree, in recognizing the identity of the titular language as Romanian. The exception is the breakaway Transnistrian Republic that refused to acknowledge the 1989 language law and adopted three official languages, Russian, Moldovan (in the Cyrillic alphabet), and Ukrainian (for more on Transnistria, see Ciscel, 2008; Protsyk, 2006; Roper, 2005). The new laws and the military conflict over Transnistria led to outmigration of large numbers of Russian speakers from Moldova (Arutiunian, 2003; Dreizler, 2007; Skvortsova, 2002). Despite this migration, language shift and the derussification of the country are not complete: Russian is still widely spoken on the streets of Moldovan cities, public signage in urban contexts is often bilingual, the levels of Russian-language competence among the titulars remain high, and the levels of Moldovan/Romanian language competence among Russian speakers remain relatively low, possibly due to ongoing accommodation towards Russian speakers and to the negative perceptions of the status and usefulness of Moldovan/Romanian (Kolstø & Melberg, 2002). Secondary education on the territory of Moldova is offered in Moldovan/ Romanian, and in the minority languages Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauzi and Bulgarian, with Moldovan/Romanian obligatory in all schools. In the breakaway Transnistria, secondary education functions in the three official languages, with Russian classes mandatory in Moldovan- and Ukrainianmedium schools (Ciscel, 2008). In the rest of Moldova, Russian is no longer obligatory in the education system. Higher education functions predominantly in Moldovan/Romanian but Russian speakers have access to Russian-

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

13

language sections. Mass media function in Moldovan/Romanian and also in Russian and other minority languages. In Estonia, secondary education is offered in Estonian (82.3%) and in the minority languages Russian, Finnish and Swedish, with Estonian an obligatory language in minority language schools (Rannut, 2008). Higher education is offered in Estonian. The media function in Estonian and in minority languages; Russian speakers have access to TV channels broadcast from Russia, Russian news on Estonian TV, and Russian press and literature (Maloverian, 2007). In Latvia, the aim of the 2004 education reform is Latvian-only secondary education; its transitional phase involves bilingual schooling for Russian speakers where up to 60% of the subjects are taught in Latvian and up to 40% in Russian (Adrey, 2005; Hogan-Brun, 2006; Priedite, 2005; Schmid, 2008). The reform was subject of heated debates, protests, and demonstrations, with Russian-speakers appealing for protection of their minority rights and demanding Latvia’s ratification of the Council of Europe Framework Convention (Hogan-Brun, 2006). These protests failed to alter the course of the education reform. Higher education in Latvia is offered in Latvian, with a few private institutions providing instruction in Russian. The informational space functions in Latvian and in minority languages, most visibly Russian. Both Estonia and Latvia have succeeded in returning to the use of titular languages in all areas of public life but are still struggling with raising levels of titular-language competence among Russian speakers. These speakers
or their parents and grandparents
settled in the Baltics during the Soviet times, when Russian functioned as a de facto official language. As a result, many did not develop proficiency in the titular languages. To encourage these Russian speakers to either assimilate or emigrate, both countries have adopted stringent ius sanguinis citizenship laws that offered automatic citizenship only to citizens or descendants of citizens of the inter-war republics. In turn, the descendants of those who settled there after the integration into the USSR had to apply for naturalization and pass a language test and a history and civics test (for details see Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Galbreath, 2006; Rannut, 2008). Upon adoption, these laws had left over 30% of the population in Latvia and 25% in Estonia without citizenship (at present, the stateless constitute 18% and 9% of the respective populations) (Ozolins, 2003; Rannut, 2008; Uzulis, 2007). The new laws created major employment and educational hardships for Russian speakers with low-level titular language skills, because they could no longer occupy jobs in the public sector nor attend institutions of higher education (Aasland, 2002; Kolstø & Melberg, 2002; Savoskul, 2001; Siiner, 2006). The response of the Russian community to these measures and resulting economic disparities was quite unexpected. Policy analysts predicted that they would either leave en masse or assimilate (Laitin, 1998). While approximately 10% of the Russian population of the two countries left in the early 1990s (Smith et al., 1998), the majority decided to stay, mainly due to the higher economic standard in the Baltic countries. Yet these speakers did not assimilate linguistically as rapidly as expected: almost two decades after independence, levels of Estonian and Latvian language competence are still lower among

14

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Russian speakers than levels of Russian-language competence among Estonians and Latvians (Round of population and housing censuses, 2003; Rannut, 2008). This relationship appears to be slowly changing in the youngest generation where levels of Russian-language competence among the titulars are decreasing and levels of titular-language competence among Russianspeakers are on the rise (Arefiev, 2006; Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Rannut, 2008). Lithuania is the most successful among the six Eastern European countries in implementing the shift towards the titular language and assimilating its non-titular populations. The evidence of this assimilation can be found in a 2002 survey, where Russian speakers reported using Lithuanian more frequently with their children (27%) and grandchildren (33%), than with their brothers and sisters (12%) and parents and grandparents (3
8%) (Hogan-Brun & Ramoniene, 2005). Secondary education in Lithuania is offered in Lithuanian and in the minority languages Polish, Russian and Belarusian; the percentage of students attending Russian-medium schools is steadily decreasing. Foreign language instruction includes two obligatory and one optional language, with English as the most popular first and Russian as the most popular second foreign language (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008). Higher education functions in Lithuanian but a few institutions also offer instruction in English. The rapid rise of English raises some concerns about the threat it may present to the development of national identity (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008). The informational space functions predominantly in Lithuanian. Some minority-language media are also available but Russian speakers complain about limited access to Russian-language publications (Radzevichiute, 2007). Given the fact that in 1989 Lithuania had the most homogeneous population among the six countries (see Table 1) and the highest levels of titular-language competence among L1 Russian speakers (see Table 2), this success is not surprising. Yet a cross-country analysis shows that distinct language shift outcomes in the six countries cannot be fully attributed to demographics, rather they are shaped by an intricate interplay of sociopolitical, historic, economic and demographic factors. The success of the three Baltic countries in restoring the status of the titular language is best understood in the light of their history of incorporation into the USSR. Previously part of the Russian empire, between 1920 and 1940 Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia enjoyed independent statehood with titular languages used across all domains. Annexed by the Soviets in 1940, as a result of the Molotov
Ribbentrop Pact, then invaded by the Nazi Germany, and then reannexed by the USSR in 1944, the three countries vehemently opposed the occupation and ensuing russification.9 In 1991, their titular populations, returning to independence after a little more than four decades of Soviet rule, had high levels of national consciousness, language loyalty, and titular language competence, and negative attitudes towards all things Russian. These attitudes were consistent with the countries’ political orientation towards the West and further strengthened by their accession into NATO and the European Union (EU). According to Rannut (2008), the accession is also part of the reason behind the slow rise of titular language competence among the Russian speakers: under pressure from the international community, the countries had to slow

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

15

Table 2 Language fluency data based on the 1989 USSR Census and respective postSoviet Censuses (fluent speakers include speakers who declare the language as the L1 or a fluent L2).

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Estonia

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Latvia

Lithuania

Moldova

Tajikistan

1989

1989

1999 2004




1999 2004

Titulars fluent in the Russian language

Russians fluent in the titular language

Titulars fluent in the Russian language

Russians fluent in the titular language

1,374,580

17,315

N/A

N/A

44.6%

33.6%

1,863,712

56,687

32.1%

14.4%

8.2%

16.6%

6,335,952

358,518

N/A

N/A

80.2%

26.7%

333,426

71,208

34.6%

15.0%

42.2%

1,212,665

80,898

N/A

N/A

32.0%

23.7%

4,195,221

54,063

64.2%

0.9%

75.0%

14.9%

830,720

11,196

37.3%

1.2%

947,797

201,669

68.3%

22.3%

1,100,113

129,255

37.6%

37.5%

60.3%

1,609,233

66,466

N/A

N/A

57.6%

1.8%

968,726

13,763

N/A

N/A

30.5%

3.5% N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Turkmenistan 716,819

Ukraine

Uzbekistan

8,500

28.3%

2.5%

26,837,304

3,899,247

71.7%

34.3%

3,215,908

75,937

22.7%

4.6%




N/A

N/A 33.0% N/A 51.5% N/A

16

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

down the implementation of language and education reforms and make adjustments for minority language support and protection of minority rights (see also Adrey, 2005). Additional reasons include the shortage of bilingual teachers and textbooks and difficulties in creating and implementing workable titular language and bilingual curricula. Moreover, not all Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia were eager to study the titular languages. Some were too old or unwilling to study the language of what they perceived to be a hostile host population (Aasland, 2002; Maloverian, 2007; Uzulis, 2007). Others found that the titulars reacted negatively to their attempts to communicate in the titular language, expressing condescension and anger at the ‘broken’ language (Siiner, 2006). More importantly, in both Estonia and Latvia, Russian speakers are highly concentrated in industrial cities and often have no everyday need for the titular language nor opportunities to practice it (Laitin, 1998; Siiner, 2006). In Latvia Russian speakers also appear to attribute less value to the titular language (Hogan-Brun, 2006)
instead of learning it, they have created an independent business community, where Latvian competence is not obligatory (Commercio, 2004). Political orientation and the history of incorporation have also shaped distinct language laws and language shift outcomes in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. As seen in Table 1, in 1989, Ukraine housed the largest Russianspeaking population outside of Russia (more than 17 million, 33.2%), yet it is Belarus that made Russian the second state language, while in Ukraine it has no official status. This decision is best understood in the light of the processes of linguistic domination that for centuries operated on the territories inhabited by ethnic Belarusians that were in turn part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian empire and Poland. At the turn of the twentieth century, cities on this territory were inhabited by speakers of Yiddish, Polish and Russian, while 98% of ethnic Belarusians were peasants living in the countryside (Marples, 1999; Snyder, 2003; Zaprudski, 2007). Belarusian national revival, thus, lacked an urban base and never reached the proportion of the Ukrainian revival. As a result, the Belorussian republic, created by the Soviets in 1919, was seen by many as an artificial creation that cultivated a non-existent titular nation (Hirsch, 2005: 149
155). In 1924
1926 the republic had doubled in size through the addition of large territories
formerly part of the Russian Federation
inhabited by a mix of Russians and russified ethnic Belarusians, who opposed the perceived ‘forced belorussification’ (Hirsch, 2005: 152
154). The belorusification that took place in the 1920s and the 1939 incorporation of the western territories that previously belonged to Poland did not tip the language balance in Belarus, in part because Poles did not support the use of Belarusian and had closed all Belarusian schools (Snyder, 2003). In post-war Belarus, rapid urbanization and dwindling numbers of Belarusian-language schools assisted further russification. As a result, Belarusians displayed the highest levels of russification and the lowest levels of titular language maintenance among the Soviet peoples (Marples, 1999; see also Table 2). The trends persisted post-1991: according to the 1999 Belarusian Census (www.belstat.gov.by), 81.2% of the population of Belarus self-identify as Belarusian, yet 62.8% of the same population uses Russian as their main

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

17

language, in and outside of the home. It is not surprising then that the popular vote in the 1995 referendum allowed the government to restore Russian to its status of the second state language. A similar outcome was likely in Ukraine when a promise to make Russian a second official language got president Leonid Kuchma elected in 1994 (Bilaniuk, 2005) and in Moldova when the Communist government of Vladimir Voronin came to power in 2001 (Ciscel, 2008). Eventually though neither country elevated the status of Russian because they had much stronger nationalist movements than Belarus: already in the 1920s, Soviet leaders noted that ‘while the Belorussians ‘‘lacked’’ national consciousness, the Ukrainians had too much’ (Hirsch, 2005: 158). The opposition movements and titular language maintenance and loyalty were particularly strong in the more recently incorporated territories: western Ukraine, annexed in 1944, and Bessarabia, annexed in 1945 (Ciscel, 2007, 2008; Skvortsova, 2002). The revival of Russian in Belarus is also consistent with the political orientation of the Belarusian government, led by the authoritarian Aleksandr Lukashenko. In 1991, Belarus was reluctant to leave the Soviet Union; since then the government has adopted a pro-Russian stance, incorporating the Soviet past into its conception of the modern Belarusian state and promoting the idea of historic, political, and economic unity with Russia (Marples, 1999, 2006; Smith et al., 1998). In contrast, the Ukrainian government, oriented towards the West and motivated by the desire to be accepted into NATO and the EU, is loosening historic, social, political and economic ties with Russia and rewriting the history of Ukraine to serve its current political needs (Kuzio, 1998, 2005, 2006; Smith et al., 1998). The return of Russian as an official language would be portrayed in this context as a first step on the road to becoming Little Russia, while the spread of Ukrainian is equated with acquiring a new European identity (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Kuzio, 1998). In Moldova, the view of the titular language as Romanian is similarly linked to a European identity (and an orientation towards Romania and the EU), while the view of Moldovan as an independent language and elevation of Russian to official status, are viewed as an orientation towards Russia (Ciscel, 2007, 2008; Roper, 2005). At the same time, the situation in Ukraine is somewhat different from that in Moldova, due to the higher proportion of native Russian speakers, some of whom are russified titulars. Several reasons have been cited to explain the persistence of Russian in Ukraine, most commonly genetic similarities between the two languages and language ideologies that assign different values to these languages. Both in Belarus and eastern Ukraine, dominant language ideologies reproduce the historic urban/rural divide and position Russian as the language of urbanity, progress, high culture, science, technology, and the media, and Belarusian and Ukrainian as provincial, backward, rural languages, to be discarded in an urban environment (Bilaniuk, 2005; Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Giger & Sloboda, 2008). And while the status of Ukrainian has risen since 1991, it has not overtaken Russian. Consequently, just as Russian speakers in Ukraine raise concerns about linguistic discrimination, Ukrainian elites voice concerns about the low status of the Ukrainian language, its poor institutionalization, and the low quality of Ukrainian

18

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

literature and media (Bilaniuk, 2005; Kostenko, 2004). Official bilingualism is not viewed as a viable option by the country’s political and cultural elites: they argue that ‘without affirmative action in its favor, Ukrainian could not hope to compete’ with Russian (Kuzio, 1998: 186). In the near future, the six European countries are facing somewhat different language management challenges. Estonia and Latvia need to raise levels of titular language competence among Russian speakers, while simultaneously protecting their linguistic rights; in elementary and secondary education, educational authorities need to find optimal models for bilingual and multilingual instruction, produce appropriate materials, and train more bilingual teachers. The Baltic countries also aim to raise levels of competence in global lingua francas, including but not limited to English (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Rannut, 2008). Ukraine and Belarus are primarily concerned with raising the status of the titular languages among Russians and russified titulars; Ukraine is also attempting to decrease the visibility of Russian and to increase the use of Ukrainian. Moldova continues to struggle with both the status and identity of the titular language, two conceptions of which, that of Moldovan as Romanian and that of Moldovan as an independent language, are competing in the public space (Ciscel, 2008). Transcaucasus The three countries of the Transcaucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (see Map 2), were the only countries where the national languages were already declared official under the Soviet regime. After the break-up of the USSR, these languages became the sole state languages (in addition, in Georgia, Abkhazian was declared official on the territory of Abkhazia). By 2007, the three countries have succeeded in expanding the use of titular languages across all public domains; Azerbaijan also implemented a transition from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet (Khruslov, 2006). In turn, spheres of Russian-language use and levels of Russian competence have significantly decreased (Arefiev, 2006; Khruslov, 2006). This success is not surprising: all three countries had long histories of nationhood and of linguistic and literary development, and, as a result, high levels of national consciousness, language loyalties, and titular language competence among titular populations (Smith et al., 1998; Suny, 1994). Despite these similarities, the three countries differ in the outcomes of intended language shift, with Armenia being most and Georgia least successful in a shift to the titular language. The present goal of language education in Armenia is trilingual competence, in the state language (Armenian), in Russian, and in another foreign language, commonly English, French or German. Russian is taught as an obligatory foreign language, from 2nd to 10th grade, between two and four hours a week (Aleksanian & Ter-Arakelian, 2001; Grdzelian, 2007; Report, 2003, 2006b). Secondary education is offered in Armenian and in five minority languages, Assyrian, Greek, Kurdish, Russian and Yezidi (Report, 2006b). Higher education functions mostly in Armenian, with Russian-language education available at the Russian-Armenian University and through commercial satellite campuses of Russian universities (Manvelian, 2007; Report,

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

19

2006b). The informational space functions in Armenian and in minority languages. Russian speakers have access to TV broadcasts from Russia, Russian-language news on Armenian TV, and Russian-language newspapers (Manvelian, 2007; Report, 2006b). Radio programs are also broadcast in Kurdish and Yezidi; print publications are available in Belarusian, German, Kurdish, Ukrainian and Yezidi (Report, 2006b). Armenia is the most accomplished among the three countries in protecting the rights of minority language speakers. This approach is a result of a radical change in Armenian language policy that took place in 1999 with the election of the new president Robert Kocharian (Danielian, 2004; Khruslov, 2006). In 2001, Armenia joined the European Charter (EC) for protection of language minority rights, ratifying five minority languages: Assyrian, Greek, Kurdish, Russian and Yezidi (Krikorian, 2005; Report, 2003, 2006b). Speakers of these languages are entitled to education in their native languages, under state patronage and with obligatory study of Armenian; to information in the native languages; to TV and radio broadcasts in the native languages; to the use of free interpreters in court proceedings; and to the use of native languages in religious, economic and social activities (Report, 2003, 2006b). In 2001, the Armenian government also adopted a document on the Russian language in the educational system and the cultural and social life of the Republic of Armenia (Khruslov, 2006). Subsequently, several steps were taken to ensure that Russian language remains part of Armenians’ multilingual repertoires enabling Armenia to maintain and expand its ties with Russia and other post-Soviet countries (Aleksanian & Ter-Arakelian, 2001; Danielian, 2004; Grdzelian, 2007; Khruslov, 2006; Report, 2003, 2006b). In Azerbaijan, levels of competence in Azerbaijanian10 are high both among the titulars and the ethnic minorities, while Russian continues to function as the best-known second or foreign language and in some contexts as the language of administrative communication (Popjanevski, 2006). Secondary education is offered in Azerbaijanian, in Russian and, for ethnic Georgians, in Georgian; other numerically small minority communities have only limited opportunities to study their mother tongues (Popjanevski, 2006). Azerbaijan is one of the few post-Soviet countries that did not reduce the number of Russian-language schools post-independence. According to Kaftan (2004), 378 schools in Azerbaijan offer Russian-language education to children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (see also Alieva, 2007; Khruslov, 2006). In Azerbaijanian-medium schools, Russian is offered as a foreign language starting with 5th grade (Khruslov, 2006). Higher education establishments function in Azerbaijanian, Russian, English and Turkish, with Russianlanguage education available at the Baku Slavic University and through Russian-language tracks in other institutions (Alieva, 2007; Kaftan, 2004). Informational space functions in Azerbaijanian and in minority languages, most visibly Russian (Alieva, 2007); radio broadcasts are also available in Avar, Lezgin and Tat (Popjanevski, 2006). Despite the relative freedom, language attitudes in Azerbaijan fluctuate, and periodic debates erupt regarding the fate of the Russian-language media in the country and the threat they may represent for the purity of Azerbaijanian (Popjanevski, 2006).11

20

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

In Georgia, secondary education is offered in Georgian, Abkhazian (in Abkazhia), and in the minority languages Russian, Azerbaijanian and Armenian (ICG, 2006). Georgian is an obligatory language in minoritylanguage schools and Russian is an obligatory second language in Georgianmedium schools, offered from 3rd grade on, for approximately three hours a week (Khruslov, 2006). Educators continuously bemoan the low quality of this instruction, the outdated pedagogical methods and textbooks ridden with errors (Bezyrganova, 2006a,b; Tumanova, 2007). The number of Russianlanguage schools has been drastically reduced in the country since 1991. By 2001
2002, Georgia had 63 Russian-language schools, located in Tbilisi, in villages inhabited by members of the Russian Dukhobor community, and in places with large minority populations (Khruslov, 2006; Kock Kobaidze, 2001; Wheatley, 2006). Russian-language schools also function in secessionist, formerly autonomous republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, supported by Russia. The language of higher education is Georgian and in Abkhazia Abkhazian; there are also higher education institutions functioning in English, Russian and Turkish. No universities offer instruction in Armenian or Azerbaijanian, as a result, minority students often have to seek educational opportunities outside of the country. Georgian media offer some news coverage in Abkhazian, Armenian, Azerbaijanian, Ossetian and Russian; minority members also have access to some Azerbaijanian, Armenian and Russian TV channels (NITG, 2007). The government funds some minoritylanguage newspapers but support for minority-language media outlets is limited (Bochorishvili, 2007; Khruslov, 2006; Popjanevski, 2006) and references to an ‘informational vacuum’ are common (NITG, 2007: 68). Georgia also differs from Armenia and Azerbaijan in the attitudes towards Russian as a lingua franca. While all three countries still incorporate the language in secondary education, in Armenia, Russian has experienced a second revival during Kocharian’s 1999
2007 presidency, in Azerbaijan its position is relatively stable, and in Georgia its spheres of use continue to be reduced. These differences are well illustrated by the fact that official websites of the presidents of Azerbaijan (www.president.az) and Armenia (www. president.am) function in the state language, English, and Russian, while the website of the Georgian president functions only in Georgian and English (www.president.gov.ge). The cross-country differences in the success of the language shift and in the treatment of minority languages and of Russian as a lingua franca can be partially explained by demographic factors. As seen in Table 1, Armenia is a largely monoethnic country with relatively small populations of minority language speakers. In contrast, Georgia is a multiethnic country, with over a dozen languages spoken on its territory (Smith et al., 1998). Its most pressing priority, in the words of the Deputy Minister of Education and Sciences, Bela Tsipuria, ‘is to promote the state language, rather than to protect the use of minority languages’ (Popjanevski & Nilsson, 2006: 8). Of particular concern to the government are low levels of titular language competence among compactly settled Armenians in the Samtskhe-Javaheti region and Azeris in the Kvemo-Kartli region. In a survey conducted in December 2006, 74.5% of the respondents in Samtskhe-Javaheti and 83.1% in Kvemo-Kartli reported no

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

21

competence in Georgian (NITG, 2007). As a result, the communication between local administrations, in particular in the Samtskhe-Javaheti region, and the central Georgian authorities is still carried out in Russian (Bulghadarian, 2007; Kock Kobaidze, 2001; Popjanevski, 2006; Wheatley, 2006). This continuous reliance on Russian presents a major obstacle to implementation of language shift by the Georgian government. In 2003, concerns about low levels of Georgian-language competence among minority populations gave birth to new language reforms, including state language testing of civil servants; these reforms in turn led to increased monitoring of the situation by international civil rights organizations (ICG, 2006; NITG, 2007; Popjanevski, 2006; Popjanevski & Nilsson, 2006; Wheatley, 2006). In November 2006, the United Nations Association of Georgia launched a four-year National Integration and Tolerance in Georgia (NITG) Program (NITG, 2007). The purpose of this program is to ensure that language minority rights are respected in the process of national integration. At present, members of minority communities claim that they lack economic and social incentives to learn the state language as even those with excellent Georgian-language skills have little chance for advancement in public administration (ICG, 2006: 22). They also request administrative status for their own languages, or at least for Russian as an administrative lingua franca (ICG, 2006; Popjanevski & Nilsson, 2006; Wheatley, 2006). In addition to demographics, distinct language policies in the Transcaucasus, in particular those with regard to Russian, are shaped by political, social and economic factors. Azerbaijan maintains political and economic ties with Russia and with the Islamic world, in particular Turkey. As a result, Russian maintains its presence in the country, while Arabic and Turkish have also risen in importance. Georgia, in the past two decades, has experienced escalating political and economic tensions with Russia, over a variety of issues, including but not limited to control over the secessionist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Bochorishvili, 2007; Papava & Tokmazishvili, 2006). In an interview published in a Russian-language newspaper in Georgia, Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili blamed these tensions for the lack of state support for Russian as a lingua franca: ‘What changes if you know Russian? You can’t get Russian visas, trade with Russia is going down, we have our own TV channels now. To have a career, you don’t need to know Russian. You need to study English, Turkish’. (Vechernii Tbilisi, 31 January
2 February 2007; author’s translation). At present, Georgia is allying itself with the West, in particular with the USA, and also with Turkey, with an eye on accession to the EU (Papava & Tokmazishvili, 2006). In contrast, Armenia, that has a long history of military and political conflicts with its Muslim neighbors, Azerbaijan and Turkey, depends on Russia for political and military support. Armenian trade with Russia is growing, offering new opportunities for the Armenian economy (Halpin & Hughes, 2007). Russia is also home to the largest Armenian diaspora in the world and the main direction for labor migration (Halpin & Hughes, 2007; Oganesian, 2007). In the near future, the countries of the Transcaucasus are facing several language management challenges. To join the global marketplace, all three countries need to raise the level of competence in a variety of lingua francas:

22

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

English and Russian in Armenia; English, Turkish, Arabic, and Russian in Azerbaijan; and English and Turkish in Georgia. Georgia furthermore is concerned with raising levels of titular language competence among minority populations. Central Asia In 1989
1990, the five Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (see Map 2), proclaimed titular languages the sole state languages and Russian the language of interethnic communication. In 1991 the new regimes began implementing these laws. Several changes in the laws occurred in the 1990s: Uzbekistan downgraded the status of Russian to that of other minority languages (1995), while Kazakhstan (1995) and then Kyrgyzstan (2000) elevated Russian to an official language of the country. By 2007, all five countries succeeded in raising the status of their titular languages, expanding their spheres of use, and raising levels of titular language knowledge; in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the titular languages have become the only languages of official communication and documentation; Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also implemented the transition from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet (Abdurasulov, 2007a,b; Kobyl, 2007; Korth, 2005; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Sarkorova, 2007; Smagulova, 2008). In turn, the spheres of Russian language use have narrowed in Central Asia, both as a result of language policies and as an outcome of migration. The combined out-migration of Russian speakers and ethnic Germans and inmigration of members of the titular nationality from other countries have significantly changed the numbers and proportions of Russian speakers with regard to the countries’ populations (Smagulova, 2008; Smith et al., 1998; see also Table 1). Numbers of Russian-language secondary schools and Russianlanguage tracks in higher education have been reduced (in Turkmenistan, all Russian-language schools have been closed). In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, Russian-language media have also decreased in scope, visibility and accessibility (Nazaryan, 2007). As a consequence, Russian-language competence has decreased, particularly in younger populations, schooled after 1991, and in rural populations (Abdurasulov, 2007a; Arefiev, 2006; Korth, 2005; MacFadyen, 2006; Nagzibekova, 2008; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008). The five countries also display some differences in the extent of language shift and the degree of derussification. In Kazakhstan, language shift is still in progress, its present foci are the transfer of all the paperwork from Russian to Kazakh, the elevation of the status of Kazakh and of the levels of Kazakh-language competence, and standardization and modernization of Kazakh (Smagulova, 2008). The goal of Kazakh language education, according to president Nazarbayev (2007: 52), is trilingual competence in ‘Kazakh as the national language, Russian as the language of interethnic communication, and English as the language of successful integration in the global economy’. Secondary education is offered in Kazakh and Russian, and for minority populations in German, Tajik, Tatar, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uyghur and Uzbek (Fierman, 2006; Smagulova, 2008). Kazakh is required in all Russian and minority-language schools, while

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Russian is an obligatory second language in Kazakh-medium schools. Higher education functions in Kazakh and Russian, while informational space is still dominated by the Russian-language media (Abdurasulov, 2007b; Khruslov, 2006). Kazakh publishers produce books in Kazakh and Russian; to support the goal of trilingualism, they also publish trilingual children’s books, in Kazakh, Russian and English (www.almatykitap.kz). These policies and practices raise conflicting concerns. Some see the ongoing kazakhization, in particular that of the paperwork, as discrimination against the non-titulars many of whom have low levels of Kazakh competence, while others view the omnipresent Russian and the rising visibility of English as major obstacles to Kazakh language revival (Abdurasulov, 2007b; Baygozhina, 2007; Laruelle & Peyrouse, 2007; Rivers, 2002). Similar concerns about the fate of language revival are raised in Kyrgyzstan, where Russian also functions as an official language (Korth, 2005; Orusbaev et al., 2008). The Kyrgyz education system promotes multilingual competence in Kyrgyz, Russian, a foreign language, and, where relevant, a minority language (Orusbaev et al., 2008). Secondary education is offered in Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Russian and Tajik, with Kyrgyz required in non-Kyrgyz-medium schools and Russian in non-Russian-medium schools. Higher education is offered in Kyrgyz, Russian, Uzbek, English, Turkish and Arabic (MacWilliams, 2003), while mass media are available in Kyrgyz, Russian, and several minority languages (Korth, 2005). In Uzbekistan, after the vigorous derussification of the first decade of independence (cf. Alpatov, 2000; Podporenko, 2001; Smith et al., 1998), there has been a shift in the official attitude and a growth of interest in and the popularity of Russian (Bashatova, 2006; Kobyl, 2007; Nazaryan, 2007). At present, secondary education is offered mainly in Uzbek but approximately 300,000 students of different ethnicities study in Russian-medium schools (Khruslov, 2006). In Uzbek-medium schools Russian is offered as a second language for two hours a week from 1st to 11th grade (Bashatova, 2006). Higher education functions in Uzbek, Russian, Karakalpak and English; in some disciplines, education is also available in Kazakh, Tajik and Turkmen (www.gov.uz; www.edu.uz). Mass media function in Uzbek, Russian, and minority languages. Originally, Uzbek authorities aimed to implement a shift from Russian to English as a lingua franca yet such a shift proved difficult to accomplish due to the lack of resources and qualified teachers (Hasanova, 2007). Surveys conducted in 2001
2002 and in 2006 in Uzbekistan’s largest cities, Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, among 3,000 representatives of different ethnicities, showed that English played a very minor role in interethnic communication, professional language use, and the use of the media (Nazaryan, 2007). In contrast, Russian was the language of interethnic communication for 96% of the respondents, in particular those working in multiethnic workplaces; the respondents also favored Russian-language media or media in Russian and Uzbek (Nazaryan, 2007; for similar results, see MacFadyen, 2006). In Tajikistan, secondary education is offered in Tajik and in four minority languages, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Russian; in 2004, instruction in Russian as a second language was made obligatory from 2nd to 11th grade

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(Nagzibekova, 2008). Higher education is offered in Tajik, Uzbek and Russian. The shortages of qualified teachers and appropriate textbooks affect all areas of Tajik education and are particularly visible in Uzbek- and Turkmenmedium instruction, because in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the titular languages shifted to the Latin alphabet, while in Tajikistan Cyrillic was preserved (Nagzibekova, 2008). Mass media function in Tajik, as well as in Uzbek, Russian, and other minority languages. In Turkmenistan, secondary and higher education function in Turkmen as do the media (Abdurasulov, 2007a; Khruslov, 2006). Under the authoritarian regime of president Niyazov, Turkmenistan implemented language, education, and employment policies that favored members of the titular nation and discriminated against non-titulars, and in particular members of the two largest minority groups, Uzbeks and Russians, leading to significant outmigration (Abdurasulov, 2007a). At present, according to Abdurasulov (2007a), the situation is dire for remaining Russian speakers: there exists only one Russian-medium school in the country’s capital, Ashkhabat; Russian TV channels are available only through satellite TV; only one Russianlanguage newspaper, Neitraln’nyi Turkmenistan, is sponsored by the state, while newspapers and magazines published in Russia are available only through private sellers. A cross-country comparison shows that the five countries differ in their policies regarding Russian. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Russian was upgraded to an official language, while in the other three countries it functions as a language of interethnic communication, be it de facto (Uzbekistan), de facto and de jure (Tajikistan) or de jure only (Turkmenistan). Russian has also assumed the role of an international lingua franca in these three countries, as seen in the fact that their governmental websites function in the state language, Russian and English (www.gov.uz; www.turkmenistan.gov.tm; www.prezident.tj). These differences are consistent with respective conceptions of the state: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are nationalizing states, while Kazakh and Kyrgyz governments opted for civic states that integrate the non-titulars (Bingol, 2004; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smith et al., 1998). The different approaches are also linked to proportions of Russian speakers in the countries’ populations, their roles in the local economy, and the levels of russification among the titulars. As seen in Table 1, in 1989 in Kazakhstan there were almost equal proportions of Kazakhs (39.7%) and Russians (37.8%), with native Russian speakers constituting close to a half of the country’s population (47.4%). In urban centers, Russians (50.8%) outnumbered Kazakhs (27.1%) (Fierman, 2006). In Kyrgyzstan, L1 Russian speakers were a minority but a sizeable one (25.6%). As seen in Table 2, these Russian speakers displayed low levels of competence in Kazakh and Kyrgyz. Even more importantly, in both countries, many members of the titular populations, and in particular urban elites, were russified, favoring Russian language, literature, and culture, and displaying low levels of competence in and loyalty to Kazakh and Kyrgyz (Dave, 1996; Fierman, 2006; Korth, 2005; Landau & Kellner-Heinkele, 2001; Rivers, 2002; Smith et al., 1998). Consequently, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan educational and institutional policies initially had to raise levels of titular language competence among titulars and non-titulars

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alike. In the interim, Russian had to be restored to an official status to preserve political and economic stability and to prevent out-migration of Russian speakers who played important roles in the countries’ economic infrastructure. In contrast, the populations of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan displayed high levels of national consciousness and titular language competence among the titulars and lower levels of russification (Edgar, 2004; Smith et al., 1998; see also Table 2). As seen in Table 1, in 1989, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan housed significantly smaller proportions of native Russian speakers than Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, even though the actual numbers of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in Uzbekistan were higher than in Kyrgyzstan. Over the last two decades, the numbers of Russian speakers in all five countries were reduced by migration, prompted by economic difficulties, interethnic conflicts, and, in Tajikistan, by the civil war (Jonson, 2006; Kobyl, 2007; Sarkorova, 2007; Savoskul, 2001; Smith et al., 1998). In addition to demographic and sociolinguistic factors, distinct language policies and language shift outcomes in Central Asia are also shaped by economic and political alliances. The governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan maintain close political and economic relations with Russia, while the governments of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, with their largely Muslim populations, initially oriented themselves towards Islamic countries, such as Turkey and Iran (MacFadyen, 2006). Post-9/11, the region attracted attention from the West, in particular from the USA, forcing Central Asian countries to formulate foreign policies that balance their relationships with Russia and the USA (Jonson, 2006). Russia responded to this development by strengthening its economic, scientific, and cultural collaboration with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in particular in the energy sector (Khruslov, 2006; Nagzibekova, 2008). The change in attitude towards Russian is also explained by the fact that the shift to English did not prove as easy to achieve in Central Asia as was initially hoped for (Nazaryan, 2007; Orusbaev et al., 2008). Consequently, the governments of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have begun expressing concerns about the loss of competence in Russian and are undertaking measures to reverse this language attrition; they now receive aid from the Russian Federation in the form of Russian-language textbooks, professional development materials, and training for Russian-language teachers (Dubovitsky, 2007; Nagzibekova, 2008). In both countries, Russian is also the key resource for work migration, be it to Russia or to other post-Soviet countries, such as Kazakhstan (Dubovitsky, 2007; Kobyl, 2007; Sarkorova, 2007). In the near future, the five Central Asian countries need to address common language management difficulties: shortages of qualified teachers of titular, minority, and foreign languages; scarcity of textbooks; the lack of standardized terminologies; resistance to titular language learning on the part of the Russian-speaking population; and low levels of English-language competence (Hasanova, 2007; Korth, 2005; Nagzibekova, 2008; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008; Smith et al., 1998). Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will also continue status planning efforts and attempts to raise levels of titular language competence (Orusbaev et al., 2008; Smagulova, 2008).

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Post-Soviet Multilingualism and Sociolinguistic Theory In traditional sociolinguistics, language planning is viewed as an inherently positive process that aims to support minority languages (cf. Baker, 2006). In critical sociolinguistics, language planning is viewed as a political process in which ‘policies often create and sustain various forms of social inequality’ (Tollefson, 2006: 42). Studies reviewed here provide ample evidence that in most post-Soviet linguistic regimes language policies promote the interests of the dominant ethnonational and political groups. Yet the research collected here goes beyond confirming what we already know about language policy. Insights into the relatively unexplored process of language removal offer an important contribution to sociolingustic theory, while questions about minority rights of speakers of a ‘postcolonial’ language present an important challenge for both theory and practice of language policy-making. In what follows, I will discuss these contributions and challenges and point to fruitful directions for future work in the field. Contributions: Language management in late modernity In postcolonial Africa, most new governments opted to retain colonial European languages as official languages, because in many cases there was no single indigenous language known by a clear majority of the population; even in places, like Somalia, where there was one such language the lack of standardization precluded an immediate transition (Simpson, 2008). In contrast, all post-Soviet countries had more or less standardized titular languages
consequently, in their nation-building efforts the new governments emphasized these languages and tried to downgrade or even remove the ‘colonial’ language Russian. The discussion above and papers in this collection show that there exists significant variation in how successful individual countries have been so far in the implementation of the intended language shift and in the derussification project. The analysis of challenges experienced by the new nation-states offers a more nuanced understanding of factors affecting language management outcomes in late modernity. To begin with, we saw that language policies, and social, economic and educational opportunities structured by them, affected but did not determine language shift outcomes. For instance, a decade ago, Laitin (1998) predicted that civic, employment, and educational benefits would tip a cascade of competitive assimilation of Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia, whereby some may even become monolingual in the titular languages. This cascade has not occurred, and a decade later levels of Latvian and Estonian-language competence among Russian speakers in the two countries continue to be low (Rannut, 2008). The analysis of the situation shows that, in addition to language laws, language planning outcomes, in the case of a lingua franca, are affected by three clusters of factors. The first involves the ethnic and linguistic makeup of the country’s population and the patterns of settlement. In Armenia and Lithuania, for instance, the ethnic and linguistic homogeneity of the population facilitated the shift, while in Georgia the multiethnic make-up, compact settlement of the minority communities, and ongoing ethnic tensions, favor

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continuous reliance on Russian as a lingua franca. The second cluster involves linguistic and ideological factors that shape attitudes towards particular languages. In Ukraine and Belarus, for instance, these ideologies may position Russian as a language of progress, urbanity, and high culture, and Ukrainian and Belarusian as languages of backward peasantry (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008; Giger & Sloboda, 2008). The third and the most important cluster involves regional and global forces
including transnational cash, migration, education, and communication flows
that mediate language maintenance, shift, and use in late modernity. These forces favor investment in regional and global lingua francas, such as Russian and English, at times at the expense of local languages. Russian remains the language of a major political, military, and economic superpower of the geopolitical region, its main energy supplier, and an important cultural, informational and academic center. Thus, it has retained its status of a regional lingua franca, spoken by political, cultural, and business elites in most post-Soviet countries. Laitin (1998) approached post-Soviet countries as relatively insular and thus had failed to consider the influence of the regional and global forces on language decision-making. It turned out that speakers of a regional lingua franca do not behave as immigrants or minority language speakers traditionally do. They are aware that while Latvian or Estonian proficiency may facilitate social mobility within Latvia and Estonia, Russian proficiency facilitates transnational business contacts across the postSoviet space and within the Russian diaspora around the world. In Latvia, Russian speakers successfully drew on such transnational commercial networks to establish an independent business community that became their ethnic ‘economic niche’ and reduced the pressure to learn the titular language (Commercio, 2004; Khruslov, 2006). Kronenfeld (2005) further points out that even when Russian speakers do send their children to titular-language schools their purpose is integration and bilingualism, rather than assimilation and a shift to Latvian or Estonian. Lingua francas also facilitate transnational labor migration flows. In the post-Soviet space these flows, critical for the economy of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Central Asia, are disproportionately oriented towards Russia and thus require Russian language maintenance (Dubovitsky, 2007; Kobyl, 2007; Korobkov & Zaionchkovskaia, 2004; Sarkorova, 2007). Outside of the former Soviet territory, these flows are now directed towards China, Germany, Turkey, Mediterranian countries and United Arab Emirates, thus requiring competence in English or local languages (Korobkov & Zaionchkovskaia, 2004). In the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, knowledge of Russian, English, Turkish and Arabic, also facilitiates study abroad or at transnational universities (cf. MacWilliams, 2003). Consequently, in many post-Soviet countries the titulars study both English and Russian as languages of opportunity (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008; Nagzibekova, 2008). Patterns of language use in the post-Soviet space have also been shaped by the development of new information technologies. Cyberspace has wrestled control over media production and consumption away from the states and facilitated information flow in both Russian and English, thus assisting in the learning of English and in the maintenance of Russian, either as a first or as a

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second language. Saunders (2006) shows that cyberspace also facilitates the creation of transnational communication networks where Russian-speakers from across the world can create and perform new global identities. In several countries, Russian remains omnipresent in the entertainment market, via popular TV channels and powerful music and publication industries. In Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, for instance, Russian-language media remain popular among titulars and non-titulars alike (Korth, 2005; Nazaryan, 2007; Podporenko, 2001). Kobyl (2007) argues that in Uzbekistan Russian remains the second language of the intelligentsia, because the quality and diversity of Russian-language publications, including literary and scientific translations, still supersede Uzbek-language publications. These are interesting developments, because in the early 1990s, independent post-Soviet governments did not consider Russian the language of transnational communication and globalization. Rather, they had hoped to replace Russian with English, thus joining the global marketplace, while dissociating themselves from the former colonial power. It turned out that this shift was easier to accomplish rhetorically than practically
two decades later throughout the post-Soviet space, including the Baltic countries, levels of Russian-language competence still supersede those of English (Hasanova, 2007; Nazaryan, 2007; Round 2000 of population and housing censuses, 2003). In Armenia, for instance, large portions of library holdings are in Russian and for many people it is still easier to read English-language authors in Russian translation than in the original (Oganesian, 2007). The same holds for other countries in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. Given relatively low levels of English competence, difficulties of access to English-language publications and resources, and already present Russian-language resources, several independent governments, including those of Armenia and Tajikistan, decided to reinvest in the study of Russian as a second language (cf. Nagzibekova, 2008). The research reviewed here situates post-Soviet language management not only in a geopolitical context but also in a historical context. The work by Hirsch (2005), Martin (2001), Smith (1998) and others draws attention to the dialectic nature of language management processes, revealing an ongoing balancing act between russification and nativization trends in Soviet language planning. This fluctuation is also observed in post-Soviet policies, where the first independence decade emphasized nativization, while the second decade witnessed a realization of the importance of Russian as a regional lingua franca. From this historical perspective, two aspects of language management in the post-Soviet states are particularly interesting. The first is a striking similarity between language shift outcomes in the 1920s (during the nativization campaign) and in the 1990s: both times, Armenia and Georgia restored the hegemony of the titular language in record time, Ukraine engaged in an aggressive ukrainization campaign eliciting resistance from Russians and russified titulars, while Belarus hesitated and eventually refused to give up Russian (Hirsch, 2005; Martin, 2001). This historical continuity suggests that linguistic tensions in Belarus and Ukraine predate the USSR and that Soviet

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russification policies failed to erase national consciousness in countries where it was traditionally high (see also Snyder, 2003). The second intriguing aspect is a historical discontinuity between the fluid and multiple identity categories that existed on the territory of Central Asia prior to the 1920s and the five independent nations that emerged after the collapse of the USSR (Edgar, 2004; Fierman, 1991; Hirsch, 2005). This discontinuity suggests that the categories constructed by Soviet language and nationality planners have been reified and naturalized throughout the twentieth century to the point where they have become an imagined reality for the peoples of Central Asia, or, for that matter, some of the population of Moldova (Ciscel, 2008).

Challenges: Postcolonialism, diaspora, and minority language rights The post-Soviet context also offers several theoretical challenges to contemporary sociolinguistic theory. The first involves the applicability of the term ‘postcolonial’ to the post-Soviet situation. Some scholars argue that this term applies just as much to post-Soviet countries as it does to post-1947 South Asia or post-1958 Africa (Druviete, 1997; Kuzio, 2005; Masenko, 2004). Laitin (1998) points to differences in the incorporation of different republics, some of which, like Ukraine, existed on relatively equal terms with the center, while others, like Kazakhstan, were subjugated in a classic colonial model. Other scholars argue that as a whole the Soviet Union was neither fully colonial nor federal, rather it was a multiethnic state that contained elements of several systems: Similar to Western colonies in Asia and Africa, Soviet republics did not have a de facto right to national self-determination, yet unlike the colonies they had systematic support for national territories, cultures, languages and elites (Hirsch, 2005; Martin, 2001; Smith et al., 1998). This unique configuration has been referred to as ‘federal colonialism’ (Smith et al., 1998), ‘an empire of nations’ (Hirsch, 2005) and even ‘an affirmative action empire’ (Martin, 2001). Unfortunately, scholars writing about post-Soviet contexts often ignore the multiple facets of Soviet language and education policies reducing them to ‘linguistic russification’ even in contexts, where local languages were fully institutionalized. Future scholarship needs to take into account the duality of Soviet nationality policies that had created many of the nationalities that claimed independence seven decades later (Edgar, 2004; Hirsch, 2005; Martin, 2001). The second challenge for sociolinguistic theory involves articulation of the status of Russian speakers in post-Soviet countries. Since 1991, this population has been variably referred to as a ‘new Russian diaspora’, ‘language minority’, ‘immigrants’, ‘non-citizens’, ‘aliens’, and even ‘occupiers’ (for detailed analysis, see Laitin, 1998; Laruelle & Peyrouse, 2007). The term ‘Russians’ is inappropriate for this population because it involves members of many ethnic groups: Russians, but also Belarusians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Jews, Tatars, and many others who see Russian as their mother tongue. The multiethnic nature of this linguistic minority undermines the link between language and ethnic identity commonly made in debates about minority language rights (cf. Baker,

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2006; May, 2001) and presents a challenge to both policy makers and ethnic mobilizers. The term ‘diaspora’ commonly refers to ‘a population living in a society distant from the homeland that its leaders claim as their own, and to which they expect one day to return’ (Laitin, 1998: 31). This definition does not fit the population that found itself in the newly independent countries and decided to remain there
hence Laitin’s (1998: 29) term ‘beached diaspora’. Zevelev (2001) further points out that the term ‘diaspora’ is not politically expedient for the Russian-speaking population: rather, it is politically convenient for Russia, because it emphasizes the people’s connection to Russia rather than to the states they reside in. The term is equally convenient for nationalizing elites because it turns large groups of people into non-titulars, minorities, and thus ‘foreign elements’, rather than the state-forming nations (Laruelle & Peyrouse, 2007). Most importantly, the term ‘diaspora’ does not capture an internal reality
most Russians living in post-Soviet countries do not see Russia as their homeland, instead they identify with their states of residence (Barrington, 2001; Barrington et al., 2003; Verschik, 2005). The term ‘immigrants’ common in discussions of Russian speakers in the Baltic countries is equally problematic because the original ‘settlers’ did not cross national borders to settle there, while their children and grandchildren were born in their new homeland. This term and its stronger versions serve the interests of nationalizing elites by positioning Russian speakers as outsiders or aliens not entitled to rights. This position draws on the view that the rights of indigenous people (national minority groups) deserve explicit protection, while the rights of immigrants (ethnic minority groups) do not; only national minorities can demand the formal inclusion of their languages and cultures in the civic realm (May, 2001, 2006). Given that all settlements are products of migration, what remains unclear in this approach is exactly how long should a group reside on a particular territory before it is accepted as autochtonous. These considerations lead us to the third and the most formidable challenge posited by the post-Soviet context
the challenge to the common view of ‘majorities’ and ‘minorities’. Prototypical minority languages are languages of local importance, spoken by relatively small ethnic groups, and endangered by majority languages to which minority language speakers may shift after a generation or two. Russian, a regional lingua franca and a mother tongue of a multiethnic group of people, does not fit neatly in this traditional dichotomy, and thus requires a more nuanced understanding of the linguistic continuum, not least because Russian speakers in post-Soviet countries do ask for protection of their minority language rights. As seen in the discussion above, post-Soviet countries differ in the degree to which they articulate minority language rights and guarantee their protection. To date, Armenia is the only country that has officially ratified five minority languages (Report, 2003). Constitutions of several other post-Soviet countries guarantee minorities’ rights to use their languages in the private domain (tolerance-oriented rights). Some countries also recognize minority languages in the public domain (promotion-oriented rights), ensuring their use, for instance, in public education. This approach may take two forms. Georgia adopted a territorial language principle (May, 2001) with regard to Abkhazia,

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whereby the use of Abkhazian as a second state language is limited to a particular territory. Other countries adopted a personality language principle (May, 2001) where rights are attached to individuals but institutionalized (e.g. through mother-tongue education) only in places where institutionalization is warranted by numbers of speakers of a particular language. The debate over Russian-speakers’ rights has been particularly prominent in Latvia and Estonia, where citizenship rules and education reforms elicited numerous complaints on the part of Russian speakers. Several Baltic language policy makers and scholars have argued that European minority-rights views are not directly applicable to the Baltic situation where titular languages were effectively minoritized and thus endangered under the Soviet regime, while a de jure minority language was majoritized (Druviete, 1997; Jubilus, 2001; Ozolins, 2003). To attain a de facto status of a national language the titular language had to reassert its status against a former lingua franca. Russian speakers, in this view, are not entitled to minority language rights because they are not a true language minority but a ‘majoritized minority’, since their language was spoken or at least understood by the majority of the country’s population. According to the numerical definition of majority/minority, in 1991 Russian was indeed a majority language in the Baltic countries, because more people at that point had competence in Russian than in the titular languages. Yet if we follow May (2006: 255), the distinction between majority and minority groups ‘is not based on numerical size, but on clearly observable differences among groups in relation to power, status, and entitlement’. In this view, in 1991 Russian speakers became a language minority in post-Soviet countries, where power, status, and entitlement became the privileges of nationalizing elites, while non-titulars have been relegated to political, social, and economic sidelines by the ‘ethnopolitics of exclusion’ (Aasland, 2002; Alpatov, 2000; Laitin, 1998; Savoskul, 2001; Smith et al., 1998; Zevelev, 2001). This shift in power relations is commonly ignored in the ‘majoritized minority’ argument. The argument also displays a problem of long-term validity: given high rates of Russian-language attrition among titulars in the Baltic countries, this status may no longer be valid among the younger generations. This ongoing debate deserves a close attention from sociolinguists because it has great potential to transform our understanding of minority language rights. To date, however, the thorny issue of the rights of speakers of ‘postcolonial’ languages has not yet found its way into the work on minority language rights (Kymlicka & Patten, 2003; May, 2001). Furthemore, while Russian speakers constitute the largest and the most visible language minority in the post-Soviet space, they are not by any means the only one. As shown in the discussion above and in the papers in this collection, all post-Soviet countries are home to a variety of language minority populations, and many of these populations continue to struggle for their rights. Directions for future work To address these and other theoretical challenges, future research in the post-Soviet context will have to be an interdisciplinary endeavor, incorporat-

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ing the research on the history of the Russian empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the USSR (e.g. Edgar, 2004; Hirsch, 2005; Martin, 2001; Smith, 1998; Snyder, 2003), debates in political science and political theory (e.g. Kolstø, 2002; Kymlicka & Patten, 2003; Laitin, 1998), and insights from the study of national and local economies (e.g. Aasland, 2002; Commercio, 2004; for ways to incorporate economy in the study of language, see Grin, 2006). To present a more balanced and objective coverage, this work will need to include multiple perspectives and to follow the contributors in this volume in forming international collaborations and in drawing on sources in several languages. Interdisciplinarity is also critical from a methodological viewpoint. Until recently, most studies of post-Soviet countries relied on survey and census data. As seen in this collection, these sources are extremely valuable and will remain important in years to come. However, they cannot remain the exclusive data source due to their multiple limitations, such as ambiguous or limited questions, non-response rates, and social desirability effects (for discussion of problems with Soviet and post-Soviet census and survey data, see Alpatov, 2000; Arel, 2002; Smagulova, 2008; for a more general discussion, see Baker, 2006: 38
39). Recent work in the field at large and in the present collection supplements census and survey data with data gathered through ethnographic methods, participant observation, individual and group interviews, linguistic biographies, analysis of media texts, and experimental data from matched-guise tests (e.g. Bilaniuk, 2005; Ciscel, 2007; Laitin, 1998; Landau & Kellner-Heinkele, 2001). Future work aiming to demonstrate effectiveness (or lack thereof) of particular language laws and policies or to document language shift also needs to examine actual changes in levels of language competence and patterns of language use. In terms of topics, the bulk of the work to date has focused
not surprisingly
on the changes in language and education policies taking place in the 14 countries and on the fate of Russian. Papers in this collection centrally address these issues but also point to other fruitful research directions, such as renegotiation of ethnic, linguistic, and national identities; the status of other minority languages; intergenerational transmission of minority languages including but not limited to Russian; articulation of minority language rights; the spread of lingua francas; language contact phenomena; attrition of Russian as a second language; and the change in linguistic landscapes. Last but not least, scholars working in this area need to address an important public relations problem: While members of the profession are convinced that bi- and multilingualism and bilingual education constitute an important resource in the modern world, some national mobilizers promote a competition view of multilingualism, where additional languages present a threat to the national language. In Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, for instance, some members of national elites argue that English and Russian are a threat to the purity and development of the titular languages (Baygozhina, 2007; Popjanevski, 2006). In Lithuania, some parents fear that the early teaching of English theatens the development of national identity (Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, 2008). And in Ukraine, even the term ‘bilingualism’ has acquired a pejorative connotation as a code word for ‘russification’ and is equated with ‘double-dealing’ and ‘forked tongues’ (Taranenko, 2007; see also

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12

Bilaniuk, 2005: 8
10). One can only hope that in the future linguists and educators working in this area will play a more prominent part in the public arena, following an example of Bill Fierman, an expert on Central Asia, who regularly takes part in debates and gives interviews to the Kazakh press on the benefits of bilingualism and linguistic tolerance (www.baiterek.kz). The contradictions and tensions characteristic of the post-Soviet context are also reflected in this collection. Discerning readers will see that some of the contributors disagree with each other and with the editor as to the directions language planning should take in the post-Soviet space, and which languages should be supported, when, how, and for what purpose. We see this disagreement as a productive way to generate debates that in turn could lead to more extensive studies and
we hope
to the development of more democratic forms of minority integration and language policy-making, in which ‘non-dominant ethnolinguistic groups can shape the language policies that affect them’ (Tollefson, 2006: 52). Acknowledgments This paper has benefitted from insightful comments by Colin Baker, Matthew Ciscel and Tommaso Milani. All remaining errors are exclusively mine. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Dr. Aneta Pavlenko, CITE Department, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA ([email protected]). Notes 1. http://www.filmcommission.org.ua/en/index.php?option  com_content& taskview&id70&Itemid1 2. http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/index.php?id148&listid58420; http://www.ukranews. com/eng/article/93429.html 3. www.president.gov.ua/en/news/data/19149.html 4. see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language_in_Ukraine 5. A search for articles on ‘Russian language in the Near Abroad’ on the website of the information agency Regnum (www.regnum.ru) retrieved 24 items for January 2008. 6. This collaboration is now taking place within the framework of the AILA Research Network on multilingualism in post-Soviet countries. 7. The only exception here was Moldovan where de-Latinization of the script affected the population used to Romanian (Ciscel, 2007). 8. Other post-Soviet countries granted automatic citizenship to all those residing on their territory. 9. Snyder (2003: 98) notes an inconsistency in these arguments: ‘Lithuanians took for granted that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was illegitimate, but that the incorporation of Vilnius that followed was legitimate’. Vilnius, now Lithuania’s capital, was under Polish rule between 1920 and 1939, Stalin transferred it to Lithuania; it was also claimed by Belarusian national elites (Snyder, 2003: 80
81). 10. Scholars vary in their references to the language as Azerbaijanian or Azeri; in the present article, the term ‘Azerbaijanian’ is adopted following the offical English translation of the Constitution of Azerbaijan (www.president.az). 11. The president Ilham Aliev actually had to interfere to protect a popular Russianlanguage game show (www.regnum.ru, 1/10/08).

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12. This negative attitude towards bilingualism is not a new phenomenon: Throughout history, bilinguals in monolingual societies have often been treated with suspicion as people with shifting political allegiances and moral commitments (Pavlenko, 2005: 24
27).

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Language Management and Language Problems in Belarus: Education and Beyond Markus Giger Institute of the Czech Language, Prague, Czech Republic ´ n Sloboda Maria Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic This article provides an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Belarus, the most russified of the post-Soviet countries. It summarizes language policy and legislation, and deals in more detail with language management and selected language problems in Belarusian education. It also contributes to the work on language planning by applying Jernudd’s and Neustupny´’s Language Management Theory, particularly the concept of the language management cycle, to analysis of sociolinguistic issues in Belarus.

Keywords: Belarus, bilingual education, language management, language problems

Introduction Belarus (or Belorussia/Byelorussia) became independent in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its independence was not welcomed with much enthusiasm by the population that had strong emotional and cultural ties with Russia and the Soviet Union. Starting in 1994, this attitude resulted in political changes, which returned the country to the Soviet patterns of government, economy, social life, and linguistic development. The majority of the population of Belarus prefers to use Russian, although they declare to be ethnically Belarusian. Nevertheless, Belarusian is not limited to a minority group, members of the Russian-speaking majority also use it for symbolic functions. The language is still an obligatory subject in all Belarusian schools and has the status of a state language alongside Russian. This situation is a result of sociohistorical processes which have taken place in the Belarusian territory and which we will describe briefly in the Historical Background section. The following sections deal with language use and language-related identities; current language management in Belarus in general; and language management and language problems in Belarusian education. Before we proceed to these topics, however, we will present our theoretical framework.

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Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

42

Map Belarus

Theoretical Framework Our theoretical framework draws on the Language Management Theory (LMT), originally developed by Bjo¨rn Jernudd and Jirˇ´ı V. Neustupny´ (1987) (see Nekvapil (2006) for a recent overview). LMT is a theory related to what Joshua Fishman (1972: 140
50) called ‘behavior toward language’. LMT presupposes a processual five-stage model of such behavior: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

a deviation from communication norms appears in an interaction, participants may note the deviation, they may evaluate it, on the basis of their evaluation, they may create an adjustment ‘plan’, and may implement this ‘plan’.

LMT is also a theory of language problems. Any negatively evaluated deviation can be considered an individual language problem. As a societal phenomenon, a language problem can be defined more narrowly as ‘systematic or too many deviations from expected generated speech such that interactive adjustment routines cannot overcome the negative evaluations of those deviations’ (Jernudd, 2000: 12). In our present analysis, we deal with the second type of language problems, and use especially the following two premises of LMT: (1) Language problems are experienced and/or presented by social actors themselves, and cannot be defined as such universally. When speaking about

Language Problems in Belarus

43

language problems, it thus matters who experiences something as a problem and why. (2) LMT focuses not only on the institutional, organized management of language (use) and its influence on individual discursive practices. It also focuses on ways in which individuals manage ongoing discourse and language choice. Moreover, in the course of the management process (see above), (non)institutionalized social networks can be activated and deactivated, so that discourse (‘micro’) management may melt into organized (‘macro’) management and back again
a language management cycle can develop (Nekvapil, 2008). Not all language management takes the form of a language management cycle, of course, but we will focus on this theoretical concept here; its main feature
the interaction between the ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ language management
is our main concern throughout this paper. A note should be made about our use of the word ‘discourse’. When used in relation to the LMT, it simply refers to produced speech or text in general. However, in a discussion of identity formation and language managers’ accounts of their actions, ‘discourse’ should be understood as historically developed and socially shared ways of speaking/writing about particular topics.

Historical Background: Two Discourses on Belarusian Two main discourses on Belarusian have historically evolved on the territory of present-time Belarus. The first discourse that has stigmatized Belarusian as a ‘peasant’ language may have its origins in the nineteenth century, when Belarusian territory was part of the Russian Empire. Russianspeaking and Yiddish-speaking populations dominated urban areas and Belarusian-speaking majority inhabited the countryside. The word ‘Belarusian’ thus became synonymous with ‘(backward) peasant’. Although Belarusian was developed as a multifunctional standard language during the 1920s, Stalin’s purges in the 1930s severely afflicted the newly created Belarusianspeaking elites. World War II losses further devastated Belarus. The processes of reconstruction and modernization that took place after the war were accompanied by the influx of Russian-speaking specialists and members of the military, and by mass migration from the countryside to the cities. This migration, combined with negative stereotypes of Belarusian and relatively low institutional support for it, led to a shift from the ‘rural’ Belarusian to Russian, the language of education, technology, and communist ideology. The Belarusian language was folklorized and depicted as part of Belarusian rustic heritage in school textbooks, a portrayal that deepened the stigmatization of Belarusian as a useless, peasant language. In contrast to Ukrainian in western Ukraine, Belarusian has not been urbanized anywhere in Belarus, which may be one of the reasons why language behavior in Belarus did not change after 1990 as much in favor of Belarusian as it did in Ukraine in favor of Ukrainian (on the situation in Ukraine, see Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008). The second discourse, which links Belarusian to the ethnic and cultural heritage of the country, has its origins in the national revival that took place in Belarus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when intellectuals started supporting Belarusian in order to improve the situation of Belarusian

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peasants. Frantsishak Bahushevich, for example, appealed in 1891 to Belarusians: ‘Do not relinquish our Belarusian language, so that you [as a nation] will not die!’ and reminded them about the legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where a variety of their language had even been used in state administration, legislation and literature. These revivalist ideas returned to public life in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1990, Belarus passed the Law on Languages proclaiming Belarusian a single ‘state language’. In this period of second national revival or Belarusification, the top-down support for Belarusian became interlinked with social reforms. The economy suffered a downturn, and although part of the population still supported the changes, others who considered them too dramatic or negative, or those who condemned the very fall of the USSR, perceived the promotion of Belarusian as an unnecessary enforcement. When Aleksandr Lukashenko, the new president and a representative of this latter group, initiated a referendum in May 1995, over 83% of the voters (54% of all those eligible) answered the question ‘Do you agree to grant the Russian language an equal status with Belarusian?’ in the affirmative. Thus, the May Referendum de facto reestablished the dominant position of Russian from Soviet times. More than 75% of the voters approved of the return of some of the Soviet state symbols, supported economic integration with Russia, and granted the president the authority to dissolve the Parliament (http://www. rec.gov.by/refer/refer1995.html). The president has gradually monopolized the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. The government stabilized the centrally-planned economy, but began to disadvantage and marginalize private enterprises and the media, exercise censorship, restrict freedom of movement, and suppress political opposition to which the most active advocates of Belarusian belong (for more details on the historical development of the sociolinguistic situation in Belarus, see e.g. Ioffe, 2003; Smolicz & Radzik, 2004; Zaprudski, 2007).

Language Use and Identities Let us now look at the linguistic and ethnic characteristics of the current population of Belarus. Table 1 shows the data on ‘nationality’, ‘native tongue’, and ‘language usually spoken at home’ according to the 1999 Census. The discrepancy between the high percentage of Belarusian as a ‘native tongue’ and low percentage of Belarusian as a ‘language usually spoken at home’ is striking. It is due to the fact that mainstream discourses continue to characterize Belarusian as a ‘native tongue’ , including in schools where children have been taught for decades that Belarusian is their ‘native tongue’, irrespective of the fact that many of their families meanwhile shifted to Russian. Answers regarding the ‘language usually spoken at home’ also may not adequately reflect the real language use because the Census did not include the widespread category of ‘mixed Belarusian-Russian language’. According to a 1999 survey carried out by Schro¨der (2004), which includes that category and is representative of the whole population of Belarus, 65% of respondents stated

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Table 1 Population by nationality, native tongue and language usually spoken at home (1999 Census) Nationality (ethnicity)

Native tongue

Language usually spoken at home

Belarusian (%)

81.2

73.7

36.7

Russian (%)

11.4

24.1

62.8

Polish (%)

3.9

0.7

0.2

Ukrainian (%)

2.4

1.1

0.2

Other (%)

1.1

0.4

0.1

Total

100% (10,045,237 inhabitants)

Source: Ministry of Statistics and Analysis (2001: 259, 303).

that they spoke Russian at home, 25% reported Belarusian and 9% a mixed Belarusian-Russian language. A 2007 survey that asked about the ‘language predominantly used in everyday communication’ found that almost 57% of the respondents communicate in Russian, 7% in Belarusian, 17% in both Russian and Belarusian, and 19% in the ‘mixed language’ (IISEPS, 2007). These are, however, self-reports and it seems to us that the percentage of those who really use only Belarusian in everyday life is somewhat lower (cf. also Ioffe, 2003), and on the contrary, Belarusian-Russian mixing
also known under the pejorative folk name ‘trasianka’
is a more widespread practice (on ‘trasianka’ see Hentschel & Tesch, 2006; Liskovets, 2002; Miachkouˇskaia, 2007; Tsykhun, 2000). A distinguishing feature of Belarusian-Russian bilingualism is the typological and genetic closeness of the two East Slavic languages and resulting similarities. For instance, Bial’kovich (2005) compared Belarusian and Russian versions of the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and found that 27% of functionally and contextually equivalent (in the interlingual sense) morphemes had identical graphical forms, 37% were similar in form, and only 36% were completely different. Due to the similarity between the two languages, mutual comprehension between them is possible albeit limited; ‘semicommunication’ (Haugen, 1966), due to interlingual differences, may also take place. Respondents of Sloboda (forthcoming) and others we have spoken to reported that Russians from Russia and Russian-speaking Belarusian children have problems understanding Belarusian. The adult inhabitants of Belarus do not appear to have communication problems if they passed through the Belarusian system of bilingual education. Mutual comprehension allows for receptive or ‘non-accommodating’ bilingualism (Bilaniuk & Melnyk, 2008), i.e. the practice in which speakers who prefer different languages use their respective languages in conversation and understand each other. This practice is common in Belarus, although accommodation occurs as well. Urban speakers of Belarusian can accommodate more easily because they also have good command of Russian. In contrast, on the part of Russian-speakers the inability to speak Belarusian is frequent.

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Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Linguists as well as non-linguists had long considered the Belarusian countryside a bastion of Belarusian, but traditional dialects undergo russification, a process that was reported throughout the country as early as Soviet times (Mikhnevich, 1985: 22
59). Rural inhabitants themselves do not usually consider their spoken language ‘Belarusian’ but ‘mixed Belarusian-Russian’ or ‘simple/plain’ (Sloboda, 2006; Woolhiser, 2001, 2003). They typically attribute ‘Belarusian’, i.e. standard Belarusian, to educated people, particularly writers, radio presenters, teachers of Belarusian, etc. ‘Russian’ has attractive urban connotations for them (cf. Sloboda, 2006; Woolhiser, 2001). In urban areas, speaking Russian is usually the norm and does not evoke any specific identities or evaluations. In contrast, dialectal Belarusian gives away a ‘villager’, and standard Belarusian indexes a so-called ‘nationally conscious’ person. The ‘nationally conscious’ are a minority group of people who perceive Belarusian as a ‘core value’ of the Belarusian national identity as well as of their personal identities (cf. Smolicz, 2002). Many of these people are opposed to President Lukashenko’s regime, so speaking standard Belarusian, especially by a young person, tends to index an ‘oppositionist’. Standard Belarusian spoken by an older person may index a language professional, e.g. a writer or a philologist. Russian-speaking people often note standard Belarusian spoken in public as a deviation from communicative norms. Their evaluations of its use in public may vary from indifference to disrespect and animosity. At present, however, there seems to be a shift from negative reactions toward more tolerance and occasionally even appreciation (Burlyka, 2004; Ioffe, 2003; Sloboda, forthcoming). As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Belarusian is losing its social basis in the countryside. Therefore, ‘the nationally conscious’ in cities, as well as a part of the non-conformist youth, might become the only groups which use Belarusian on an everyday basis in informal spoken communication as well as on the Internet (cf. Burlyka, 2004). Nevertheless, others also use Belarusian sometimes, often as stylistically-motivated insertions in otherwise Russian discourse, and typically with the purpose to contextualize Belarusian ethnicity, literature, history or culture (cf. Mechkovskaia, 2002). In public, for example, Belarusian is often used during celebrations of official holidays and to index the nation in various documents, e.g. passports, banknotes, official letterheads, stamps, etc. It is also used on some public signs, e.g. on governmental buildings, in Minsk public transport (cf. Brown, 2007), on road-signs, some signs at post offices, in (book)stores and libraries. The use of Belarusian in public is usually limited to symbolic functions (Mechkovskaia, 2002). The accentuation of these functions then leads toward a ritualized use of Belarusian in public (Giger, 2006). Russian, or Belarusian-Russian mixing for some, predominates in all other settings, situations, and discourses. The use of Belarusian and Russian most often has the form of non-parallel bilingualism when texts are produced only in one language. Figure 1, which shows a section of the linguistic landscape of Minsk, the capital, demonstrates non-parallel bilingualism and the distribution of languages, in particular the national and ethno-cultural symbolic functions of Belarusian in public (cf. Key).

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Figure 1. Front of a bookstore and a shopping center (former Masherova/Mashe`rava Boulevard, Minsk, May 2005)

Key No. 1 2

Language Russian Russian

3

Russian

4

Belarusian

5 6 7

Russian Russian Russian

8

Russian

9 10

Russian Belarusian

Contents Bookstore Svetoch. Window signs with information on books sold inside: technology, medicine, accounting, law. Window signs with information on books sold inside: various topics except for
see 4. Window signs with information on books sold inside: Anthology of Belarusian Poetry, Belarusian Fiction, Belarusian Exotics, Atlas of Belarus. Opening hours of the Bookstore Svetoch. Shopping and Exhibition Center Masherova. Shopping and Exhibition Center Biurger and a list of stores therein. Advertisement of the Biurger Center, text saying: Life without limits. Instructions for the use of the public phone. Poster saying: Happy Victory Day, 60 years.

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

48

11

Belarusian

Plaques with names of institutions
Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus
and of publishing houses: Higher School, National Education, Belarus and Fiction.

A General Overview of Current Language Management Language Legislation In contrast to all its neighbors, Belarus has not signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (as of 2007). Two articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus form the basis of the country’s language legislation:1 Article 17. The Belarusian and Russian languages shall be the state languages of the Republic of Belarus.2 Article 50. [ . . .] Everyone shall have the right to use one’s native language and to choose the language of communication. In accordance with the law, the State shall guarantee the freedom to choose the language of education and teaching. Principles of the use of the state languages in the official sphere are explained in greater detail in the Law on Languages (No. 187-3/1998) (www.pravo.by). This law in its present wording stipulates that the state should ensure a general development and functioning of Belarusian and Russian in all spheres of life and create the necessary conditions for all the inhabitants of Belarus to acquire and fully command these two languages (Article 2). The law grants citizens the right to address any state authority in these two languages (or in some other language acceptable for both parties). The body of the state administration shall attend to the matter in question in Belarusian or Russian (Article 3). This formulation does not guarantee the right of citizens to have their submissions settled in the same language in which they were submitted. This is characteristic of the whole Law on Languages: the law establishes equality between both state languages on the one hand, and does not adjust their mutual relation on the other. A great number of articles state that a particular agenda shall be processed in Belarusian and/or Russian. For example, acts of the state administration are accepted and published in Belarusian and (or) Russian (Article 7), Belarusian and (or) Russian are languages of administration, documentation and relations between state bodies (Article 8), etc. In other parts of the Law, only the conjunction or is used: documentation for the elections to state offices is issued in Belarusian or Russian (Article 12), Belarusian or Russian are used in the areas of transportation, business, medical and common supply (Article 13), etc. Explicit asymmetry between the two state languages is only found in one place: the law states that teaching in specialized secondary schools and universities proceeds in Belarusian and (or) Russian, but adds that teaching

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49

Belarusian is obligatory in all educational institutions irrespective of their specialization (Article 24). Russian is not mentioned. Other laws set out the rules for the use of languages similar to the Law on Languages. The Law on Citizenship (136-3/2002) (www.pravo.by) is worth mentioning because it stipulates that only a person who knows at least one (i.e. not both) of the state languages to the extent necessary for successful communication can become a citizen of Belarus (Article 14). On the other hand, judges as well as employees of the state and local administration are obliged to have a command of both state languages (Judicial Code, 139-3/2006: Articles 91, 94; Law on Languages: Article 4) (www.pravo.by). Their knowledge, however, is not tested in any systematic way (Siarheıˇ Kruchkouˇ, personal communication). Officials may not refuse a document written in Belarusian or Russian because of unfamiliarity with the language. Such behavior is subject to sanctions (Law on Languages, Article 5). The Code of Administrative Offences (194-3/2003) (www.pravo.by) includes a provision stating that ‘public discrediting or defamation of the state and other national languages, setting up of barriers and restrictions to their use, dissemination of language-based hostility
shall be punishable by a fine [. . .]’ (Article 9.22). Public discrediting of the state or other national languages or triggering language-based hatred is considered a criminal offence (Law on Languages, Article 6). With the exception of legal regulation of Belarusian orthography, the current government does not appear to be planning any other substantial changes in the legislation on languages. Segments of the political opposition strongly insist on returning to Belarusian as the single state language (cf. Belarusian Popular Front, 2002), while others count on the political process or another referendum on this issue (cf. Aliaksandar Milinkevich at http:// by.milinkevich.org//about/questions/data/ic_90/91208). State Language Policy and Language Management Despite the official equality of the state languages, the current language management of the Belarusian state is characterized by a tendency to marginalize Belarusian (for a good survey of the state language policy in the 1990s, see Zaprudski, 2002). This tendency is most likely based both on the one-sided interpretation of existing legislation in favor of Russian and on violation of this legislation by individual officers. The tendency is not articulated in any official policy document, but can be exemplified by a long series of individual cases. For example, in September 2001, the Central Electoral Commission refused to accept ballot papers written in Belarusian (Smolicz & Radzik, 2004: 68). Judges have sometimes refused to hear a case in Belarusian (ibid.). A reader of Nasha Niva presented a particular case in her letter to the newspaper: complaining about injustice caused by Russians she wrote that ‘it was a moral abuse [. . .] when during the proceedings the judge was not able to understand which month I was born in
studzen’ [‘January’; ianvar’ in Russian]’ (Sudzilouˇskaia, 2000). Cases have also been reported in which post-office employees refused to accept a telegram in Belarusian or in which hotel staff

50

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did not accept a registration form filled out in Belarusian (Smolicz & Radzik, 2004: 68). A young Belarusian who did not fill in the customs declaration form in Russian and demanded a form in Belarusian was fined for disobeying requirements of the customs officer (Radio Liberty, 2007). The police are widely known for refusing to communicate in Belarusian, the use of standard Belarusian can be a reason for checking a person’s identity, and with political oppositionists or detainees the police verbally prohibits its use (Ioffe, 2003: 1032; Luniova, 2007; Smolicz & Radzik, 2004). Laws are almost exclusively issued in Russian. Between 1997 and 2000, only 9 out of 450 laws were approved in Belarusian despite the fact that, according to the former chairman of the Council of the Republic, the approval of laws in both languages would not mean any dramatic economic burden (Vaıˇtovich & Liashkevich, 2001). Recently, the state administration restricted the use of Belarusian in the media, although, for example, Belarusian-language TV broadcasting still covers roughly 5
15% of Belarusian TV channels (Smatrycˇenka, 2005: 56f). Zaprudski (2000) concludes that the right of the Belarusian-speaking minority to access information is being infringed upon. On the other hand, the state is still substantially subsidizing the literary production of the state publishing houses in Belarusian (Smatrycˇenka, 2005: 59). Sometimes, individual measures are taken in favor of Belarusian: e.g. a decision made by Hrodna (Grodno) City Hall (No. 336/1999) on the publication of legal norms in Belarusian and Russian; the recommendation of the National Bank that the banks should give their clients bilingual versions of forms and documents (Sharova, 2004); or the decision by the Constitutional Court (P-91/2003) to ensure actual equality of the state languages in services (http://ncpi.gov.by/constsud/rus/resh/pr091-03.html). This decision was, however, issued on the initiative of the Belarusian Language Society (2006), moreover, there has been minimal compliance with the measures. Activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Belarusian Language Society, Society for Belarusian Schools, etc., in support of Belarusian (petitions, correspondence with authorities, etc.) have a limited effect, as the state continues to constrain the NGO sector and civic initiatives in general. To sum up, it cannot be said that the Belarusian state promotes an overt and unambiguous policy of russification and marginalization of Belarusian. At the same time, the corresponding tendencies are very noticeable and violations of the official policies occur systematically rather than accidentally. However, in particular cases, language management of some state institutions can act to the detriment of the Russian language users. In a Belarusian internet discussion on language problems, a Russian speaker criticized the fact that all the documents issued by the Ministry of Education are written, according to him, exclusively in Belarusian.3 Although not an adequate observation, his complaint implicitly aims at sometimes problematic fundamentals of the Belarusian state language policy, i.e. the non-parallel use of the two state languages and the assumption that all the inhabitants understand both of them. There may be a connection here with the language legislation that does not regulate the mutual relation between the state languages. For the most part, the laws leave language choice to individual authorities and officers, including President Lukashenko, a

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51

representative of an officially bilingual country, who uses almost exclusively only one language, Russian.

Language Management and Language Problems in Education Languages in the Educational System The Belarusian system of education consists of three fundamental levels: preschool, secondary, and higher education. Parents or caretakers of children who start attending pre-school facilities or secondary schools have the right to choose one of the state languages or a language of the national minority as the language of instruction (Law on Education, 95-3/2002: Article 5) (www.pravo.by). At present, this right is exercised in Belarusian, Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian. In the school year 2005
2006, approximately 363,000 children attended kindergarten: 76% of this number attended Russian-language establishments, 13% Belarusian-language ones and 11% establishments with Russian- and Belarusian-language (or other-language) groups (Lozka, 2006). About 1.2 million children attended secondary schools: 77% of children were taught in Russian and 23% in Belarusian (Ministry of Education, 2005a). The number of schoolchildren taught in Belarusian is decreasing. Figure 2 shows the shift from Belarusian- to Russian-language education that started immediately after the May 1995 Referendum when Belarusian-language classes in bilingual schools started to close down and the schools transformed into exclusively Russian-language schools.

Figure 2 Students in secondary schools according to language(s) of instruction. Sources: Ministry of Statistics and Analysis (1994, 1996, 1998
2005)

52

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

As regards Polish and Lithuanian, in 2005
2006, 568 students were taught in Polish and 76 students in Lithuanian in the western part of the country. The number of students taught in Polish appears to be gradually decreasing (Ministry of Education, 2005a). As far as languages as subjects are concerned, both state languages and one foreign language are obligatory in all general secondary schools (Law on Education, 95-3/2002: Article 5). Several subjects are taught in Belarusian even in the Russian-language schools: Belarusian language and literature and the subject of ‘My country
Belarus’. Belarusian history and geography had been taught exclusively in Belarusian until 2006. Languages of ethnic minorities are also taught as subjects. In 2005
2006, approximately 8,000 students studied Polish, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, or another language (Ministry of Education, 2006). All textbooks recommended by the Ministry of Education are published in Belarus, including textbooks for teaching the Russian language. Graduation examinations at secondary schools and entrance examinations at universities include an obligatory exam in one of the state languages based on the graduate’s/applicant’s choice. The university entrance tests in other subjects have Russian- and Belarusian-language versions. Concerning public universities, in 2005
2006, 54% out of approximately 325,000 students studied in Russian, 2% in Belarusian, and 44% in both languages (Ministry of Education, 2005b). The universities and colleges of the Ministries of Interior, Defense, Communications, Aviation, Sports and Tourism, the Presidential Academy of Public Administration, the Academy of Music, universities of information science and transportation are exclusively or almost-exclusively Russian-language establishments. A certain amount of Belarusian-language teaching can be found at the Belarusian State Economic University, the Academy of the Arts, multidisciplinary state universities, and some medical and technical universities. The greatest extent of Belarusianlanguage instruction is at the Belarusian State Pedagogical University, where the number of students who study in Belarusian almost equals the number of those studying in Russian (Ministry of Education, 2005b). To sum up, Russian predominates in the Belarusian educational system as a whole, and the development proceeds towards further growth in Russianlanguage instruction.

Selected Language Problems in Education In this paper, only a few language problems in education are described, namely those that concern the relation between the two state languages and appear most significant from the societal point of view. Attempts at adjustments concerning the use of other languages have appeared as well, e.g. authorities’ refusal to allow a Polish-language school in Navahrudak (Novogrudok) (Belorusskaia Delovaia Gazeta, May 26, 1999), Roma representatives’ requirement for education in Romani, (http://naviny. by, December 19, 2004) etc., however, these will not be addressed here.

Language Problems in Belarus

53

Problems of the very existence of Belarusian-language schools and ‘streams’ In various media, the ‘nationally conscious’ (see Section 4)
unlike the government
evaluate the decrease in the number of Belarusian-language schools very negatively. They even relate it to the question of the very existence of Belarusian in the future. Numerous ‘nationally conscious’ parents have been directly affected by the discriminatory actions of the government and the school administrations against the exercise of the right to choose the language of instruction. This right started to collide with the interests of the renewed state apparatus after the May 1995 Referendum. Critics mention cases when state officials instructed headmasters not to admit new students to Belarusianlanguage classes (Lozka & Khil’kevich, 2001), and when school administrators themselves restricted language choice. The following practices, for example, have been observed: the requirement for too high a number of students as a prerequisite to open a Belarusian-language class; misinforming parents preferring Belarusian about the date of class meetings so that they could not express their opinions; allocation of their children to different classes in such a way that the parents could be outvoted and the medium changed to Russian; providing false information which would persuade parents to withdraw their application for Belarusian-language classes; changing the medium without previous consultation with parents (Bulavatski, 1998; Maisenia et al., 2000). Bulavatski (1998) provides two reasons for such language management: (1) School administration does not want to exert any effort and spend resources on teaching in two languages; they consider it a complication. (2) Most members of the school administration, including headmasters, do not use Belarusian themselves and do not have a positive attitude toward it. The declining interest in Belarusian-language education in secondary schools is, however, chiefly motivated by a very limited use of Belarusian at universities. Parents and university applicants have often used this as an argument. To improve the situation, the Belarusian Language Society has been trying to found a national university with Belarusian as the exclusive medium of instruction, but without any success so far. In 2001, the Ministry of Education issued The Program of Additional Measures to Extend the Scope of the Use of Belarusian in the Educational System which among other things decreed that the network of Belarusian-language schools should be extended in cities and towns. While the implementation of the program somewhat ameliorated the situation, it has met with various barriers including unwillingness of the state administration and lack of interest from a sufficient number of parents. Processes extremely inconsistent with the program have even taken place, e.g. continuing closures of Belarusian-language classes. In numerous cities and smaller towns, such as Hrodna (Grodno) or Slonim, no Belarusian-language classes have been opened for several years. Under such circumstances, parents interested in Belarusian-

54

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

language education are confronted with the problem of finding a Belarusianlanguage school for their children. Supporters of Belarusian, such as the Belarusian Language Society and Belarusian-speaking students, face a problem related to Belarusian-language ‘streams’ at universities. Namely, tertiary education in one of the state languages is legally ensured through organizing Belarusian-language and Russianlanguage groups or ‘streams’ (Law on Education, 95-3/2002: Article 32) (www.pravo.by), but Russian is the usual medium at the universities, so Belarusian has to be applied for (Belarusian Language Society, 2001). Therefore, either a sufficient number of students who prefer Belarusian have to apply or they have to outvote those in their group who prefer Russian. This is not easy to achieve, so, for example, at the Belarusian University of Medicine, the requirement for the minimum number of 15 students has not been met for three years (Nasha slova, March 29, 2006: 1). As an exception, Belarusian State Pedagogical University has extended the number of subjects taught in Belarusian. However, this happened on the top-down initiative of the University Board, not based on students’ demands (Lozka & Khil’kevich, 2001).

The problem of ‘Belarusianness’ of Belarusian-language schools The categories of ‘Belarusian-language school’ and ‘Russian-language school’ are treated as isomorphous in various statistics. However, as early as the 1980s, some experts and people employed in education criticized the fact that the use of Belarusian in the Belarusian-language schools is more limited than the use of Russian in the Russian-language schools. For example, Kuntsevich (1999) pointed out that in numerous Belarusian-language schools, Belarusian was only used during classes; Russian was used during the breaks, on notice boards, in paperwork and partly even in teaching (pp. 141f). Moreover, until the beginning of this century, Belarusian as a subject in Belarusian-language schools had been assigned fewer hours compared to Russian in Russian-language schools. The fact that some subjects in a number of Belarusian-language schools are taught in Russian and numerous teachers of Belarusian use it only when teaching is a continuing object of criticism (Labovich, 2006; Lozka & Khil’kevich, 2001). ‘Nationally conscious’ teachers and some others see the problem in the consequences such behavior has for the attitudes of children toward Belarusian. In classes, teachers lead children to respect and love their ‘native tongue’, but by switching into Russian outside classes ‘they demonstrate that Belarusian is useless and its disappearance is a fact’ (Bulavatski, 1998: 104). In such situation, children develop a language inferiority complex (Mian’kouˇ, 2006).

Problems of language choice At universities, students have the right to determine the language of instruction. It is, however, the lecturer who initially chooses the language of instruction and most often it is Russian. According to Miliashkevich (1999), many lecturers do not have any respect for Belarusian and do not find motivation to spend efforts on preparing lectures in that language (ibid.). In addition, those lecturers who do teach in Belarusian and are the only ones at their department who use this language attract their colleagues’ attention, which they may experience as discomfort (Savitskaia, 1999: 84). Students’

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evaluations of a lecturer’s choice of Belarusian vary, but in the majority of cases, students are tolerant with respect to Belarusian and Russian (Miliashkevich, 1999). The lack of specialized literature in Belarusian has been frequently used as a discursive argument against giving lectures in this language. Miliashkevich (1999) points out that at the time of Belarusification, the lack of literature in Belarusian led to attempts at writing the missing books. After the May 1995 Referendum, however, such efforts have been extremely sporadic. Even the state school administration has shown awareness of the lack of Belarusian terminology, but the government does not take any measures to solve this problem. In contrast, in 2006 the Ministry of Education issued a mandate allowing the teaching of Belarusian history and geography in Russianlanguage schools in Russian and spent resources on preparation of the necessary textbooks. This aroused indignation among the ‘nationally conscious’ population. The Ministry justified this step using the ‘parents’ requests’ argument (cf. below), as well as the argument that the teaching of these subjects exclusively in Belarusian contradicts the 1996 revision of the Constitution. Interestingly, only a few years earlier the Deputy Minister of Education wrote that to teach Belarusian history in a ‘non-native tongue’ was ‘immoral’ and that it would be taught in Belarusian irrespective of whether somebody liked it or not (Dylian, 2001). The government and the state administration including the president often use two discourses that sometimes contradict each other: the nationalist discourse (state protection of the ‘native tongue’, i.e. Belarusian) and the free-language-choice discourse (reflected in the Constitution and the Law on Languages). ‘Technical reasons’ also often serve as justification for the non-use/nonacceptance of Belarusian. For example, in relation to the university entrance testing, the state-owned newspaper Belaruskaia Niva gives the university applicants the following advice: ‘In order to speed up the processing of application forms and the issue of certificates, they should be filled out clearly, without any mistakes and only in Russian’ (Siomkina, 2006). There has been evidence from the testing process itself that staff instructed applicants to fill out registration forms in Russian (Petrykevich, 2005). In its decision (No. P-91/2003) on inequality of the state languages in services, the Constitutional Court mentioned that social insurance cards and bank cards are issued only in Russian for technical reasons (http://www.ncpi.gov.by/ constsud/rus/resh/pr091-03.html). However, the state does not take the initiative to find software solutions, e.g. for bilingual databases, and simply adopts existent Russian programs. Several computer tools for Belarusian have been developed by members of the Belarusian Language Society and by individuals (Kruchkouˇ, 2003). Some restrictions on the use of Belarusian in education may stem from the connection Belarusians make between this language and the ‘opposition’. For example, one of the participants in Sloboda’s (forthcoming) study, who indeed participated in political protests, used Belarusian in lectures at one of the technical universities. The head of his department recommended that he stop lecturing in Belarusian. The Iakub Kolas National Humanities Lyceum, in which Belarusian was used as the medium, is another example: the state

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authorities closed it down in 2003 due to the involvement of the staff in political activities. Other types of restrictions on the use of Belarusian also appear. For example, one of the authors of this article witnessed a situation when a department secretary at the Belarusian State Pedagogical University asked a lecturer who had filled out the Model for the Educational Standard of Tertiary Education form in Belarusian to rewrite it in Russian because ‘they [i.e. probably education authorities] have asked us to do it’. Thus, although the state has declared that restrictions on the use of the state languages are illegal and that it has created conditions for the freedom of language choice, regulation of language choice does occur.

The reproductive mechanism: The ‘parents’ free choice’ argument ‘Parents’ freedom of choice’ or ‘parents’ wishes/requests’ is a frequent argument of the state apparatus for not undertaking any activities to support the spread of Belarusian in education. In 2000, the Minister of Education stated that the retreat of Belarusian from the schools ‘had to be understood as legitimate and justified because the establishment of classes and groups according to the languages of instruction proceeded in conformity with parents’ wishes’ (Strazhev, 2000). However, the year before he said that the Ministry ‘created necessary conditions to ensure the actual right to choose a language of instruction’ (Strazhau˘ & Khil’kevich, 1999). Members of the state administration sometimes present themselves as not having the power to influence the process of language choice, but their statements indicate that they realize that they have and use this power (‘create conditions’, etc.). The introduction of the Chinese language in the Minsk Gymnasium (secondary school) No. 23 serves as an illustration of such a contradiction. Belarusian media have been reporting on the intensification of economic collaboration with China for some time; this development should have had planned consequences for language teaching as well (Maradudina, 2005; Wang Qian, 2002). In August 2006, the president publicly announced that ‘the graduates [of secondary schools] should be fluent in one European language or in Chinese’ (http://www.president.gov.by/press25740.html). Minsk City Hall offered the opportunity to teach Chinese also to the Gymnasium No. 23. Its headmaster accepted the offer and the school staff pursued activities to arouse parents’ interest. The staff was very active, even beyond the scope of the Ministry’s recommendation (Kirsanava, 2006). However, the article published in the Nastauˇnitskaia Hazeta [Teachers’ Gazette] presented the whole process of the introduction of Chinese in this secondary school as a mere response to parents’ wishes (Kirsanava, 2006). There was no mention of the stimulus produced by the government and staff activities. According to the Language Management Theory, it is ideal when language problems are identified in discourse (on the ‘micro’ level), then solved on the level of organizations (‘macro’ level), and the adjustments are implemented back in discourse. Interestingly, the author of the article in the state-owned newspaper tried to present the case of Chinese in the Gymnasium No. 23 as an ideal language management cycle, where the government meets the people’s wishes. However, in reality, the original stimulus came from the government

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and school staff (‘macro’ level), not from the parents’ discourse management (‘micro’ level) (cf. Figure 3). That is, ideal language management cycle is not only a theoretical construct but was also an emic concern in this case. Laitin (1993) showed that in India, migrant parents choosing a language of instruction were sensitive to the signals ‘from above’, rather than influenced by their ‘language loyalty’. The same holds true for Belarus: the government and school staff stimulated parents’ interest in Chinese and earlier the government had also taken measures to support the teaching of other foreign languages. These activities from above, which were, according to government representatives, ‘in the interest of the state’ (Palstsiuk, 2000: 178f), stand in marked contrast to the absence of effective support for Belarusian, the ‘native tongue’ and a state language. For example, the implementation of the government’s Program of Additional Measures for Belarusian (cf. above) and a 2004 recommendation of the National Bank to provide forms and documents in Belarusian (Sharova, 2004) have failed. The language management cycles in these two cases have not been completed in their implementation phase (see Figures 4 and 5, phase 3). The cause of these nonimplementations seems to lie in the orientation of the implementing administrative and bank personnel not to the ‘micro’ level, where the language management was initiated, but to the signals ‘from above’
the government high officials’ preference for Russian. The orientation to the signals ‘from above’ might also combine with economic priorities, Belarusian not being one of them. As a result of this widespread phenomenon, for example, only 61% of a representative sample of parents from Minsk would include Belarusian
the ‘native tongue’ and a state language
among compulsory school subjects (i.e. 39% would not), and as few as 14% would favor it as the language of instruction (i.e. 86% would not, due to its perceived uselessness) (Jeantheau, 2003: 253, 258). The government then uses parents’ wishes that the government itself created as a justification for not effectively supporting Belarusian.

Figure 3 Incomplete language management cycle: Chinese (simplified). Note: Numbers in brackets indicate the alleged order of activities, whereas numbers before brackets indicate their real order.

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Figure 4 Incomplete language management cycle: Belarusian in education (simplified).

Language users’ problems due to education As we have already remarked, non-parallel bilingualism is common in Belarus, i.e. there are texts that have only a Belarusian language version. Immigrants who have not gone through the Belarusian system of education, however, usually know only Russian, as they most often come from other postSoviet countries (Ministry of Statistics and Analysis, 1998
2005). Since there are no special compulsory courses in Belarusian for adult immigrants, with the exception of university students, this group of inhabitants may have problems with understanding Belarusian. Even a secondary school student born in Russia reported having problem with understanding a textbook on Belarusian history (Radio Liberty, 2006). This is in contrast to the claim of the former Deputy Minister of Education that such problems in this subject should not arise because Belarusian is taught in all schools (Dylian, 2001). Further examples of the lack of understanding of Belarusian on the part of not only immigrants, but also Russian-speaking Belarusians, suggest that there is indeed a problem of ‘semicommunication’ (Haugen, 1966). To overcome this problem, more effective bilingual education (possibly using a bilingual

Figure 5 Incomplete language management cycle: Belarusian in banks (simplified).

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59

medium) and sometimes more good will on the part of interlocutors (cf. e.g. Sudzilouˇskaia, 2000) are needed. Problems in understanding Belarusian, however, are relatively infrequent. For example, Trusauˇ (2001) experimentally addressed over twenty sales assistants in a Minsk department store, using specifically Belarusian words, and only one young sales assistant asked twice before she understood. In contrast, speaking Belarusian causes more problems. To illustrate this point, let us mention a few examples. In a street survey by Radio Liberty, four respondents (presumably older people) said that they were Belarusian but did not speak Belarusian because they had not managed to learn it at school (Dubavets, 2002). One of the authors of this article met two students of linguistic disciplines who were incapable of fluent communication in Belarusian, in spite of being Belarusian and trying to speak Belarusian with him (a foreigner who might not understand Russian). Both students mixed Russian, Belarusian, and Polish. An employee of the Registry Office admitted in a newspaper interview that she was incapable of speaking Belarusian, i.e. to hold the wedding ceremony in Belarusian if a bride and groom require this (Astrouˇskaia, 2004). As far as statistical data on selfreported language skills are concerned, 96% of respondents of Schro¨der (2004: 91
95) declared a passive knowledge of Russian, 88% its active knowledge, but only 81% declared passive knowledge of Belarusian and 58% its active knowledge. However, it is the ‘nationally conscious’ Belarusians, who first acquired Russian and have decided to start speaking Belarusian, who perceive the lack of productive competence in Belarusian as a serious problem. They not only have to overcome social-psychological barriers (psychological discomfort, negative reactions from relatives, friends and colleagues, etc.) but they also have to build needed vocabulary and acquire practical speech habits, in spite of the fact that they usually passed through the Belarusian bilingual education system (Sloboda, forthcoming).

Conclusion The essence of the problems of language policy in Belarus seems to lie in the absence of the individual language choice in all the spheres of society. This can be related to the shortcomings of the legal state, legal certainty, and democracy in general in this country. Pletiukhov (1999), the chairman of the parliamentary commission for education, culture and science, said that the aim of the postreferendum policy of the state was ‘to achieve actual bilingualism’, including ‘leveling out the inequality in the starting positions’ of both languages (p. 31). The cases presented in this article, however, suggest that this has not taken place, the officially formulated language policy is often declaratory and the implementation of various adjustments depends on the willingness of people in power. Moreover, government officials often discursively mask the shift from Belarusian to Russian (Palstsiuk, 2000: 178f; see, e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2007). Language management by the state is directed primarily at cancellation of the restrictions on the choice of Russian, i.e. at achieving freedom from Belarusian. At the same time, it is carried out at the expense of Belarusian speakers who feel a lack of freedom for Belarusian. The ‘parents’ free choice’

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argument combined with the unwillingness of the government and state administration to use Belarusian and to create not only the necessary but also sufficient conditions for its use (including economic and attitudinal ones) are barriers to the freedom to use Belarusian. It is possible, however, that the present language management of the state sometimes also acts to the detriment of the speakers of Russian due to the prevalent non-parallel bilingualism. Nevertheless, the alternative of parallel bilingualism (i.e. laws, forms, road-signs, etc. in both languages) has not been articulated and the state continues to reproduce non-parallel bilingualism. Its language management could be summed up as an implicit attempt at the unrestricted use of Russian, total reduction of Belarusian to symbolic functions, and consolidation of such conditions. This brings about language problems for the Belarusian-speaking minority, who want to use Belarusian on an everyday basis. Thus, while for the overwhelming majority of Belarusians there is no doubt about their Belarusian ethnic identity nor about perceiving Belarusian as their ‘native tongue’, there is no consensus in the Belarusian society about the degree to which everyday use of Belarusian (especially in informal settings) should be part of that identity. From a typological point of view, Belarus presents an interesting case of a country where the language of the ethnic majority is being lost in favor of the language of a neighbor state, which took possession of the country in the past. In this sense, Belarus is frequently compared to Ireland (e.g. Alpatov, 2000: 193
197). In spite of the evident parallel (Irish has a high symbolic value, but is used only marginally in everyday life, its use is often ritualized, it is one of the two official languages, but at the same time a minority language) there are important differences. While Irish and English are genetically rather distant and mutually completely unintelligible, Belarusian and Russian are closely related and mutually intelligible to a certain degree. This means that from the point of view of the language system of vernacular Belarusian dialects, Russian could easily function as their standard language. Thus, whether Russian or Belarusian shall be considered the standard language of an individual who speaks a Belarusian dialect is more a matter of choice than of the nature of the language(s) involved. On the other hand, the necessary effort to understand Belarusian for native speakers of closely-related Russian is much lower than the effort for native speakers of English to understand Irish, so the potential for revitalization of Belarusian is higher in this respect (for details see Giger, 2006: 293
304). Acknowledgments Our thanks for their help in the preparatory work on this article are due to the following colleagues and friends (in alphabetical order): Veranika Bial’kovich, Alena Iafimava, Vol’ha Kanavalava, Uladzimir Koshchanka, Siarheı˘ Kruchkouˇ, Ales’ Lozka, Jirˇ´ı Nekvapil, Aneta Pavlenko, Nadzia Staravoıˇtava, Siarheıˇ Zaprudski, and anonymous reviewers. This research was sponsored by the grant of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, MSM 0021620825.

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Correspondence ´ stav pro jazyk Any correspondence should be directed to Markus Giger, U cˇesky´, Valentinska´ 1, 11646 Praha 1, Czech Republic ([email protected]) or ´ stav lingvistiky a ugrofinistiky, Filozoficka´ fakulta Maria´n Sloboda, U Univerzity Karlovy, na´m. Jana Palacha 2, 11638 Praha 1, Czech Republic ([email protected]) Notes 1.

2. 3.

The Constitution, all legal codes and laws referred to in this article can be found online at URL http://www.pravo.by, and in print in the National Register of Legal Acts published since 1999). According to the Law on the Social Protection of the Handicapped (418-3/2000, Article 19) the sign language also has the status of the ‘state language’ with respect to interpersonal communication, instruction and translation services. User AK47 in the discussion ‘Does Belarus need Belarusian?’ 02-09-2006, 11:41, at http://www.tut.by.

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528.) Strazhev, V. I. (/ B. ) (2000) /
/ / ... [Learning is a / May 27. On WWW at http://press.bydifficult work...] / media.net/index.php?mod=p_ind&NPID=45&No=128&Date=27.05.2000. Accessed 1.3.08. Strazhau¯, V. and Khil’kevich, U. (/ , B i / , Y.) (1999) Y / / , / / / ‘’ [‘In our waiting of hope there is more of active, energetic optimism than of the wish to float quietly according to fate’]. / , November 27, 3. Sudzilouˇskaia, T. (2000) [I envy Chechnya]. 11. On WWW at http://nn.by/2000/11/05.htm. Accessed 31.8.07. Trusau˘, A. (2001) [Sakrat, you are wrong . . . ]. 17, 2. Tsykhun, H.A. (2000) [A creolized product (trasianka as an object of linguistic inquiry)]. Arche 6. On WWW at http://arche.bymedia.net/6-2000/ cychu600.html. Accessed 8.31.07. Vaı˘tovich, A. and Liashkevich Iu. (2001) [Belarusian retakes its lost positions?] , February 10. Wang Qian (2002) Chinese language welcomed in Belarus. On WWW at http:// www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jun/35141.htm. Accessed 8.31.07. Woolhiser, C. (2001) Language ideology and language conflict in post-Soviet Belarus. In C.C. O’Reilly (ed.) Language, Ethnicity and the State, Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989 (pp. 91
122). London: Palgrave. Woolhiser, C. (2003) Constructing national identities in the Polish-Belarusian borderlands. Ab Imperio 1, 293
346. Zaprudski, S. (2000) [Society’s confirmation of Belarusian and violations of the rights of Belarusian-speaking people]. In [Becoming Mute: From the Chronicle of the Anihilation of Belarusian] (pp. 43
53). Gudas. Zaprudski, S. (2002) Language policy in the Republic of Belarus in the 1990s. In P. Kazanecki and M. Pejda (eds) Belarus
The Third Sector: People, Culture, Language (pp. 33
40). Warsaw/Minsk: East European Democratic Centre/IDEE. On WWW at http://www.belarusguide.com/culture1/literature/Belarusian_Language_Prosecution_in_Belarus.htm. Accessed 8.31.07. Zaprudski, S. (2007) In the grip of replacive bilingualism: The Belarusian language in contact with Russian. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 183, 97
118.

A Tense and Shifting Balance: Bilingualism and Education in Ukraine Laada Bilaniuk University of Washington, USA Svitlana Melnyk Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine Language policy is a divisive issue in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian and Russian languages coexist in a tenuous balance. Many people see the choice between Russian and Ukrainian as symbolic of two polar political and cultural allegiances: with Russia, or with Europe and the West. Promotion of Ukrainian is meant to counteract its historical subjugation to Russian. At the same time, there is state support for minority languages and cultures, including Russian, to help develop a Ukrainian civic identity not restricted to Ukrainian ethnicity. Legislation designates Ukrainian as the sole state language while also supporting education in Russian and other languages, including Romanian, Hungarian, and Crimean Tatar. The previously low status of Ukrainian has risen greatly since the disintegration of the USSR, and this language is much more widely used than before in education, government, and public life in general. However, Russian continues to dominate in many spheres as it did during the Soviet era. Many people feel that the survival of Ukrainian is still threatened by Russian, and that the recent gains of Ukrainian in status and spheres of use are tenuous. In 2008, struggles over language policies persist and the implementation of existing policies continues to be uneven.

Keywords: Ukraine, language policy, minority languages, language revival, national development

Introduction Language policies and practices often serve as focal points for the contestation of identities, culture, and politics. In the last years of the USSR, the laws declaring titular languages to be official state languages were among the first legislative steps taken by republics towards independence, leading to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now language laws continue to be sensitive barometers of the post-Soviet countries’ political leanings. In Ukraine, philosophies of nationhood and culture are contested through the language question. The choice between Ukrainian and Russian is often portrayed as shorthand for the choice between two polar political and cultural allegiances: with Russia, in the case of Russian language, or with Europe and the West, in the case of Ukrainian. Should all Ukrainian citizens be able to understand and speak Ukrainian? Will the titular language unify the population and consolidate independence? Should all Ukrainian citizens know Russian, and if so, is it for practical reasons and/or in support of a spiritual East-Slavic kinship? Should Russian be prioritized over other

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minority languages in Ukraine? There is disagreement over the answers to these questions, as they affect people’s sense of identity and social status, and have a potential impact on the country’s politics.

Map Ukraine (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/up.html) Ukraine is a country of 48.5 million inhabitants (according to the 2001 census) that declared its independence from the USSR in 1991 (Zastavnyi, 2003; http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/). Some scholars view Ukraine’s current situation as ‘postcolonial’, inasmuch as for centuries it was dominated by neighboring empires that extracted its natural resources, exploited its labor force, and subjugated its language and culture (Korek, 2007; Masenko, 2004). Ukraine differs from most other postcolonial cases in that the languages and cultures of the colonizing regimes (most notably, Russia and Poland) were closely related to those of Ukraine. Factors such as physical appearance that were ideologized as racial differences between colonizer and colonized did not play a major role as they did in the regions of Asia and Africa that were colonized by Europeans.1 Even so there are many parallels. Ukrainians were (and in some cases still are) seen as ‘closer to nature’ and exotic, images internalized and exploited by both Ukrainians and nonUkrainians (Fedyuk, 2006). Even though Ukrainian is now the sole state language of the country, stereotypes persist of Ukrainian as a backward peasant language, in contrast to Russian as the ‘civilized’ and ‘highly cultured’ language (Bilaniuk, 2005; Fournier, 2002; Maidan-Inform Internet News, 2006). In the Soviet Union, the unequal status of ethnic groups persisted even though the official ideology declared that all peoples were equal, and that ethnic and national differences would eventually die out anyway. Ethnic identity, often referred to as ‘nationality’ in the post-Soviet region, was actually reified and institutionalized in Soviet times, despite official rhetoric condemning ‘bourgeois nationalism’ and promoting the development of a new Soviet

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identity (Hirsch, 1997; Slezkine, 1994; Smith, 1998). Institutionalized practices, such as censuses and the designation of nationality on passports, supported self-identification with a limited number of discrete identity categories. The most recent census of Ukraine in 2001 (Zastavnyi, 2003; http://www.ukrcen sus.gov.ua/eng/results/) similarly asked people to choose one ethnic affiliation and one native language. According to that census, 78% of the people of Ukraine identify themselves as Ukrainians, and 17% as Russians, and when asked to designate their native language, 68% chose Ukrainian and 30% chose Russian. In comparison to the last Soviet Census in 1989, in 2001 the proportion of people listed as ethnic Ukrainians had increased by 5% and designation of Ukrainian as the native language had increased by 3% (with corresponding decreases in Russian ethnic and native language identifications) (Ministry of Statistics of Ukraine, 1993). This shift is likely due to both demographic movements and changing ideologies favoring Ukrainian identity after independence. While in practice people’s linguistic and ethnic identifications are often complex and situationally varied, the census statistics are valuable as a depiction of preferences. For some people listing their ‘nationality’ as ‘Ukrainian’ may be a statement of civic identity and citizenship, while for others it denotes an ethnic, cultural identity. For the most part, the census reflects respondent preferences, although it is important to keep in mind that, in some cases, it is the preferences of the census-takers that prevail (Arel, 2002). The two main ethnic groups in Ukraine are unevenly distributed, with the greatest concentration of Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, and generally in urban areas. The 24 oblasts (administrative regions) of Ukraine range from 98% Ukrainian and 1% Russian population (in the western oblast of Ternopil) to 38% Ukrainian and 57% Russian population (in the eastern oblast of Donetsk). In addition to Ukrainians and Russians, 5% of the population is comprised of over 130 other ethnicities/nationalities. The largest among these are Belarusians (0.6%), Moldovans (0.5%), Crimean Tatars (0.5%), Bulgarians (0.4%), Hungarians (0.3%), Romanians (0.3%), and Poles (0.3%). Most Crimean Tatars live in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 and is now an autonomous republic within Ukraine (see Nikiforov, 2001, for more on the history and status of Crimea). The once dominant Crimean Tatar population had been forcibly deported to Central Asia during WWII under Stalin, but many have repatriated during the post-Soviet period (Uehling, 2004). According to the 2001 census, Crimean Tatars comprise 12% of the population of Crimea (an increase from 1.9% in 1989), along with 58% Russians and 24% Ukrainians. The Crimean port city of Sevastopol is unique, as it is leased by Ukraine to Russia to harbor their portion of the contested, now divided, Black Sea Fleet. In a 1997 treaty, Russia accepted Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea and Sevastopol and, in general, recognized Ukraine’s borders and territorial integrity. However, not all Russians (both government officials and the public) are content with this situation, and language legislation has been a focus for political struggles (Kamenskyi, 2007; Prytula, 2007; Stanovaya, 2007). Arguments over language legislation are often expressed in terms of what is ‘right’ or ‘natural’, and these concepts constitute part of people’s language

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ideologies. Language ideology is the set of beliefs and attitudes that link social differences and linguistic differences, and establishes the social import of speaking in different ways. When people react to or express opinions about a particular use of language, they are enacting a language ideology; concurrently, the reactions and opinions of others (in both official and informal contexts) continually work to shape people’s language ideologies. Language ideology has become a fruitful area of scholarly inquiry as it allows investigation of how cultural, political, and linguistic factors are interconnected (Blommaert, 1999; Kroskrity, 2000; Schieffelin et al., 1998; Woolard, 1992; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994). Through examination of language ideology, we can also examine the different forces that come into play in shaping identity constructs, as well as constructs of language units. While we provide an overview of the history, legislation, and social conditions that affect language status and use in Ukraine, we keep in mind that the language units themselves and correlated identities are social constructs. The situation in Ukraine is similar to that in other post-Soviet republics, where a local language has contended with the historically dominant position of Russian. Ukraine is most similar to Belarus by virtue of the relatedness of the languages in question (compared to Belarusian, Ukrainian is somewhat more structurally divergent from Russian). Ukrainian language is, however, in a relatively much stronger position than Belarusian, in terms of legislation and both official and unofficial usage (Giger & Sloboda, this issue; Woolhiser, 2001). Whereas the survival of Belarusian is clearly threatened, Ukrainian has made a strong comeback since independence. There are several other examples worldwide where the struggle between two related languages and correlating identities has shaped the social and political dynamics of a country or region. Ukraine is similar to Catalonia (with Castilian Spanish and Catalan languages) and Corsica (with French and Corsican languages) with the significant difference that both of these areas do not have political independence (Jaffe, 1999; Woolard, 1989). A closer analogy is Taiwan, which has contested political sovereignty, and where Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese have a history of contention (Dreyer, 2003). Taiwanese and Mandarin, while sharing a script, are not as similar in their spoken form as Ukrainian and Russian, but there are compelling parallels: Russian and Mandarin are the languages of large neighboring states (Russia and China) that have political aspirations for (some degree of political and/or economic) control of their smaller neighbors. The languages of Russia and China have a historically high cultural status compared to the local languages (Ukrainian and Taiwanese, respectively) whose status has been historically lower and politically problematic (symbolic of separatism or a negative nationalism). While the actual degree of closeness of languages is difficult to define, it is clear that closer relatedness of languages does not diminish the potential for political and ideological contention. In cases where languages are related, the features that make them different become more salient in representing social and political differences.

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Languages of Ukraine The most widely used languages in Ukraine are Ukrainian and Russian. While there are many varieties and mixtures of these two languages, we first discuss their standard forms to provide a general understanding of the social constructs that are the touch points for people’s language ideologies. Ukrainian and Russian are both East Slavic languages, and share many grammatical and lexical features (see Bilaniuk, 2005: 203
208 for a brief comparison). In lexicon, Ukrainian and Russian differ by 38%; the 62% of the lexicon that these languages have in common consists of 44% morphemically identical and 18% morphemically similar terms (Radchuk, 2002, citing research by Tyshchenko, 2000: 266
267). In comparison, Spanish and Portuguese differ by 25%, Spanish and Italian by 33%, and German and Dutch by 25% (ibid). Some of the etymologically related morphemes in the two languages have become differentiated through different processes of sound change. For example, the historical Cyrillic letter (jat’) was replaced with ‘i’ in Ukrainian and with ‘e’ in Russian, e.g. ‘forest’ is /l’is/ in Ukrainian, /l’es/ in Russian. Contemporary differences in the phonetics and phonologies of the two languages create further differentiation. Two major features of Russian, ‘akanie’ and final consonant devoicing, are absent in Ukrainian. Akanie in Russian entails the pronunciation of unaccented ‘o’ as /a/ or /3/, whereas unaccented ‘o’ in Ukrainian is always pronounced as /o/. Thus, for example, , is pronounced /m3lako/ the word for ‘milk’, while written the same in Russian and /moloko/ in Ukrainian. Final consonant devoicing likewise creates greater divergence in the spoken than the written language: e.g. Russian [xl’ep] ‘bread’ (written ); Ukrainian [xl’ib] ‘bread’ (written ). Some other differences include the palatalized pronunciation of /c/ in Ukrainian (e.g. /psˇenyc’a/ ‘wheat’, /vivc’a/ ‘sheep’) which is not palatalized in Russian (/psˇen’ica/, /afca/); Ukrainian has a hard or semipalatalized pronunciation of fricatives /sˇ, zˇ/ and affricate /cˇ/, whereas Russian palatalizes these phonemes (Hryshchenko, 1997; Ponomariv, 2001). There are also some significant differences in morphology and syntax in the case system, gender system, and numbering forms (Hryshchenko, 1997; Ozerova, 2003; Ponomariv, 2001). In Russian, the future tense has one form, but in Ukrainian it may be formed in two ways. Russian future tense requires a /budu cˇ’itat’/ ‘I will read’. The modal verb, much as in English: two Ukrainian future tense forms include a form similar to Russian
[budu cˇytaty]
and another that uses a suffix rather than modal verb, /cˇytatymu/, both meaning ‘I will read’. The case systems of the two languages are similar, but Ukrainian is distinct in having a vocative case, in addition to the six cases shared with Russian. In addition, the cases that are shared are sometimes used differently. For example, the verbs ‘to thank,’ and ‘to forgive’ take an object in the dative case in Ukrainian (answering the question KoMy /komu/ ‘[to] whom’): /d’akuvaty bat’kam/ ‘to thank the parents’, MeHi /probacˇte men’i/ ‘pardon me’; these verbs take the accusative case in Russian /kavo/ ‘who’): /blag3(answering the question

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dar’it’ rad’it’ele’ej/ ‘to thank the parents’, /prast’it’e min’a/ ‘pardon me’. The analysis of bilingualism in Ukraine is further complicated by the fact that many people switch frequently between languages or speak mixed language varieties known as surzhyk. Surzhyk refers to mixtures of Ukrainian and Russian that formed in various social conditions (Bilaniuk, 2004, 2005). The prototypical case of surzhyk emerged among urbanizing Ukrainianspeaking peasants attempting to speak Russian in order to acquire the higher social status associated with that language (from tsarist through Soviet times, and to some extent in independent Ukraine). After independence, surzhyk was also used as a label for the imperfect attempts of urban professionals to use Ukrainian in spheres where they had only used Russian before (and hence their Ukrainian language showed Russian admixture). Surzhyk is generally a derogatory term, used to devalue any language use deemed to be of low quality, concomitantly devaluing a speaker’s social standing. The negative attitudes toward surzhyk and the emphasis on purism are part of efforts to elevate and define a prestigious Ukrainian language, to separate it from its connotations as a backward peasant language (Bilaniuk, 2004, 2005: 103
172). The significance of these efforts is clearer when we consider the historical context of language status in Ukraine. Data on the degree of difference between Ukrainian and Russian (such as the lexicon statistics discussed above) have been brought forward by scholars to refute the misconception (common both in the West and in Ukraine) that these two languages are ‘almost the same’. In the West, this misconception stemmed from politics that subsumed Ukrainian culture and language into Russian, and this view has become increasingly rare as Ukraine’s political situation has changed. In Ukraine, this idea is rooted in (at least passive) bilingualism from a very early age, and as a result, people cannot imagine not understanding the other language. The conflation of Ukrainian and Russian is becoming less common as there is more attention to correctness, literary standards, and the boundaries between the languages (Bilaniuk, 2005, 2007b). While it is rarer to hear someone say that these languages are ‘the same’, it has become increasingly common to hear conversations where interlocutors speak both languages, each adhering to their preferred language. Such ‘non-accommodating bilingual interactions’ are common in public and in the media (especially talk shows, game shows, interviews, and internet chats, Bilaniuk, 2005: 175
177, 185
192, 2007a). A similar practice is apparently also common in Czechia and Slovakia where speakers adhere to either Czech or Slovak, whichever they know best, to avoid mixing the two (Na´beˇlkova´, 2007).

Who Speaks What Languages: The Ideological Dimensions of Data Nationality and native language are highly politicized and ideologized categories in Ukraine. Different configurations of identity are not the result of primordial differences, but of different positioning within a social hierarchy that have persisted through both tsarist and Soviet political regimes (Fournier,

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2002). Often people will designate as ‘native’ the language that corresponds to their ethnic heritage, even if they know it poorly, in the belief that this is how things should be. Other ways of asking about language bring us closer to a sense of actual practices, even though sociological surveys also document selfrepresentational preferences rather than actual usages. In response to a question about language use within the family, a December 2006 survey by the Ukrajins’ke Demokratychne Kolo [Ukrainian Democratic Circle] and the Ukrainian Sociology Service (with 5,000 respondents representative of Ukraine’s adult population from all regions) found that 38% of the population reported using only Ukrainian, 30% only Russian, and 31% reported using both, depending on the situation (Medvedev, 2007: 72). These statistics portray a balance between Russian and Ukrainian, but a closer look reveals ethnolinguistic inequality. Ethnic Ukrainians are 2.7 times as likely as ethnic Russians to practice bilingualism at home. If we compare people by their native language, those identifying Ukrainian as a native language are twice as likely to use both languages at home as those identifying Russian. Ethnic Russians and people listing Russian as their native language are significantly more monolingual than Ukrainians or those choosing Ukrainian as their native language (ibid.). Similar to the category ‘native language’, self-reported language knowledge is also subject to people’s ideological inclinations, but it tends to be less idealized and can give us a better sense of actual and potential societal bilingualism. In a November 2006 survey by the Research and Branding Group (with 2,215 respondents representative of Ukraine’s population from all regions), when asked to assess their language skills, 86% of respondents reported fluent or satisfactory skill in Ukrainian and 92% fluent or satisfactory skill in Russian (Medvedev, 2007: 73, see Table 1). A larger portion of the population claimed greater skill in Russian language compared to Ukrainian, but overall there was a high degree of potential for bilingualism. If we consider the recent attention to purity and correctness and the stigma of dialect or ‘impure language’ that have led to much linguistic insecurity (Bilaniuk, 2005, 2007b; Taranenko 2003: 49), it is likely that those who reported ‘poor’ skills or who had difficulty answering may well be able to communicate to some extent in the given language, at least passively (able to understand but not speak). In that case, it may be that 97% of the population can communicate in everyday life in Ukrainian, and 99% in Russian, and thus we could say that Table 1 Self-reported language skills Language

Fluent

Satisfactory

Poor

None

Difficult to answer

Ukrainian

57

29

11

3




Russian

68

24

5

1

2

Percentage of total sample representative of the population of Ukraine (n 2,215), as documented in a 2006 survey conducted by the Research & Branding Group. Medvedev lists the source of the survey as ‘Researching Branding Group’, (in English in a Ukrainian-language document), which appears to be an erroneous rendition of ‘Research & Branding Group’ (Medvedev, 2007: 73).

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almost everyone in Ukraine is bilingual to some degree. We must, however, consider the reverse possibility, that people may be over-reporting their language knowledge, particularly of Ukrainian, in accordance with a previously common ideology that Ukrainian differs little from Russian and does not require much effort to know it. As Haugen (1972) pointed out, claiming to understand a language (or not) has political implications and is not a neutral, objectively assessable measure. Survey data about language knowledge and language use are necessarily reductive and limited in depicting actual practices, particularly in a country like Ukraine, where the social values of different ways of speaking have been shifting and highly contested since independence. Many people switch from Russian to Ukrainian and vice versa depending on the communicative situation and audience. Bilingualism is itself a controversial concept, as many Ukrainians feel that the Soviet promotion of ‘bilingualism’ was really a euphemism for transition of non-Russians to Russian usage, while Russians adhered to their ‘own’ language without bothering to learn others (Taranenko, 2003: 47). This Soviet trend leads many people to be suspicious of bilingualism now as well.

History of Language Policy and Education in Ukraine Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism is rooted in a turbulent history. For centuries, the current territory of Ukraine was divided between different empires. Most historians trace Ukraine’s beginnings to Kyivan-Rus’, the principality which existed from the 9th to the mid-thirteenth centuries, centered on what is now Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine (Reid, 1997; Subtelny, 1988). The place of Kyivan
Rus’ is contested among those who try to claim it in terms of contemporary political units. Some historians argue that KyivanRus’ belongs uniquely to Ukrainian history, and others insist that it is also the cradle of Russia and Belarus (Wilson, 2004). This dispute reflects contemporary disputes over whether Ukraine should be independent or politically tied to Russia (e.g. see Solzhenitsyn, 1991, for the latter view). In the centuries that followed the downfall of Kyivan-Rus’ and until the twentieth century, the territories that later comprised modern Ukraine were divided under various political regimes. A few of these are portrayed in the national mythology (including national historiography) of Ukraine as continuations of the political entity begun with Kyivan-Rus’ and leading up to Ukraine’s independence in 1991. These include Galycia-Volhynia in the western regions (which endured for a century after the fall of Kyivan-Rus’), the Cossacks in central-eastern Ukraine (first appearing in the late fifteenth century, and achieving significant political organization in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), and the Ukrainian National Republic (centered in Kyiv, 1918
1920) (Reid, 1997; Subtelny, 1988). Aside from these polities, Ukrainian territories were largely under the rule of non-Ukrainian ethnolinguistic regimes, although the issue of what was or was not ‘Ukrainian’ (or belonging to any other modern national unit such as ‘Russia’, ‘Poland’, or ‘Lithuania’) is murky in the era preceding the emergence of modern nationalism in Europe. In Ukraine as elsewhere, the standardization of a Ukrainian language went

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hand in hand with the spread of an ideology of nation (Anderson, 1991). The modern concept of Ukrainian national identity gained strength in the nineteenth century, galvanized in particular by the literary works of Taras Shevchenko (Seton-Watson, 1977: 185
191). The conditions for language development were strikingly different in the eastern and western regions of Ukraine, and this is reflected in contemporary language practices. From the mid-seventeeth through the nineteenth centuries, the western regions of Ukraine belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (under Polish administration), then to the Austrian and AustroHungarian Empire in the late 18th to early twentieth centuries. Between the two World Wars, Western Ukraine was mostly under Polish rule, with some parts under Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Ukrainian was able to develop relatively freely in western Ukraine, although it faced some restrictions and had low prestige compared to the languages of the dominating regimes. The Austrian government in particular supported the development of the nationalities populating its empire and their languages. Meanwhile, the eastern regions were governed by the Russian Empire since the mid-seventeenth century, after the Ukrainian Cossacks agreed to accept the Russian Tsar as overlord. The Russian Tsars introduced policies limiting and prohibiting the use of the Ukrainian language (which was called ‘Little Russian’ and was not recognized as an independent language, only as a regional dialect) (Hrycak, 2006; Ivanyts’ka, 2002; Kubajchuk, 2004; Masenko, 2004). Accordingly, there were significant developments in Ukrainian-language education in western Ukraine, while in the east education was restricted to the Russian language (see Table 2). After the Russian Revolution of 1917 overthrew tsarist rule, Ukrainians previously within the Russian empire asserted their political independence by establishing their own governments from 1918 to 1920. At the same time, in 1918
1919, there was a short-lived attempt at independent government in western Ukraine as well. After WWI, the central and eastern regions were incorporated into the new Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic.2 Early Soviet policies supported Ukrainian language and culture to some extent as part of a policy of ‘indigenization’ (meant to mobilize local support by counteracting oppressive tsarist policies), but by the 1930s there was a harsh reversal of this support. Stalin’s rule initiated a policy of ‘russification’ that continued throughout the Soviet period, seriously hampering the development of Ukrainian language (Belikov & Krysin, 2001; Masenko, 2004; Pavlenko, 2006; Smith, 1998; Wilson, 2002). In the 1930s, Ukrainian cultural leaders were purged, and words were purged from Ukrainian dictionaries in an effort to bring Ukrainian closer to Russian (Bilaniuk, 2005: 79
89; Masenko, 2005; Pachlovska, 1998: 119
121). Ukrainian language was gradually forced out from scientific fields. In 1938, the study of Russian became obligatory for all pupils starting in second grade. The number of Ukrainian schools was drastically cut and a large number of Ukrainian books were eliminated from libraries (Masenko, 2004: 33
34; Subtelny, 1988: 422). The educational reform of 1958 offered parents the choice of language of instruction for their children, and given the reality of Soviet russification and the more prestigious status of the Russian language, this led to the decline of

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Table 2 Comparison of language policies in the Russian Empire and the AustroHungarian Empire and their reflection in education (based on Kubajchuk, 2004; Subtelny, 1988) Ukrainian areas within Austria-Hungary Ukrainian areas within Russian Empire 1784: Lviv University was founded; 1787: the Ukrainian language obtained the status of regional language in Galicia; Studium Ruthenum (Rus’kyj instytut)* was established in Lviv University

1786: Russian became the only language of instruction of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, the oldest university in Ukraine (originally established in 1632)

1792: according to the Kaiser’s order, pupils in Galicia (western Ukraine) should be taught in their native language at least two days per week

1804: according to the order of the Ministry of Education all pupils and teachers in Ukraine should use only the Russian language

1848: the department of Ukrainian language and literature was founded in Lviv University; according to the order of the Ministry of Public Education of Austria, studying Ukrainian became required in all gymnasiums in eastern Galicia

1863: Valuev circular stating that the Ukrainian language ‘never existed, does not exist and shall never exist’ (see Subtelny, 1988: 282); publication of all Ukrainian-language books prohibited except for belles-lettres

1875: Chernivtsi University founded, with 1876: Ems Ukaz prohibiting use of Department of Ukrainian language Ukrainian in public life *‘Ruthenian’ and ‘rus’kyj’ were both used to designate the language that later came to be called Ukrainian.

Ukrainian-language schooling. Thus, in 1987 more than half of Ukrainian pupils were taught in schools with Russian language instruction. In Kyiv, for example, only 70,000 out of 300,000 schoolchildren (23%) were taught in Ukrainian (Masenko, 2004: 50, 70). In western Ukraine, the relatively more tolerant policies of the Polish, Austrian, and Austro-Hungarian governments had allowed Ukrainians to maintain their language and to develop a strong sense of nationalism. This region was annexed to the rest of Ukraine within the USSR only after World War II. As Russian did not have a significant historical presence in the region, western Ukraine experienced the policies of russification for only four decades. After the fall of Soviet power, laws supporting use of Ukrainian in education and public life were very quickly implemented in western Ukraine.

Current Language Policies Some of the first concrete steps in the dissolution of Soviet power were the language laws passed by each Soviet republic, each declaring their own titular language as the official language of their republic. Ukraine established Ukrainian as its sole official language in 1989, and soon afterwards, in 1991, the country declared its independence from the USSR. Despite continued

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disagreements over language laws, Ukrainian has remained the sole official state language in the years since. This status has been reaffirmed in Ukraine’s 1996 Constitution (http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publish/article?art_ id  235436&cat_id  32672; for further analysis of language legislation in Ukraine’s constitutions of the twentieth century, see Pradid, 2002). This policy aims to strengthen official monolingualism and support Ukrainian, the language of the titular nation. The Ukrainian situation is one where the titular language was effectively minoritized, and thus endangered under the Soviet regime. The choice of single rather than dual language policy can be understood as a strategy of resistance to the high degree of russification (Pavlenko, 2006). The Ukrainian Constitution is somewhat contradictory or vague on issues of language use, especially in education. Article 10 states that Ukrainian is the state language: ‘The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine’, but also that the ‘free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed’ (see http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publish/article?art_ id  235436&cat_id  32672). Note the privileged status of Russian compared to other minority languages, as it is the only minority language named. While most agree that people are free to speak as they like on their own, there is disagreement as to whether this right extends to interactions with public officials, and whether or not the state should have a say in the language of public media or other public spheres. This disagreement is extensively discussed in the media, in articles, blogs, and letters to the editor (e.g. Falagashvili, 2007; Khineyko, 2007; Myshlovs’ka, 2007). The Constitution clearly supports Ukrainian education, but it also states in Article 53 that ‘Citizens who belong to national minorities are guaranteed [. . .] the right to receive instruction in their native language, or to study their native language in state and communal educational establishments and through national cultural societies’ (see http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publish /article?art_id 235436&cat_id 32672). This reaffirms the policy established earlier in Article 6 of the 1992 Law of Ukraine on National Minorities. Minority language education is also supported by the Framework Convention for the protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe, ratified by Ukraine in 1997, and by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, signed by the state in 1996 and ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament in 1999. It is ironic that a charter designed to protect languages threatened with extinction is being used by pro-Russian-language political groups in Ukraine to protect what many people consider the former imperial colonizer’s language (Varfolomeyev, 2006). The implications of the ratification of the charter are still unclear, as the conditions for implementation remain contested (Csernicsko´ & Melnyk, 2007: 16
18). For example, there is disagreement over whether ethnic or native language identification is to be used in counting minorities, as this affects justification of state support for instruction in languages other than Ukrainian. In 2006, six regional and city councils in eastern and southern Ukraine challenged the legal status of Ukrainian as the only official government

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language. Based on their interpretations of the charter, the regional councils of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the city councils of Kharkiv, Sevastopol, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk voted to give Russian official regional status. A regional court ruled that this was illegal as it violated the Constitution, and this decision was upheld by the Ministry of Justice (Kyiv Post, 2006). Nevertheless, in February 2007 an appeals court overturned that decision in Donetsk, upholding the status of Russian as a regional language there (RIA Novosti, 2007). The struggle over the regional legal status of languages is likely to continue. The central Ukrainian government’s reluctance to give Russian official status should also be considered in comparison to the language policies of Russia. In 1996 (the same year that Ukraine affirmed Ukrainian as the sole state language in its Constitution), the Russian Federation approved a program for Russian language development that includes the following statement: In connection with the development of processes of international and intergovernmental integration it is now necessary to guarantee at the state level the support for Russian language as a powerful social force for the consolidation of the countries of the CIS, as a stimulus [ . . .] for the realization of the geopolitical interests of Russia. The program foresees the strengthening of the positions of the Russian language in Russia, in the countries of the CIS, and beyond their borders. (Translated by the authors from the Ukrainian quote in Taranenko, 2003: 46
47) Furthermore, the Russian government has officially protested against regional Ukrainian language policies, from street name changes in Lviv to the affirmation of Ukrainian as a sole state language in the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Fournier, 2002: 422
423; Taranenko, 2003: 45). Such attempted involvement of the Russian Federation government in Ukrainian language issues serves as a reminder of the symbolic and practical power of language in the construction of political independence or dependence.

Contemporary Educational Practices Implementation of the 1989 and 1996 policies that designated Ukrainian as the sole state language has been patchy. Ukrainian has made great gains in politics, public life, and the media, but Russian continues to have a strong (and in some cases dominant) presence in these spheres, as we examine further on. Some of the most significant practical changes in favor of Ukrainian were in government and education. In government, the predominant use of Ukrainian in public appearances by the highest officials of the central government has had great symbolic significance in promoting a higher status for the language. Official central government proceedings, reports, laws, and paperwork are all in Ukrainian. Russian is still used in some regional governments (particularly in eastern Ukraine), hence the legal efforts to institute Russian as a local official language. In education, the use of Ukrainian as the main language of instruction has increased dramatically since independence. In 1991, the year that Ukraine

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declared independence, 45% of schools had Ukrainian as the language of instruction, while 54% had Russian (Malinkovich, 2005). In 2005, the proportion of schoolchildren instructed in Ukrainian increased to 78%, with 21% instructed in Russian. The remaining 1% of students was taught in other languages, including Romanian, Hungarian, Crimean Tatar, Moldavian, and Polish (see Tables 3 and 4). The increase in Ukrainian-language schooling can also be seen by comparing the percentages of schoolchildren instructed in each language during the last ten years. It is clear from Table 3 that Russian-language instruction is almost absent in the western oblasts, where the percentage of pupils who are taught in Russian comprises less than 1% of the total. In regions where the percentage of ethnic Russians is highest, such as Crimea (58%), Donetsk (38.2%), and Luhansk (39%) (http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua), the percentage of pupils instructed in Ukrainian during the last decade has grown relatively little. Russian language schools are still the clear majority and Ukrainian language instruction is particularly hard to encounter in the cities of these eastern regions. In the city of Luhansk, for example, there was only one Ukrainian-language school in the 2005
2006 school year. In September 2007, two more Ukrainian-language schools opened, but they were located in remote marginal areas of the city. Meanwhile, Russia helped fund the building of a new Russian-language high school in Luhansk, notwithstanding that this went against Ukrainian law (Hrebeniuk, 2007). The law stipulates that new schools should have Ukrainian-language instruction, in order to promote the growth of Ukrainian language schooling. While in the 2005
2006 academic year, 89.6% of schools had a single language of instruction for all their classes, 10.4% of schools included classes conducted in two or three different languages (see Table 4). This does not mean that instruction was bilingual, rather, within given schools there were different classes each conducted in a single language. Russian was the most frequent language of instruction (aside from the state language), which corresponds to the ethnodemographic profile of the society as well as the sociolinguistic landscape. Usually children remain with their class group throughout their years at a given school; the ‘multilingual’ schools include tracks in more than one language, but children do not receive instruction in more than one language within their group. The possibility of combining class groups in different languages allows schools to gradually introduce the option of Ukrainian schooling in areas where it has not been available. It also facilitates the provision of minority language education in areas where there might not be sufficient demand for entire schools in that language. Crimea’s unique situation as an autonomous republic within Ukraine requires separate discussion. Crimea’s Constitution, ratified by the central Ukrainian government, reflects the tensions around the language issue. It refers to a single state language (derzhavna mova) that is implicitly Ukrainian, but the document avoids stating explicitly that the state language is Ukrainian (http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg 350-14). For example, Article 4 of the Constitution specifies that the laws of the Crimean Parliament are to be published ‘in the state language, as well as in Russian and Crimean Tatar’ (here and further on, translation from Ukrainian by the

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Table 3 Percentage of schoolchildren in elementary and secondary education schools (zahalnoosvitni navcˇalni zaklady) in Ukraine, by main language of instruction (Ukrainian or Russian), in the 1995
1996, 2000
2001, and 2005
2006 academic years (Ministry of Statistics of Ukraine, 2006) 1995/1996

Ukraine (all regions)

2000/2001

2005/2006

Ukr

Rus

Ukr

Rus

Ukr

Rus

58

41

70

29

78

21

South-East Oblasts & Auton. Republic: Crimea

0.1

99.5

0.9

97

5

93


Sevastopol city

0

99.98

2

98

2

98

Donetsk

6

94

14

86

29

71

Luhansk

9

91

17

83

34

66

Dnipropetrovsk

46

54

68

32

78

22

Zaporizhia

31

69

45

55

60

40

Kharkiv

37

63

55

45

71

29

Mykolaiv

56

44

74

26

87

13

Odesa

32

66

47

51

65

33

Kherson

60

40

76

24

83

17

Vinnytsia

91

9

98

2

99

1

Kyiv

92

8

97

3

99

1


Kyiv city

70

30

93

7

96

4

Kirovohrad

75

25

89

11

96

4

Poltava

83

17

93

7

97

3

Cherkasy

86

14

96

4

98

2

Chernihiv

81

19

94

6

99

1

Sumy

63

37

83

17

93

7

Zhytomyr

86

14

96

4

99

1

Volyn

98

2

99

1

99.7

0.3

Rivne

99

1

99.7

0.3

99.9

0.1

Khmelnytskyi

92

8

98

2

99.3

0.4

Ternopil

99

1

99.7

0.3

99.8

0.2

Lviv

96

4

98

2

99

1

Central Oblasts:

Western Oblasts:

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

80 Table 3 (Continued)

1995/1996

2000/2001

Ukr

Rus

Ukr

Ivano-Frankivsk

98

2

Chernivtsi

78

Zakarpattia

84

2005/2006

Rus

Ukr

Rus

99

1

99.7

0.2

5

81

2

81

0.7

4

86

2

86

1

authors). Article 10, clause 1, similarly states that ‘alongside the state language, the functioning, development, use, and protection of Russian, Crimean Tatar, and other minority languages are guaranteed’. The second clause of Article 10 then clearly prioritizes Russian, stating that ‘Russian, as the language of the majority of the population and the acceptable language for international communication, is used in all spheres of social life’. The third and final clause of Article 10, on education, does not mention any language by name, stating simply that education in one’s native language is guaranteed at all levels, leaving ‘native language’ open to interpretation. Russian is traditionally dominant in Crimea, and according to sociological surveys more than 76% of the population considers Russian to be their native language (Pylypenko, 2004). Thus the Crimean Constitution, in contrast to the Constitution of Ukraine, does not specifically support Ukrainian language education, although it does not rule it out either. Other sections of the Crimean Constitution present the language issue differently from Articles 4 and 10, by prioritizing Ukrainian language by name and specifying different degrees of priority for Russian and Crimean Tatar. Article 11 specifies that the language of official identity documents is Ukrainian and Russian, and Crimean Tatar upon request, while Article 12 decrees that the language of the justice system is Ukrainian, and Russian upon request. Article 13 legislates that communication services and communal services are conducted in Ukrainian and Russian, or another language acceptable to both parties. In sum, the Crimean Constitution does not have a consistent approach to language legislation, as it alternates between specifying different levels of priority to Ukrainian, Russian, and Crimean Tatar. It sometimes avoids naming languages altogether, using the constructions ‘state language’ and ‘native language’ instead. In the 1990s, there was little development of education in languages other than Russian in Crimea. It was not until 1997 that the first Ukrainian-language school was opened on the peninsula, while there were 586 Russian-language schools at that time. In 2000, there were still only three Ukrainian-language schools. By the 2005
2006 school year, Russian-language instruction still dominated, but some more notable changes had been made: of a total of 571 schools, 359 had instruction in Russian, 14 in Crimean Tatar, 7 in Ukrainian, and 191 were bilingual or trilingual (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2001, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2006a).

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Table 4 Number of elementary and secondary schools and pupils according to language of instruction in the 2005
2006 academic year (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2006b) Language of instruction

No. of schools

(%)

No. of pupils

(%)

Ukrainian

16,924

82.159

3,603,643

69.215

1,345

6.529

525,260

10.089

Romanian

94

0.456

22,365

0.430

Hungarian

70

0.340

14,823

0.285

Crimean Tatar

14

0.068

3,472

0.067

Moldavian

8

0.039

3,127

0.060

Polish

4

0.019

943

0.018

2,032

9.865

995,325

19.117

Ukrainian and Hungarian

29

0.141

8,846

0.170

Ukrainian and Romanian

8

0.039

3,093

0.059

Ukrainian and Moldovan

5

0.024

1,967

0.038

Ukrainian and Polish

2

0.010

984

0.019

Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar

1

0.005

603

0.012

Ukrainian and Bulgarian

2

0.010

560

0.011

Ukrainian and Slovak

1

0.005

125

0.002

33

0.160

9,646

0.185

2

0.010

835

0.016

21

0.102

8,734

0.168

Ukrainian, Russian and Romanian

2

0.010

1,312

0.025

Ukrainian, Russian and Moldovan

2

0.010

778

0.025

Russian

Ukrainian and Russian

Russian and Crimean Tatar Russian and Moldovan Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean Tatar

Total

20,601

100

5,207,213

100

The minor advances in education in languages other than Russian have been controversial in Crimea. In Simferopol, the capital city of Crimea, proRussian protesters demanded the closure of the only Ukrainian-language high school in the city, citing it as a threat to the Russian culture of the region. In addition, funds allocated by the central Ukrainian government to open the first Ukrainian-language school on the Crimean coast were diverted to renovate Russian-language schools (Prytula, 2007). The Crimean Tatar community has protested the exclusion of Crimean Tatars from education planning, and has accused the Crimean government of sabotaging efforts to develop Crimean

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Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Tatar language education. In addition, education in Crimean Tatar carries negative stereotypes and is seen as unprestigious by some parents (Prytula, 2006). Consequently, 89% of Crimean Tatar children study in schools with Russian as the language of instruction and only 11% study in their native language (Dan’ko & Avramenko, 2007). Ukrainian as a state language is included as a subject in the curricula of all schools where languages other than Ukrainian are the languages of instruction. Many parents recognize the value of knowing Ukrainian, even in regions where Russian-language instruction is prevalent. Some russophone parents choose to send their children to schools that offer more extensive study of Ukrainian as a subject, beyond the basic teaching of the state language offered in all schools (Hrebeniuk, 2007). However, the availability of good teaching of Ukrainian is limited by poor funding. In many cases, children cannot obtain a good command of Ukrainian because the state does not provide for appropriate teacher training, curriculum, or textbooks (Beregsza´szi & Csernicsko´, 2004; Csernicsko´ & Melnyk, 2007; Karmacsi, 2003; Orosz & Csernicsko´, 1999; Po´ha´n, 1999, 2003). There are insufficient numbers of well-trained bilingual teachers to provide good instruction in the subject of Ukrainian as a second language (for more details, see Beregsza´szi & Csernicsko´, 2004, 2005). Teachers often use inappropriate methodological frameworks, teaching Ukrainian as a native language and not as a second language to pupils who do not speak Ukrainian at home. In contrast, some case studies show that acquisition of Ukrainian as a second language improves when a minority language is used as the language of instruction (Beregsza´szi & Csernicsko´, 2005). Besides Ukrainian, other languages are optional and available as electives. In the 2005
2006 school year, Russian was the most commonly taught minority language, with 1,443,792 pupils (27.7% of all pupils) studying it as a subject in schools. Ukrainian was the second most common, with 1,135,290 pupils (21.8% of all pupils; this does not include pupils studying in Ukrainian-language schools). The next most commonly taught languages were Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Polish, and Moldovan, each with less than half a percent of pupils (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2006b; see Table 5). The information summarized in Table 5 was provided by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in a letter regarding the educational needs of ethnic minorities. As such, it includes the languages of ethnic groups in Ukraine and, for some reason, Latin. The inclusion of Latin brings up the question of the exclusion of data for the teaching of English and other Western European languages. The extent of study of English in particular could be a political sore point, as English is in a position to replace Russian as the language of international communication. The data provided perpetuate the idea of different attitudes towards Western ‘foreign’ languages versus those that may be considered ‘not foreign’, based on their history within the Soviet bloc.

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Table 5 Pupils studying languages as subjects in Ukraine, excluding most ‘foreign languages’ (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2006b) Language studied

No. of pupils

Russian

1,443,792

Ukrainian

1,135,290

Crimean Tatar

23,268

Bulgarian

9,816

Polish

4,624

Hebrew

1,816

Moldovan

1,546

Hungarian

1,145

Gagauz

1,022

Latin

804

Romanian

236

Slovak

179

Greek

141

German

107

Turkish

64

Total pupils studying languages as subjects

2,623,850

Total pupils in Ukraine

5,207,213

Language in Practice: Deconstructing the Categories The statistical data provide a general picture of the situation of Ukrainian and Russian in the educational domain, but they necessarily rely on identity and language labels that subsume a great deal of complexity. A closer look at this complexity and the dynamics of languages in micro-sociolinguistic contexts gives a better sense of the forces that shape language use, and the social and political impact of language use. Ukrainian and Russian refer to standardized languages, and in practice, there are many regional and social varieties of these two languages, some of which mix features of the two standards (often referred to as surzhyk). Likewise, while the cultural identity labels ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘Russian’ refer to idealized constructs, many people combine elements of the two ethnic-cultural identities in their experiences. The ideological salience of the distinct labels and categories  ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘Russian’  is maintained through continuous discursive and institutional efforts (as is the case for identity and language categories anywhere).

84

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Some scholars have added to the basic categories, for example defining ‘russophone Ukrainians’ as a common demographic, designating those who are Ukrainian by heritage but who prefer to speak Russian. Riabchuk (1999) argues that a form of ‘Creole nationalism’ dominates among this group, and that a typical russophone Ukrainian ‘in political terms . . . is quite ‘‘Ukrainian’’, i.e. quite supportive of state independence, territorial integrity and many historical myths and symbols shared with Ukrainophones. In cultural and linguistic terms, however, such a person is rather ‘‘Russian’’ in nature, i.e. unsympathetic to Ukrainophones . . . and is thoroughly biased against the Ukrainian language and culture’ (Riabchuk, 1999).3 Hrycak (2006) proposes a different view of russophone Ukrainians, explaining the use of Russian by ethnic Ukrainians as a pragmatic outcome of Soviet institutional expectations that is devoid of positive or negative cultural allegiances. According to Hrycak (2006), most russophone Ukrainians have nothing against Ukrainian language in their children’s education. The existence of these contradictory accounts points to the need for further study of actual attitudes and practices, such as language choice and code-switching in a variety of contexts. The spread of the practice of ‘non-accommodating bilingualism’, has helped defuse tensions around language (Bilaniuk, 2005, 2007a). In this mode of interaction, each speaker uses their preferred language (Ukrainian or Russian) regardless of the language others are speaking. This allows for freedom in language choice, but it also serves to reinforce an essentialist view of identity by establishing the expectation that people should speak only ‘their own’ language. In fieldwork in 2002, Bilaniuk found that where non-accommodating bilingualism is the norm, such as on the streets of downtown Kyiv, codeswitching for accommodation might elicit surprise and an insistence that switching is not needed. The idea that people should not switch in order to accommodate rests partly on the belief that people should not be ashamed of who they are and as such should not feel pressured to speak something other than their first language. The expectation that people should not accommodate is also a rejection of ‘imperfect’ or mixed language, reinforcing the ideological and practical boundaries between Ukrainian and Russian. At the same time, the practice also rests on assumptions of bilingualism, i.e. that everyone has (at least) receptive competence in the other’s language. The practice of non-accommodating bilingualism, which has become widespread in recent years, may mediate linguistic tensions by allowing people to feel comfortable choosing either language in public encounters. In the media, this practice also reinforces the interchangeability of Russian and Ukrainian, diminishing their political and cultural significance (Kulyk, 2006). Non-accommodating bilingualism has been institutionalized in television programs such as game shows that have two hosts: one host always speaks Ukrainian, the other Russian, and guests on the shows can choose either language (e.g. Khoroshou, Kokhannia z Pershoho Pohliadu, Loto-Zabava, Medovyi Misiats’, Pidjom). This practice also exists on many internet discussion forums (e.g. see the forums of Kyiv State University, http:// forum.ukrweb.net/, Zhytomyr State Technical University, http://forum.ztu. edu.ua/index.php, and music groups Okean El’zy, http://gb.okeanelzy.com/ index.php, and TNMK, http://www.tnmk.com/forum/index.php), where

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85

message writers answer each other in either Ukrainian or Russian, without necessarily accommodating or making an issue of language. On one level, nonaccommodating bilingualism eases linguistic tensions, but on another level, the politics of language choice are still being played out. Non-accommodation appears to be most common in public contexts where people who do not know each other are interacting. In other contexts where there is a more stable social group, such as workplaces and schools, there are usually still pressures to accommodate to a linguistic status quo. However, non-accommodating bilingualism has allowed for more choice. It is a paradigm that can be exported to other contexts, and hence facilitate potential change in trends in language use.

Language Use in Formal and Informal Contexts While there is greater freedom in public encounters, in many contexts there is pressure to adhere to a particular language. In Kyiv, the country’s capital, Ukrainian is the language of written official communications, public political communications, and formal interactions in institutions such as schools, courts, and the media; meanwhile Russian is the predominant language of informal written and spoken exchanges, and of economic power (Zazulya, 2003: 138). While the language of the public political sphere is increasingly Ukrainian, the language of business remains predominantly Russian. Ukrainian functions as the language of instruction used during lessons and in official meetings in most Ukrainian schools. However, in most urban schools in central and eastern Ukraine, Russian is the dominant language outside of formal classroom interactions. Schoolchildren generally shift to Russian during breaks and unofficial events. In many cases, principals and teachers do not encourage the pupils to use Ukrainian, try not to pay attention to the language shift, and respond to pupils in Russian as well. Ukrainophone parents in Kyiv have reported that their children feel uncomfortable speaking Ukrainian in school for fear of being ostracized (Bilaniuk, 2005: 47
48, 63
64). Children who withstand the pressures of linguistic conformism and use Ukrainian in such russophone language environments are rare. In this context, according to Masenko (2004), Russian can be defined as a language of accommodation (prystosuvannia) while Ukrainian is a language of opposition (protystoyannia). Meanwhile, the prevalence of Russian in informal contexts does not allay the concerns of those russophone parents whose children are taught in Ukrainian and receive little or no formal education in Russian, and as a result, cannot write correctly in Russian. The situation is similar in institutions of higher education, where Ukrainian is generally the language of instruction and Russian is the language of informal communication, although older students may be better able to withstand the pressures of conformism. According to Zalizniak and Masenko (2001), students who use Ukrainian express a strong desire to be identified as Ukrainian, and are consciously rebelling against Russian-language dominance. Consistent with the laws for elementary and secondary education, higher education should be in the state language, Ukrainian, but it may also be

86

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

in other languages in regions with concentrations of minority ethnic populations. In Crimea and in the eastern Donbas region, all higher educational institutions now use Russian as a language of instruction. Elsewhere in eastern and central Ukraine, language use varies by institution. In December 2005, Serhiy Melnychuk, a student of Dal East Ukrainian National University (Skhidnoukrains’kyi Natsional’nyi Universytet imeni Dal’a), set a precedent by filing a suit in the court system that his language rights were violated since the language of instruction in the university was Russian. In November 2006, the court upheld his petition and bound the university to teach him in Ukrainian. Such steps in support of Ukrainian help institutionalize the language, but they do little to affect the dominant status of Russian in informal student life. One can get a sense of the prevalence of a particular language among students from the Internet discussion forums now provided by some universities. In universities in Zhytomyr (central-western Ukraine) and Kharkiv (northeastern Ukraine), for example, the dominant language of discussion is Russian although some Ukrainian is also present (http://forum.ztu.edu.ua/, http:// forum.univer.kharkov.ua/). Zazulya (2003) has found that the pressure to accommodate to the Russianlanguage status quo is very strong in workplaces for adult Ukrainophone newcomers to Kyiv as well. While non-accommodating bilingualism may be prevalent in chance public interactions, Russian language tends to dominate in urban workplaces.4 For many people, Ukrainian has retained its connotations of provincialism and rurality, and the fact that rural migrants to Kyiv are generally Ukrainophones reinforces this stereotype, as it has in the past (Zazulya, 2003: 150). Demeaning remarks about the value of Ukrainian can still be heard, as the reported comment of parliamentary deputy Natalia Vitrenko that Ukrainian is ‘a language of cattle’ (Maidan-Inform Internet News, 2006). For most migrants to the city, urbanization and integration into a more prestigious urban community entail learning and using standard Russian, leaving behind provincial Ukrainian. While newcomers to Kyiv face the pressure to learn Russian to urbanize and raise their social status, Kyivan russophones at the same time face censure that their Russian language is provincial (vis-a`-vis Moscow and the rest of Russia). They feel the need to learn standard Ukrainian to reinforce the legitimacy of their independent Ukrainian national identity. These opposing forces, those leading Ukrainian migrants to russify and leading Kyivan russophones to learn Ukrainian, coexist, separated by class differences (Zazulya, 2003: 150). Urban youth are increasingly recognizing the importance of knowing both languages for their future career options, and the attitude that Ukrainian is second-rate has become far less common than it used to be. In a 2005 survey of 214 students in Kyiv,5 Melnyk (2005) found the following explanations for why students prefer to speak Russian: 3% considered Russian more prestigious, 3% said they did not like Ukrainian, 12% claimed poor skills in Ukrainian, and 82% explained that they were just used to speaking Russian. These findings showed that for most students the use of Russian was a matter of inertia and habit rather than due to avoidance of Ukrainian. We should keep in mind,

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87

however, that ‘inertia’ and ‘habit’ are part of ‘habitus’, the dispositions instilled in each individual through their upbringing and all aspects of daily life, which lead them to accept certain practices as ‘natural’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 50
51). Inertia and habit, while seeming ‘neutral’ reasons, are also shaped by the social pressures that define the prestige and connotations of particular languages.

The Impact of Popular Culture While much linguistic practice proceeds according to habitualized patterns, an arena that has been very influential in changing the attitudes and practices of young people in particular is popular culture, especially in the form of music-concerts, televised music videos, radio, internet, and print media. The boom in Ukrainian-language rock, pop, hip-hop, folk-rock, and other innovative contemporary music styles after Ukrainian independence showed that Ukrainian language and culture could be hip and desirable, undermining the idea of Ukrainian as provincial. A series of biannual music events, the Chervona Ruta festival, debuted in 1989 just before Ukraine’s independence, providing support for many new Ukrainian-language music groups. The Ukrainian-language music scene is now vibrant and diverse, although Russian-language music, particularly mainstream pop, still dominates radio airtime (Klid, 2007: 128). Many music groups are making Ukrainian traditional culture and language more contemporary by creating innovative hybrids of traditional and new music, imagery, and costume. For example, Tanok na Majdani Kongo (TNMK) blends Ukrainian traditional folk elements with hip-hop in some of their songs, as in their hit ‘PoRAPalosia sertse’. The repertoire of folk-rock group Mandry updates traditional central Ukrainian folk music with rock elements. Ruslana, the Eurovision winner in 2004, weaves together rock with western Ukrainian folk music and costume in her recording, concert performances, and videos. These are just a few examples of a widespread trend. Popular cultural figures have also mounted direct campaigns to improve attitudes towards things Ukrainian and to increase usage of Ukrainian language. Some of these efforts emerged from the politicization of the music scene during the Orange Revolution of 2004, in which popular musicians played a major role in the political conflict (Klid, 2007). A prominent example is the ‘Country of Dreams’ (Kraı¨na Mrij), an annual ethnic music festival organized since 2004 in Kyiv by popular Ukrainian rock singer and front man of Vopli Vidopliasova (VV) Oleh Skrypka. The festival encourages innovative projects blending traditional folk culture with new styles to help promote Ukrainian culture. For example, the collaboration between the alternative/ rock/hip-hop group Tartak and traditional folk group Huliajhorod in 2005 resulted in an energizing blend of heavy rock, soulful traditional folk singing, and manic rap. In the fall of 2005, the front man of Tartak Sashko Polozhynskyi organized a ‘public action’ (hromads’ka aktsija) to support Ukrainian language and culture. The participants traveled in Ukraine, gave concerts in Ukrainian, and distributed fliers with the slogans: ‘Don’t be indifferent’ (ne bud’

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Figure 1 Both sides of a leaflet promoting the civic action ‘Don’t be Indifferent’. In addition to the title of the action and an e-mail address, text on the leaflet reads ‘No to Little Russia! Little Russia means: contempt for Ukrainians, their language, culture, history; people’s loss of faith in their own power; the manipulation of the consciousness of citizens; the lawlessness of each of us; the bribability of politicians and officials for whom all things Ukrainian are foreign. No to Little Russia! Let’s make our country Ukraine!’

bajduzhym), ‘No to Little Russia’ (Ni
Malorosii), and ‘Let’s make our country Ukraine’ (Zrobymo krajinu Ukrajinoju) (see Figure 1). Sasha Sydorenko of the group TNMK reported that the popularity of his group’s music is likely having a positive impact on the use of Ukrainian among young people. For example, he described fan mail from eastern Ukrainian youth written in Ukrainian, with mistakes that led him to believe they were primarily Russian speakers, but they were making the effort to use Ukrainian nonetheless. Sydorenko himself grew up speaking Russian in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, but he came to embrace Ukrainian language and identity, and resented attitudes he had encountered of Russian cultural superiority (interview with Laada Bilaniuk in 2002; see also Bilaniuk, 2005:

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163
165). Similarly, many young people take up Ukrainian not so much because of official policies, but as a form of grass-roots resistance to perceived historical injustices. The presence of Ukrainian language in television and film has also been a topic of debate. Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting, enacted in 1993, stipulates that: ‘TV/radio companies shall broadcast in the state language. Programs beamed to certain regions may be in the language of the numerically prevalent local ethnic minority’.6 As designated in the constitution, the national language is Ukrainian, but leeway in interpretation of the ‘numerical prevalence of an ethnic minority’ has allowed for use of Russian as well. In a report on the language balance in Ukraine, Medvedev (2007) states that the most recent version of the law on television and radio broadcasting specifies that national television channels should broadcast 75% of the time in Ukrainian. Nevertheless, a study of the six main television channels in the first week of November 2006 revealed that Ukrainian language programs constituted 48% of the broadcasting time and Russian ones 52%. Taking into consideration three major channels in Russia that broadcast to much of Ukraine by cable, prime time television was 61% Russian and 39% Ukrainian. It is not clear, however, how programs that include both Ukrainian and Russian were counted. Sometimes tiny, barely legible Ukrainian subtitles on advertisements voiced in Russian could be meant to satisfy legal requirements, without representing Ukrainian in a balanced manner. The recognition of the power of the media in shaping language status and practices led Ukrainian language activists to protest the total dominance of Russian-language dubbing of foreign films. Protesters organized a boycott of Russian-dubbed films in movie theaters and rental kiosks and petitioned to push distributors to provide Ukrainian dubbing (see http://www.pledgebank.com/kino-pereklad). Film distributors protested that dubbing in Ukrainian is financially unsustainable, but eventually agreed to legislation stipulating that ‘the distributing companies are under an obligation to bring the quota of dubbed (soundtrack or subtitled films) foreign production movies to 50% (and to 100% in children’s films) from the total amount of prints for each film title, imported in Ukraine’ (Ukrinform, 2006, 2007a,b). However, as Riabchuk (2007) points out, the poor quality of some of the dubbing of films into Ukrainian on television (with russified lexicon and Russian phonology) may hurt rather than help the development of Ukrainian language. Ukrainian and Russian are often joined by English in commercial labeling and signage, which has drawn ridicule and complaint from some (e.g. Holovanova, 2007; Stusenko, 2006). While signage should be in Ukrainian, brand names and logos may appear in other languages. This often results in complex combinations of languages in public signage, see Figures 2 and 3
both from Kyiv (see also Bilaniuk, 2005: 181
185). In Figure 2, a sign for a cafe´, ’ ‘cafe´’ which is completely bivalent in the largest lettering is the word ‘ Ukrainian and Russian. Above this is the name of the establishment, ’ which is neither a Ukrainian nor a Russian word, but which ‘

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Figure 2 Sign for a cafe´ in Kyiv.

Figure 3 Sign for a communications store in Kyiv.

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can be read equally well in both languages. Below, this name appears again in Roman lettering, ‘BATTERFLY’, which is either an erroneous rendition of ‘butterfly’ or a neologism. On the left side of the sign, below a turbaned droplet, is the word ‘ ’, which is Russian for ‘eastern’ (the ’). ‘Eastern’ modifies the corresponding Ukrainian term would be ‘ word below, ‘VITAMIN’, which appears in English. Below that, the smallest lettering on the sign is in Ukrainian, which explains the nature of the establishment in a more basic manner: ‘ ’ ‘tasty oriental cuisine’ (which is unequivocally Ukrainian, as the corresponding Russian ’ ‘tasty oriental cuisine’ or phrase would read ‘ ’ ‘tasty oriental dishes’). ‘ Another example of the common juxtaposition of languages in signage is on the sign for a communications center (Figure 3). The name of the store ’, is Russian for ‘Euro-net’. This name contains letters common to ‘ Ukrainian and Russian, but the name reads awkwardly in Ukrainian (the corresponding Ukrainian term would be ‘ ’). The words below the name of the establishment translate directly as ‘salon of connections’, with the ’ bivalent in Ukrainian and Russian, and the second word first word ‘ ’ clearly Ukrainian (it would be ‘ ’ in Russian). To the far right of the ‘ ’ in sign, the word ‘ay io’ is also markedly Ukrainian (it would be ‘ ’ Russian). Some other words on the sign are fully bivalent as written: ‘ ’ ‘photo’, and the brand name ‘ ’ ‘Golden Telecom’. ‘credit’, ‘ Other brand names on the sign use Roman letters or English words: ‘GSN DECT’, ‘UMC’, ‘life’. Aside from the UMC company logo, all of the words on other signs visible in the photo, for money-lending, tailoring, and upholstery, are in Ukrainian. While Ukrainian is legally the language of signage, brand names may appear unmodified. Trademarked names and slogans thus allow for the presence of Russian and English, mixed with Ukrainian, in public spaces.

Conclusions At present, Ukrainian and Russian are both widely used in Ukraine. Ukrainian has historically been treated as a provincial, lower-prestige language, but it is now the sole state language of the independent country, and its usage has expanded greatly, especially in politics and official interactions in public institutions, including education. Russian has had higher prestige historically, as the language of power and high culture of the Russian tsarist and then Soviet regimes, and more recently as the language of well-funded media productions (in music, film, television). Russian continues to prevail in many spheres, such as business and informal interaction, especially in eastern Ukraine and urban areas. While one can generalize about the trends in the spheres of use of the two languages, the situation is complicated by language mixing, code-switching, and non-accommodating bilingualism. The complexity in practices is paralleled by complexity in attitudes. For example, many people who speak mostly Russian themselves may be very supportive of the development of Ukrainian, favoring Ukrainian education for their children. At the same time, people from rural areas who speak mostly Ukrainian may still feel that Russian is better and ‘more

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cultured’. Cultural and linguistic allegiances are not necessarily in line with practices, and there are many examples that undermine the common stereotypes (namely that russophones are from eastern Ukraine and want closer ties with Russia, and that Ukrainophones are nationalists from western Ukraine and support closer ties with Europe; for a challenge of these stereotypes, see Goble, 2007; Markedonov, 2007). For many, the choices of which language to speak when, and which language policy to support, are not clear-cut or simple, while others do not pay much attention to the language issue. The polar attitudes that language is not a problem (since most people are bilingual and communicate with one another) and that language is in crisis (because Ukrainian is still disadvantaged vis-a`-vis Russian) coexist in Ukraine. Legislative and institutional changes, especially in the sphere of education, have aimed to lift the status of the titular national language. These efforts have been successful in increasing the knowledge and use of Ukrainian. Some people resent official language prescription, as it can feel like an authoritarian intrusion into freedom of choice in personal identity formation, imposed from above. At the same time, the habitual dominance of Russian has felt oppressive to many people as well, and they have come to question why, as Ukrainians in an independent country, they are not speaking Ukrainian. Factors at many different levels come into play in shaping the evolving linguistic situation in Ukraine, including national ideologies, political leanings, institutional requirements, established habitual practices (which are shaped by class), new popular artistic/musical trends, family traditions, and the personal histories of individuals. As these conflicting forces play out, the balance of bilingualism continues to shift. If the trends of the past decade hold, then we can expect to see continued increases in the quality and availability of Ukrainian-language education, and to a more modest extent in non-Russian minority language education, such as Crimean Tatar and Hungarian. During the past decade, the availability of (once prevalent) Russian-language instruction has decreased, yielding to growth in Ukrainian-language instruction. This trend has slowed, and given the regional politicization of the language issue and percentage of ethnic Russian population, we expect most existing Russian-language-instruction schools to remain as they are for some time, with an increase in the instruction of Ukrainian as a second language. The most promising path towards peaceful social growth is likely the increase in availability and quality of language instruction, including the state, national minority, and international languages. Acknowledgments The authors would like to express their gratitude to the people in Ukraine who participated in interviews and surveys and otherwise facilitated the research presented here. Our deep thanks also go to Aneta Pavlenko, for her inspiration, her insightful comments, and editorial guidance. Research for this article was supported in part through a Fulbright-Hays Research Abroad fellowship, and through a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Department of State, which administers

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the Title VIII Program, and the IREX Scholar Support Fund. Neither of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed herein. Correspondence Correspondence should be directed to Dr. Laada Bilaniuk, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Denny Hall M37, Box 353100, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3100, USA (bilaniuk@ u.washington.edu), and Dr. Svitlana Melnyk, Assistant Professor, Department of Ukrainian Philology, National Taras Sheuchenko University of Kyiv, Sheuchenko Boulevard, 14, Room 121, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01031 (szvitlana@ yahoo.com) Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

During her fieldwork, Bilaniuk did encounter people who argued that there are racial differences between Ukrainians and Russians. The Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, formed by the Bolsheviks, was thus named in January 1919. The Constitution of 1936 switched the order of the second and third words in the name, making it the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Riabchuk (1999) uses ‘Creole nationalism’ as a metaphor to express the mixed Ukrainian-Russian identity of the Ukrainian population. In addition, Masenko (2004) writes about ‘cultural Creolization’ of the russified population. Spoken Russian prevails in many workplaces, but official paperwork in state institutions and in the official dealings of businesses with state institutions is in Ukrainian. Other paperwork of private businesses, such as business contracts, may be in either language, depending on the preferences of the parties involved. The survey polled randomly selected students of the Institute of Philology of the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University. Ukrainian and English excerpts of this legislation are available at: http:// www.minelres.lv/NationalLegislation/Ukraine/ukraine.htm.

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60). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Woolard, K. (1989) Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Woolard, K. (1992) Language ideology: Issues and approaches. Pragmatics 2 (3), 235
249. Woolard, K. and Schieffelin, B. (1994) Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23, 55
82. Woolhiser, C. (2001) Language ideology and language conflict in post-Soviet Belarus. In C. O’Reilly (ed.) Language, Ethnicity, and the State, Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989 (pp. 91
122). New York: Palgrave. Zalizniak, H. and Masenko, L. [ . and ] (2001) [The Language Situation of Kyiv: Today and in the Future]. Zastavnyi, F. [ ] (2003) 2001 p. . [2001 All-Ukrainian Population Census (Results, Analysis, Evaluation)]. Zazulya, O. (2003) ‘Kiev: tensions discursives sur le marche´ des langues. Vers un renversement de dominance? E´tude sociolinguistique des repre´sentations et des attitudes e´pilinguistiques des Kie´viens’. [Kyiv: discursive tensions in the language market. Towards a reversal or dominance? A sociolinguistic study of the representations and epilinguistic attitudes of Kyivites]. Universite´ de Rouen, Masters Thesis supervised by Thierry Bulot.

Uneasy Compromise: Language and Education in Moldova Matthew H. Ciscel Central Connecticut State University, USA This study reports on the uneasy compromise in language and education policies in the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova since its first moves toward independence in 1989. Taking an approach that posits language policies as needing to be anchored in both international norms and the idiosyncrasies of local conditions, the discussion explores the potential for adjustments in the balance of language rights and status between minority language groups (Russian, Ukrainian, and others) and the longoppressed majority language group (Moldovan or Romanian). Following a brief elaboration of the relevant languages and recent policies in the country, three key policy challenges are discussed in greater detail. The first involves political attempts to elevate minority Russian to official status alongside majority Moldovan/ Romanian. Second, the relationship of debates about the state history curriculum to language status further illustrates the challenges to reaching compromises on cultural policy. Finally, confrontation in the breakaway region of Transnistria is discussed to demonstrate the continued vulnerability of even majority language groups in the post-Soviet context. In conclusion, it is argued that, despite the challenges to language diversity and bilingualism in Moldova, there remain opportunities for policy compromise and for greater national and regional stability.

Keywords: language policy, Moldova, bilingualism, national identity

Introduction Despite the similarities across all nations in the central role that standard language education often plays in creating national cohesion and identity, each national context tends to involve a number of idiosyncratic characteristics in how relevant languages contribute to these national projects. For example, in postcolonial nation-states the role of language education is often complicated by competition among local languages and the language(s) of recent colonial domination. Among the new states that emerged from the Soviet Union, the Republic of Moldova has arguably had one of the most complex and peculiar struggles over the roles of competing languages in both education and the national project. The primary source of Moldova’s idiosyncrasy in these matters is a high degree of uncertainty and contention about the identity of the majority language (Romanian or Moldovan), which is, at the same time, in stiff competition for many social functions and roles with postcolonial and minority Russian. Furthermore, exclusionary nationalist movements in both Romania and Russia encourage voices within the Moldovan context that undermine the possibility of an equitable multilingual solution. Given these

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Map Moldova (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/md.html)

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peculiar challenges, the interdependent roles of language and education in the Republic of Moldova have been among the most salient sources of political and ethnic conflict since independence. This paper will summarize and critique recent language and education policy in Moldova, with a particular focus on political struggles over official status for minority Russian, the national history curriculum, and language oppression in the breakaway region of Transnistria. As will be shown, there is a precarious and uneasy compromise in the roles of ascendant Romanian/Moldovan and inertial Russian in the country. The greatest challenge facing policy makers is to find an equitable and workable balance between the often contradictory goals of securing a leading role in society for the long-oppressed majority language (Romanian/Moldovan) and establishing a functional and respectful bilingualism that includes a role for Russian and other minority languages in Moldova’s democratic, civic, and educational institutions.

Analytical Framework Discussions of national language policies tend to be embedded, whether or not explicitly stated, within particular approaches or theories regarding the relationships between standard languages and their sub-dialects and between the relevant languages and the social and administrative structures of the nation. These linguistic and socio-political relations among various overlapping speech communities in a nation may be understood in more or less complex terms. In this section, some assumptions about these matters relevant to this study will be briefly presented. Although the issues raised here could be discussed at much greater length, the scope of this article requires a more limited presentation. There are two approaches to language policy issues that could be understood at the extreme ends of a spectrum of potential approaches. At one end is the nation-building approach that naturalizes the status of standard languages and focuses on essential aspects of the nation-state, such as educational practices or minority rights. This sort of approach tends to treat languages as coherent social truths and social institutions as locations for their implementation. This approach is founded on early work about language and nation (see Fishman, 1972; Gellner, 1983; LePage, 1964). Although care may be given to the social complexity of national contexts, linguistic variation and complexity are often simplified by taking a macro-perspective on language that recognizes politically salient standard languages as the sole linguistic variables to be considered. Language conflicts, in this approach, are characterized as language problems that can often be resolved by the implementation of corpus planning, related to identified standards, or status planning, often related to demographically determined majority or minority status across standards (see Paulston, 1998, as an example of this approach). At the other end of the spectrum is a constructivist approach that sees language and social structure as co-constructed and inter-relatedly complex (see Agha, 2007). Standard languages and nation-states are seen as ideologically composed constructs that are in constant need of negotiation and

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reconstruction through the social practices of their participants (Kroskrity, 1999). These approaches challenge the naturalization and essentialization of standard languages by considering both the complexity of linguistic practices across a nation and the role of social power in establishing and maintaining the privileged status of standard and official linguistic practices. Connections are often made between language ideologies and inhabitable social identities (Gal, 1979; Jaffe, 1999; Woolard, 1989). These approaches usually require detailed ethnographic data and focus on describing rather than planning language policies. For this study, a middle approach is deemed most appropriate. While a detailed ethnography of the Moldovan context is beyond the scope of a single article (see instead Ciscel, 2007; Dumbrava, 2004), a simple study focused on language rights and demographics may not reveal the most accurate picture of the language issues or the most workable solutions. Although a degree of naturalization of the standard languages involved may serve the practical needs of policy analysis, care should be taken to recognize the linguistic complexity that underlies the notion of a standard and the co-constructed and contingent nature of linguistic and social norms. To that end, this study attempts to discuss Moldovan language policies both from the point of view of international norms in language rights and from the perspective of the extremely complex social and linguistic contexts that Moldovans experience and construct in their daily lives. This balance is intended to address the specific policy concerns and consider the role of social power and various language practices within those policies. As such, language policies may be measured against international norms and policies in other national contexts, but they must also be measured against the expectations and realities on the ground in the Moldovan national context. Although idiosyncratic in some ways, the situation in Moldova has many similarities to language contact situations around the world. Given its history as a territory under Russian imperial and then Soviet authoritarian rule, the country is similar to other postcolonial countries. For instance, many postcolonial nations, such as India, Nigeria, and Peru, must deal with the standardization and status of precolonial language(s) and with the inertial status of the colonial standard language and its speakers. Since the Soviet Union was, perhaps, a special type of empire, given its complex nationalities policies, those nations that are post-Soviet are probably dealing with issues that are most similar with those of Moldova. However, a great amount of variation still exists even across the post-Soviet states. For instance, the Baltic States and Georgia have pursued language policies that are more exclusionary, based perhaps on more rigorous national ideologies, than Moldova, while many of the Central Asian nations have had to build a national identity and ideology on what is probably a weaker foundation compared to Moldova. Additionally, the complex historical, linguistic, and cultural connection to the neighboring and, many would argue, overlapping Romanian identity does not have an exact equivalent among post-Soviet nations. Beyond the analogy to postcolonial language situations, there are other multilingual nations that draw some similarities to Moldova. The situation in Belgium, for example, is somewhat similar, in that there are two dominant

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standard language groups in each country, whose power has become increasingly balanced in recent history. Also, the linguistic similarities between Flemish and Dutch could be seen as analogous to those between Moldovan and Romanian. Yet Moldova and Belgium have very different histories, social structures, and economic systems that lead to contrasts in how the bilingual compromise is negotiated and enacted. In summary, although analogies can and should be drawn between Moldova and other nations struggling with linguistic diversity, there is also a limit to which analyses and solutions are transferable.

The Languages of Moldova A great variety of linguistic practices and traditions coexist within the borders of the Republic of Moldova. As the population is largely literate and receptive to the ideology of one language for one nation, there is a strong ideology that naturalizes the status and legitimacy of standard language varieties in the country. Among the locally salient standard languages, the best-established, in both corpus and status, is probably Russian, the dominant variety in the Russian Federation, and the previous Soviet Union. The form and status of this language are based on the considerable political and economic power centered on the Russian heartland and on the depth and importance of Russian literary traditions, often illustrated by the work of Pushkin. Although the varieties of Russian spoken in Moldova almost certainly vary structurally and in use from the varieties of Moscow and Russia’s core, as all languages vary across geographical and social space, Russian speakers in Moldova do not tend to recognize any variation from the standard in their speech (based on multiple personal interviews in Moldova). As such, the only socially recognized variation is in the second language features of Russian as spoken by those who are more frequent and earlier speakers of other languages in the country. Other standardized languages in the country are relatively less established, in terms of either corpus, which concerns clarity about which structures and uses are standard, or status, which involves hierarchical relations to other standard languages, often based on cultural prestige or demographics. Three regional minority languages (Ukrainian in the north and east, and Gagauz and Bulgarian in the south) are both small and rural enough that their status can only be established regionally, at best. Setting these aside for this study, I will focus instead on relations between Russian and the standard language claimed by the demographic majority (three-fourths of the population), the language variously named Moldovan or Romanian. This standard language is not well established in Moldova simply because there is contention about its identity. As with all standards, Moldovan or Romanian would need to be based on a prestigious variety or dialect, one of many regional and social varieties that would be associated with it. The essential question in this case is whether standard Moldovan and standard Romanian are based on different corpuses and are thus distinct. If they are based on the same corpus, a following question might be whether they should be. In the discussion below, brief consideration of the corpuses of the two standards will be followed by an

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argument in favor of treating them as one standard language with two possible names. The standardization of a national language involves creating a corpus that includes a lexicon (establishing orthographic, morphological, and phonemic norms, usually in the form of a dictionary) and a grammar (determining acceptable syntactic and pragmatic usage). However, it also involves the creation of legitimacy through a common history, often based on emblematic cultural and literary traditions. Although the lexicon and grammar of standard Romanian are based on the varieties spoken in and around Bucharest, it gains legitimacy by drawing on cultural and literary traditions from across presentday Romania and Moldova. Indeed, the local varieties (or dialects) spoken in the Moldovan region of Romania (northeastern Romania) are essentially identical to many of the varieties spoken in the Republic of Moldova. However, except for a brief, failed attempt by the early Soviets to create a separate standard based on Transnistrian dialects of the language, the standard varieties of Romanian and Moldovan represented in dictionaries and grammar books have been virtually identical, even during authoritarian times. The key structural difference in standard Moldovan was that it was written in the Cyrillic script while Romanian was written in Latin letters. Otherwise, the standards of both countries had virtually identical phonology, lexicon, and syntax (King, 1999). Small differences existed in technical terminology borrowed from Russian into Moldovan and from French or Latin into Romanian. With Moldova’s independence and return to the Latin script, even these small, superficial differences in the standards have disappeared, such that the two official standards are actually closer than British and American English. Moreover, both varieties share the same authors as founding literary masters (most iconically, Mihai Eminescu) and focus on similar cultural emblems, such as Orthodox Christianity and traditional music. There remains only a single orthographic difference in the balance of use between two letters for a high, central, unrounded vowel. In standard Romanian, one finds Baˆ
more often than Bıˆ
, while in Moldovan orthography the latter is somewhat more common in certain words like bread (Romanian paˆine versus Moldovan pıˆine). Given that one finds variation in both countries with these letters, this small variation could hardly justify an assertion of two distinct standards. In sum, there is no linguistic or structural justification for maintaining two separate varieties, despite some clear differences in regional non-standard dialects across the two countries (Ciscel, 2006: 582
583). Even so, language identity is determined by political and social forces, not merely by structural similarity or mutual intelligibility among varieties. For this reason, a separate Moldovan standard is possible to the degree that Moldovans identify their language as distinct from Romanian. In fact, some studies have found a vibrant ideology of Moldovan linguistic separateness, particularly among the rural population and post-Soviet leadership in Moldova (see Dyer, 1999). However, the political insistence on separateness may well be counterproductive to strengthening the status of standard Moldovan/Romanian in the face of the post-Soviet inertial dominance of

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Russian in some aspects of society (Ciscel, 2006). In conclusion, although both the content of the corpus and the need for greater status suggest the opposite, at least the label ‘Moldovan language’ must be recognized as long as large numbers of speakers of this language continue to invest in the ideology of separateness, even if this separation is superficial.

Historical and Current Language Policies The challenges to language education in Moldova lie primarily in the economic and political arenas. The simplest of these is the economic challenge. The Republic of Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, if not the poorest. Indeed, World Bank statistics indicate a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of US$930 in 2005 (www.worldbank.org), which is several hundred dollars lower than in any other European or post-Soviet state (except some of the Central Asian republics). The foundations of the economy are agriculture and, more recently, remittances sent home from citizens working abroad (Gaugas, 2004). Most of the industrial infrastructure that was built by the Soviets is located within Transnistria. Moreover, the instability generated by Transnistria’s unresolved breakaway status discourages investment from abroad. As a result, the state schools and institutions are critically underfunded, to the point that buildings are crumbling and teachers cannot live on their salaries. This crisis is particularly acute in rural areas where teachers can make less than a dollar a day and buildings, at times, are unheated in winter. Teaching materials such as textbooks can also be in short supply in some regions, particularly in rural Transnistria (Andrysek & Grecu, 2003). As a result, good teachers are hard to retain, and the learning environment is often far from ideal. All of these factors negatively impact the quality of language education in the schools and institutions of higher learning. Even more importantly, these weaknesses leave the education system potentially vulnerable to pressure from political forces that, at times, may place ideological goals ahead of educational ones. The political challenge to language education in Moldova is based on the fact that Moldova exists within territories that, in modern history, have fallen into the orbit of both the Russian empires of Eurasia and the Western powers of Europe (King, 1999, 2003). At the dawn of the modern age, the territory that is today Moldova was part of a Moldovan principality under Ottoman control (1538
1812; see King, 1999: 16
18). The Russian empire annexed the eastern half of this principality in 1812, setting the precedent for the current western border of Moldova. Later in the nineteenth century, the other half of Moldova united with Walachia (another principality to the south along the Danube River) to form the Romanian nation. The standard Romanian language grew out of this national unification, but eastern Moldova missed out on this process (King, 1999: 27). Between the World Wars, this territory was integrated into an unstable Greater Romania (Livezeanu, 1995). However, the Soviet Union claimed it again in 1940, ostensibly under secret details of the MolotovRibbentrop Pact by which Stalin and Hitler initially divided Eastern Europe (King, 1999: 91). During the 1920s, the Soviets created a Moldovan autonomous region in Transnistria (or Pridnestrovie, in Russian; literally, land across

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the river Nistru/Dnistr/Dnestr). This small region, located at the time within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, was ethnically diverse and had not previously been part of the Moldovan principality or of Tsarist Moldova. Part of this region was added to the central part of eastern Moldova after World War II to form the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. Under Soviet control, the language, history, and ethnicity of the majority in the country were re-standardized as Moldovan, rather than Romanian (Negru, 2000). To disguise the similarity of the Moldovan standard to Romanian (and, some argue, to facilitate learning Russian), the language was written in a Cyrillic script similar to Russian. The fact that a version of Cyrillic based on Russian was used rather than the version of Cyrillic used historically in the Romanian Orthodox Church (before codification of the Latin-based standard orthography in the nineteenth century) demonstrates the political nature of the new Moldovan orthography. Moreover, the Soviets caused famine that claimed the lives of at least 115,000 Moldovan peasants in 1946
1947 and enforced the emigration to Siberia and Central Asia of more than 16,000 Moldovan families in the years immediately after the war, with still more ‘voluntary’ emigrations in the 1950s (King, 1999: 96). On the other side, an increase in the number of urban Slavs between the end of the war and the 1960s suggests that forced immigration of russophone minorities coincided with the exodus of Moldovans (Dima, 2001: 74
89). The placement of the large Fourteenth Red Army group in Transnistria contributed substantially to this process of ethnic and linguistic diversification. During Soviet times, both Russian and Moldovan shared official status, but Russian was the language of prestige, higher education, and economic opportunity, a dominant language among equals. With perestroika in the late 1980s, language emerged as the single most salient issue in Moldovan politics (Hegarty, 2001; King, 1999). The most important and contentious legislation of the reform movement, led by an initially diverse organization called the Popular Front (see King, 1999: 141
142), was the language law of 1989. This law achieved three goals of the movement: it recognized the identity between the Moldovan and Romanian languages, established Romanian as the sole official language, and changed the writing system to the Latin script. Subsequent laws changed the Russian course requirement for all schoolchildren to Moldovan and required all state workers to be fluent in both Moldovan and Russian by 1994. Far from exclusionary, these early language laws were designed to undo the oppressive dominance of Russian and the myth of a separate Moldovan language. However, fears ran high among Russian speakers that eventual reunification with Romania would lead to a complete turning of the tables, whereby they would be oppressed. These fears were augmented by nationalistic and exclusionary rhetoric and policy from some in the Popular Front (which later changed into the unionist Christian Democratic Popular Party) and, particularly, in Romania (Heitmann, 1998; King, 1999). In Transnistria, where there was a large military and urban russophone presence, the fears were also compounded by a cultural disconnection from the rest of Moldova and by rising nationalism in Russia. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, first Moldova and then Transnistria declared independence in quick succession. By

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early 1992, Transnistrian militia, encouraged by the Russian Fourteenth Army posted nearby, began to occupy public buildings in cities and towns along the Nistru River. The nationalistic Popular Front government in Moldova sent its new military in to protect its citizens and the integrity of its borders. A civil war flared along the river in the spring and early summer of 1992 without decisive results (Kolstø, 2002). A ceasefire was eventually guaranteed by Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Since then, a solution to Transnistria’s breakaway status has been elusive, despite a number of proposals for federalization and regional autonomy within Moldova. The separatist regime today operates as a normal, albeit authoritarian, state on its small territory. Even though Transnistria functions as a normal state, with its own government, institutions, laws, currency, and economy, it remains unrecognized by the international community, only benefiting from the off-the-books support of parts of the government in the Russian Federation. In the rest of Moldova, the shock of the civil war led to considerable moderation in the government and to marginalization of the most extreme Romanian nationalists (Pascaru, 2000). Even so, subsequent political and economic instability has left the cultural and linguistic compromise between the pro-Russian and pro-Western spheres uneasy at best. The first step in moderation of language laws took place with the adoption of a new Constitution in 1994. Article 13 on languages reads as follows: (1) The national language of the Republic of Moldova is Moldovan, and its writing is based on the Latin alphabet. (2) The Moldovan State acknowledges and protects the right to preserve, develop, and use the Russian language and other languages spoken within the national territory of the country. (3) The State will encourage and promote studies of foreign languages enjoying widespread international usage. (4) The use of languages in the territory of the Republic of Moldova will be established by organic law. (www.e-democracy.md) Notably absent from the Constitution is the term Romanian. It is also noteworthy that Russian is the only minority language that is explicitly named. Due to the contentiousness of language issues, little of substance has been achieved through organic law. Article 35 of the Constitution explicitly grants citizens the right to be educated in the language of one’s choice and requires that all schools provide some instruction in the official language (Moldovan). As such, aside from the continued adherence to the label ‘Moldovan language’, the language legislation in Moldova meets or exceeds Western standards for providing access to the national standard and in respecting linguistic minorities. However, due to the economic hardships listed above, the actual implementation of language education in the schools and institutions can vary considerably, depending on local conditions.

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The Sociolinguistic Situation in Moldova According to the 2004 census that excluded the breakaway Transnistria region (www.statistica.md), the Republic of Moldova has a population of almost three and a half million, of which 78% claim Moldovan or Romanian nationality (a term that is used as equivalent to ethnicity in the former Soviet Union). In the census, the two terms were used separately, such that Moldovan is the major nationality (76%) and Romanian is a minority group (2%). Given that the political party for reunification with Romania regularly wins about 10% of the national vote, these nationality statistics from the census should probably be viewed with some suspicion. Other reported national or ethnic minorities included Ukrainians 8%, Russians 6%, Gagauzi (Christian Turks) 4%, and Bulgarians 2%. Transnistria is estimated to have a population of between six and eight hundred thousand, with roughly equal proportions of Moldovan/Romanian, Ukrainian, and Russian nationalities represented. The rate of urbanization without Transnistria is a little less than 40%, only half the rate of the most economically developed Western European countries. The census data also provide information about reported native language and reported language of everyday use (see Table 1). Most notable in these statistics is the difference between reported native and everyday languages, whereby Russian gains five percentage points in everyday usage by drawing on native speakers of all other languages. Yet, Russian is only claimed as an everyday language by one in six and as a native language by one in nine. In other words, despite its relatively small number of speakers, this minority language is still dominant enough to attract speakers of all other native language groups to use it regularly. It is also noteworthy that sizeable numbers of Moldovan nationals report that their native and everyday language is Moldovan, rather than Romanian, even though many would probably say that these are two names for the same language. The split in use Table 1 Summary of language statistics from the 2004 Census in the Republic of Moldova (separatist territories excluded) Reported native language Language

# (thousands) Percentage

# (thousands)

Percentage

1,989

59

Moldovan

2,030

Romanian

559

16.5

555

16

2,589

76.5

2,544

75

541

16

Moldovan Romanian

60

Reported language of everyday use

Russian

381

Ukrainian

186

5.5

130

4

Gagauz

138

4

105

3

39

1

3,383

100

Bulgarian Total

54 3,383

11

1.5 100

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of the Moldovan and Romanian labels is largely based on a rural and urban split, respectively. Of the two million self-reported native speakers of Moldovan, 75% were rural, while 55% of native speakers of Romanian were urban. This distribution is similar for reported language of everyday use. One possible explanation is that urban dwellers, as in most countries, tend to be more highly educated, more literate, and more globally oriented than their rural counterparts, so their perceptions would likely be drawn from literate, standard forms of the language and their politics may be less local, generally, than among the rural population. It should also be pointed out that the Russian language is claimed by a much larger proportion of the population than chooses Russian nationality. For native language, almost 80% of the population reported the language that is associated with their chosen nationality. The detailed results from urban and rural areas suggest that the shift toward extensive use of languages of other ethnicities is primarily an urban phenomenon. Large proportions of nonRussian minorities reported Russian as their native language, reflecting the continuing prestige of the Soviet-era lingua franca. For languages of everyday use, 75% reported Moldovan/Romanian, 16% Russian, 4% Ukrainian, 3% Gagauz, and 1% Bulgarian, as shown in Table 1. Again, there was some ethnic crossover, particularly to Russian. While the numbers of ethnic Russians and other minorities who use Moldovan or Romanian everyday reaches into the thousands (and tens of thousands in the case of rural Ukrainians, at almost 12,000), the number of Moldovans and other ethnicities that use Russian everyday reaches much higher, into the tens and hundreds of thousands (particularly urban Moldovans, 108,000, and Ukrainians, 159,000). It is also worth noting that there are large numbers of mixed ethnicity families, particularly in urban areas (see Dumbrava, 2004, for a thorough discussion of this phenomenon). A census that asks for only one native language and one language of everyday use per person oversimplifies the complex linguistic repertoires of all citizens, but particularly those from such mixed families. In Transnistria, Russian probably plays a much larger role in everyday use among all nationality groups. However, recent statistics for this region are not available. In sum, the country has a fairly solid majority of ethnic and linguistic Moldovans/Romanians and sizeable ethnic and linguistic minorities, concentrated particularly in the breakaway Transnistria region. For the school year that started in September 2006, the government reported 1,539 primary and secondary schools and 31 institutions of higher education (Biroul National de Statistica al Republicii Moldova, 2007a, b). The language of instruction in the schools is 79.5% Moldovan/Romanian, 20.3% Russian, and 0.2% other, which includes Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and English. Among schoolchildren studying foreign languages, 58.6% study French, 46.6% English, and 3.8% German. Notably, the percentages of schoolchildren who take courses in local languages other than their own are not included in the government report, so there is no way to know how many children at Moldovan schools are learning Russian or how many at Russian schools are learning Moldovan. While Russian is no longer mandatory in all schools and Moldovan is mandatory, these policies are unevenly applied and irregularly enforced, such that Moldovan medium schools may or may not have Russian

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classes, and Russian medium schools may either have robust courses in Moldovan or a few hours in the state language taught by unqualified teachers. It is notable that the report on primary and secondary schools does not mention this aspect of language education. In addition, the report uses the term Moldovan language to the exclusion of Romanian. Among college and university students, 68.3% study in Moldovan/ Romanian-medium groups (referred to in the report exclusively as ‘the state language’), while 28.4% are in Russian-medium groups (here Russian is named explicitly). There is no indication in the report of the language used by the remaining 3.3% of students. The greater percentage use of Russian in higher education compared to schools reflects the inertial dominance of this language from Soviet times. However, the fact that this gap is not larger demonstrates the considerable changes that have been made since the late 1980s in balancing access to higher education in order to better reflect national demographics. The situation in Transnistria, again, shows greater dominance of Russian-medium institutions at all levels, as it was in the Soviet era throughout the republic. In sum, access to native language education, except in Transnistria, which will be discussed below, is virtually guaranteed at all levels in Moldova. Moreover, most schoolchildren are exposed to at least one foreign language, possibly in addition to another local language. The issue of local languages in the schools is critical to balanced bilingualism. There is evidence to show both increases and losses in individual bilingualism in Moldovan/Romanian and Russian. Without compulsory Russian courses in the Moldovan/Romanian-medium schools, many rural children are growing up with little or no proficiency in Russian or with only the informal Russian that they learn on the street. In contrast, many more young Russian speakers in the country are recognizing the value of learning some Moldovan/Romanian or are being exposed to it more regularly in school. As a result, in contrast to past generations, native Moldovan/ Romanian speaking schoolchildren are becoming somewhat less likely to be locally bilingual and native Russian speaking schoolchildren are becoming somewhat more likely to be. These trends are difficult to document, since the government neither keeps nor publishes accurate statistics on bilingualism in the local languages or on exposure to local non-native languages in the schools. While some studies have touched tangentially on this trend (Ciscel, 2007; Dumbrava, 2004), data that is more reliable is needed to support its existence. Finally, a few comments should be made about the use of languages on the street and in everyday life. While most small towns and villages are relatively homogenous, ethnically and linguistically, the regional cities and capital tend to be locally more diverse. In these urban centers, Russian was the normal language of public life during Soviet times. Since independence, Moldovan/ Romanian has claimed an increasing role and status in cities where it has long been spoken in many homes, including in Chisinau, the capital city. Indeed, confrontations between nationalistic Romanian speakers and monolingual Russian speakers over the appropriate language to use on trolley-buses and in shops have been one of the hallmarks of the shift toward greater balance in the public use of these two dominant languages in Moldova’s cities.

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Figure 1 Commercial signs on a street corner in Chisinau, 2006.

Despite increased balance, it is still common to find Moldovan/Romanian speakers switching to Russian as soon as a participant in an interchange uses a Russian word or phrase. Switches in the other direction, although becoming somewhat more common, are rare because of the tradition of switching to Russian and because many people still assume, often justifiably, that Romanian speakers speak better Russian than vice versa. In the signs and images of the capital city, one can find both a balance of Moldovan/Romanian and Russian and some forms of resistance to this emergent balance. The image in Figure 1 depicts a typical street corner in the commercial center of Chisinau. The services and products advertised in these signs appear in one or both of the dominant languages, plus the occasional appearance of a universally recognizable English or trademark name (like Xerox). According to the municipal law, the names of shops must be in the Latin script, but signs that explain the details of services/products provided or that announce sales may be in either language or both. All government offices have signs in Moldovan/Romanian and Russian, with both equally prominent and visible. Private shops and business have only the restriction of a Latin-script name, allowing considerable variation in the appearance of languages. One form of resistance to the emergent role and status of the state language is the use by some apparently Russian business owners of shop names in English (to satisfy the Latin-only rule while resisting Romanian) with further details in Russian only.

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Figure 2 Commercial sign in the center of Chisinau, 2006.

The image in Figure 2 shows one such sign for a security business in Chisinau. Here, the name of the business is in English, but the slogan and the information about location and the contact details are in Russian. Even the website (www.videosecurity.md) is completely in Russian, aside from a few English phrases common to the Internet. On the other hand, one can also find some shops and offices with signs only in Moldovan/Romanian or in a mix of this language with English or French. However, in Moldova’s cities, the EnglishRussian format (as illustrated in Figure 2) is much more common, demonstrating both resistance in the russophone business community to official Moldovan/Romanian and a more general inertial prestige for minority Russian in Moldova’s public spaces. The remainder of this paper will address three prominent political issues relevant to language education in Moldova. Each involves the struggle to find a balance between the competing orbits of influence in the region: the European Union and the Russian Federation. The first concerns attempts by the democratically elected Communist president and parliament, which have been in power since 2001, to re-introduce Russian as an official language and as a compulsory subject in all schools. The second concerns the same government’s attempts to replace required courses in the history of the Romanians with an integrated Moldovan and world history course, thereby removing the term ‘Romanian’ from one of its last semi-official domains in the country. The final issue involves Transnistrian policy toward language education and a political crisis sparked by the forced closure of

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Romanian-medium schools in 2004. In each case, there is some risk to the bilingual compromise in Moldova.

Official and Compulsory Russian Language is one of the most salient symbols in the balancing act that Moldovan politicians have attempted between the Russian and European spheres of influence because standard Russian and, increasingly, standard Romanian/Moldovan as languages of public life in Moldova represent these two poles quite saliently. To keep the country whole, politicians must satisfy both the regime in Transnistria, which has strong connections to nationalists in the Russian Federation, and former Popular Frontists, who have strong connections to nationalists in Romania. Attempts to appease the Frontists make reconciliation with Transnistria less likely, and attempts to appease or move policy closer to that of Transnistria bring mass demonstrations and challenges in European institutions. Throughout the 1990s, Presidents Snegur and Lucinschi were challenged occasionally by demonstrations against the continued de facto role of Russian and in favor of recognition of the identity between the Moldovan and Romanian languages (see Lucinschi, 2007; Pascaru, 2000). Both presidents eventually acknowledged the latter, but had little power to make larger changes. In a recent book, Lucinschi (2007: 255
276) describes being hemmed in on the language issue by political reality. Following a power struggle between President Lucinschi and a parliament dominated by Communists, the power of the office of president was reduced and new elections were called in 2001. The Party of Communists won in a landslide that brought demonstrations from the democratic and pro-Romanian opposition. The Communists, like their leader, Vladimir Voronin, are primarily former bureaucrats and managers from the Soviet era, some ethnic Moldovan and others Russian, who remain relatively conservative on cultural and economic policies. Their electoral victories seem to be driven by older and rural voters who are nostalgic for the public order and generous subsidies under Soviet rule. Controlling the presidency and parliament, the Communists proposed legislation in late 2001 that would have made Russian the second official language and required Russian courses in all schools. The political struggle that resulted from these policies consumed the country for the next six months (The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, 2002). The attempted re-introduction of compulsory Russian brought thousands of protesters to the streets of the capital, Chisinau. The Popular Christian Democratic Party (the official heir to the defunct Popular Front of the early 1990s) called for regular demonstrations, primarily through its press organ, the newspaper Tara. The government’s attempts to limit street protests backfired as the demonstrations drew in people from across the country. A small explosion at a Party of Communists office in March 2002 was followed shortly by an arson attack at the offices of a non-profit organization that promotes the Romanian language. In addition, there was some intimidation of teachers, students, and schoolchildren, as the authorities tried to keep entire schools from walking out of classes to join the demonstrations. On the other side, the

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opposition brought its concerns before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). By early spring, the demonstrations had evolved into a tent city set up in the middle of the road between the executive offices and the parliament building. By then, they had taken on a tone of antiCommunism and, at times, exclusionary Romanian nationalism. On 24 April, the PACE issued Resolution 1280 (Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, 2002), entitled ‘Functioning of democratic institutions in Moldova’, which encouraged the Communists to honor free speech legislation, reopen dialog with the opposition, and speed up needed legal reforms to guarantee democracy in Moldova. This de-escalated the stand-off between the Communists and opposition. By May, the government had backed down on both compulsory Russian and official Russian, and the demonstrators had mostly disappeared from the streets (for a more detailed discussion of these events, see Ciscel, 2007: 74
76). If they had passed, these language reforms would potentially have put the government in a very strong position to negotiate a resolution to the Transnistrian impasse. However, official and compulsory Russian would also have damaged the tenuous position of Moldovan/Romanian as majority language in the country and returned it to a situation that for many would have been uncomfortably close to the oppressive relations of the Soviet period. This is a particularly poignant point, and perhaps an explanation for the veracity of the demonstrations, when taken together with the fact that Communist President Voronin also remains unflinching, to this day, in his insistence that Moldovan is a separate language from Romanian, even going so far as to pressure government officials and media outlets to use the term Moldovan to the exclusion of Romanian. In this sense, many Moldovans likely feared that the rebirth of the Communists in 2001 would return the country to the cultural and linguistic policies of the Soviet regime. Ironically, after the failure to institute official and compulsory Russian, President Voronin turned to economic and administrative reforms, which eventually led him to adopt a policy of eventual integration in the European Union. With Romania’s ascension on 1 January 2007 to EU membership, the internal pressure for Moldova to move toward joining the EU is unavoidable. At the same time, Moldova’s most important trading partner is still Russia, so the government has walked a fine line in both wooing Europe and trying to keep warm relations with the Russian Federation. President Voronin has pursued this course even more aggressively since the Communists won parliamentary elections by a slimmer margin in 2005. In early 2006, as a sign of political dissatisfaction with EU-oriented allies, the Kremlin banned the import of Moldovan and Georgian wines based ostensibly on health concerns. The importation of wines by Russia, a major source of income for Moldova, was resumed in December 2006, after a meeting between Voronin and Putin. Other points of struggle between Moldova and Russia have included the supply of natural gas and the continued presence of Russian troops and armaments in Transnistria, about which a resolution has remained elusive. However, the possibility of official or compulsory Russian has not recurred in a serious form. As such, the language policy in Moldova since the 2002 confrontation has been one of stable continuity with that of the late 1990s:

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official Moldovan with general but not official acknowledgement of the identity between the state language and standard Romanian, plus Russian as the leading minority language, but not more. In summary, the bilingual compromise that came out of the early 1990s, thus far, has shown little potential for reform. The most logical reform, given linguistic realities on the ground, would be to elevate Russian, with Moldovan/Romanian, to official status at some point. However, 2001
2002 was probably too early in the process of counterbalancing Soviet injustices. Until the economy and the state are stronger, there is little chance of official Russian returning viably to the negotiating table. The state language (Moldovan/Romanian) is still shy of the status and function usually characteristic of a national language. Furthermore, a government dominated by Communists is probably not the most appropriate agent, symbolically, to bring such reforms. Finally, the two other goals of reviving compulsory Russian in the schools and insisting on the regressive notion of a separate Moldovan language were counterproductive to a practical bilingual compromise.

History and Education Despite the official government stance that the language, culture, and history of the major ethnicity is Moldovan and not Romanian, many schools, colleges, universities, and other state institutions continue to use the term Romanian in their names and in their daily work. The struggle between the Communist and opposition sides of the debate over the appropriate label for the language is most often avoided or swept under the rug. Many ordinary Moldovans, in fact, awkwardly refer to their language as ‘our language’ or ‘the state language’, in order to avoid taking a side or offending someone. Parallel to this struggle, but somewhat more out in the open, there has been a political confrontation over the compulsory history courses in the primary and secondary schools. In the early 1990s, the national curriculum was set up to include mandatory courses in world history and others in the history of the Romanians (see Enciu, 2005). The latter were seen as counteracting the Sovietera history of Moldova and returning to a more complete and accurate history of the region and its people. Indeed, a recent history of Moldova published in Chisinau (Stati, 2002) revives many Soviet inaccuracies, such as the complete linguistic separateness of Moldovan (p. 391) and the treatment of the Red Army occupations of the territory in 1940 and 1944 as liberation (p. 340). The persistence of such histories in print and in powerful sectors of society justifies the arguments for compulsory history of the Romanians as a counterbalance. Some have pointed out that it is unusual to teach the history of another country in schools when there is no course specifically in the history of one’s own country. In 2001, after the Communists returned to power, these concerns were voiced in the government. Indeed, a plan to replace the history of the Romanians with a Soviet-style history of Moldova was introduced and subsequently scrapped during the anti-Communist demonstrations of 2002. However, in October 2003, the government proposed a new plan to replace both the history of the Romanians and world history with a single integrated

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history course. The Integrated History, as it is known, has raised considerable controversy. On the surface, the proposal appears to be an innocuous attempt to streamline curriculum and to bring it into line with European norms. However, the program has been met with both open and subtle resistance from opposition politicians and history teachers, at least partially because the exact content and purpose of the new curriculum are not clear, in that the government has not released details to the schools or to the public (Anderson, 2005). Many suspect the government of trying to weaken the Romanian component or reinstate Moldovan separateness. Although the course has been piloted in some schools, no textbook has been published and the Ministry of Education has done little to prepare teachers for the new curriculum. In fact, in the face of strong opposition, the government has apparently postponed broad implementation. However, the history of the Romanians component of the entrance examinations to state institutions of higher education was removed in 2004, effectively undermining the current curriculum. Similar to the confrontation over official Russian, the struggle over the history curriculum in the schools seems to reflect either an overly early and misplaced attempt to correct the bilingual and bicultural compromise or a brash attempt to return to the policies of the Soviet regime. As before, the President’s rejection of the Romanian label makes the latter interpretation appear more likely. The Integrated History could be a tool to enhance education and the bilingual compromise, but it could also serve to undercut the pro-Romanian opposition and support the introduction of obligatory Russian. In summary, the debate about Romanian or Integrated History in Moldovan schools is tangential and yet interconnected with the bilingual compromise. In many ways, the Romanian identity, linguistically and historically, is the greatest buoy to the majority identity in Moldova, since the Moldovan label is often associated with falsifications and Russian dominance. In order to overcome the post-colonial dominance of Russian language and culture in the society, a stronger Moldovan identity, legitimately associated with its Romanian character, particularly in the form of the Romanian language and culture, has been and probably should continue to be promoted. The danger, of course, is that excessive Romanian nationalism could lead to the oppression of the russophone minorities. While the balance of the current compromise may need some tweaking, particularly to resolve Transnistria’s status, the return to a completely separate Moldovan identity or to Russian dominance is also clearly not practical or desirable to the vast majority of Moldovans (Ciscel, 2007).

Transnistria and the Soviet Legacy In the 1920s, the territory that is today the breakaway region of Transnistria was the cradle of the ideology that Moldovan is a separate language from Romanian. This territory may become that ideology’s grave as well. Outside Transnistria, most Moldovan leaders and intellectuals, including past Presidents Snegur and Lucinschi, have acknowledged that what they call Moldovan is simply another label for a language that is the same as Romanian. Only a few cultural hardliners, including current President Voronin, continue

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to defend the Soviet myth of a completely separate language. However, in the breakaway region, the authoritarian regime maintains the old Soviet policies of Moldovan separateness and of de jure multilingualism with de facto russification, and because of this, language education in Transnistria reflects that in Soviet Moldova. Russian is the language of the urban landscape, including the government and institutions of higher education. Although Russian classes are compulsory, primary and secondary education is legally accessible in any of the three official languages: Russian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan. The official version of the Moldovan language is written in the Cyrillic rather than Latin script and reflects the Soviet-era standard, with greater emphasis on Russian loanwords and calques than the Latin-script standard now shared by Romania and Moldova. Recent statistics from the separatist regime show that there were 183 primary schools in the region in 2002, of which 82% used Russian, 13.5% used Moldovan (Cyrillic script), 3.8% used Romanian (Latin script), and less than 1% used Ukrainian (Andrysek & Grecu, 2003: 105). Given that about one-third of the population in Transnistria is ethnic Moldovan/Romanian and another third is ethnic Ukrainian, there is a clear lack of access to education in the native language for many children in the region. Moreover, those in Moldovan and Ukrainian schools have no access to higher education in the language and script of their school. The six Romanian-medium schools that exist have been under regular pressure to close or adopt the Cyrillic script (Andrysek & Grecu, 2003). Indeed, other such schools in towns near government territory have simply moved their institutions out of the separatists’ jurisdiction. The remaining six were the subject of an international scandal in 2004 that demonstrates the authoritarian character of the Transnistrian regime and the potential volatility of the bilingual compromise throughout Moldova (see Ciscel (2006) and Roper (2005), for detailed accounts of the events). In late January 2004, the separatists announced that they would not renew the licenses for schools teaching Moldovan in the Latin script (Flux, 2004). They also announced that schools operating without a license would be shut down by force. During the summer recess, militia and separatist officials arrived at schools in the larger towns of Tiraspol, Tighina (Bender), and Ribnita in order to seal them. Teachers and parents occupying the schools in Tighina and Ribnita repulsed this first attempt. However, the militia returned a week later on 26 July, seizing the school in Tighina and forcing children from the connected orphanage to sleep on the street overnight. On the same day, militia surrounded the school in Ribnita, leading to a three-day stand-off that ended with the militia storming the school and arresting all the men who were holed up there (Basa-Press, 2004). Condemnation from the Moldovan government and the international community was severe. Moldova and Transnistria imposed mutual train and truck embargos on one another. After a couple of weeks, international pressure seemed to have forced an initial retreat by the separatists. They offered to register the schools as foreign institutions, but the buildings remained locked and damaged when school started on 1 September. Ironically, while the tragedy in Beslan, Russia, was unfolding before the world, the pro-Russian separatist regime in Transnistria was forcing hundreds of schoolchildren to

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either stay home or seek a seat at a school far away in Moldovan government territory. The Romanian-medium schools reopened in Tighina and Ribnita in October, but the one in Tiraspol could not reopen until January 2005 because of building repairs required due to extensive damage caused by the separatist militia. Additionally, as the separatists will register the schools for only one year at a time, future crises remain possible. In the last three years, the situation has not been repeated. During the crisis, many parents and opposition politicians in Moldova criticized the Moldovan and Russian governments for not doing enough to avoid or quickly resolve the conflict. In 2006, following elections in Transnistria that were not internationally recognized, the separatists began work to improve their international image. New Transnistrian government and tourist websites appeared that paint a rosy picture of what is still an oppressive totalitarian regime (www.pridnestrovie.net and www.visitpmr. com). Since these sites are in English only, there is little doubt as to their intended audience and their political goals. Even without totalitarianism, a just and democratic solution to the Transnistrian situation is not apparent. Much of the population and territory of the breakaway region has little historical and cultural connection to the rest of Moldova. Offers from Chisinau of regional autonomy and even confederation have been rebuffed by the separatists. Whatever political solution is reached, a language education system closer to that in the rest of Moldova would certainly improve the situation in Transnistria. A broader implication of the language education situation there is that it serves as a constant, although marginal, threat to language reforms that have taken hold in the rest of Moldova. Transnistria reminds ethnic Moldovans/Romanians in Moldova of the scars left by Soviet rule and the insecurity of the recent improvement in the status and functionality of the state language. In this sense, the Transnistrian policy encourages exclusionary Romanian nationalism and discourages a more fully democratic and equitable balance of bilingualism in Moldova, fanning the flames of extremism on both sides of the compromise.

Conclusions Several challenges and impediments to an equitable compromise remain in the language situation in Moldova. The state language is not yet dominant or prestigious enough, especially among the urban russophone population, to make a stronger official role for Russian politically viable. At the same time, the recalcitrance of the pro-Russian separatists in Transnistria suggests that a greater balance of local languages is necessary to reunite the entire country under one government and bring greater political and economic stability. Moreover, the current Communist government in Chisinau reverts too readily to a weak, separate Moldovan identity and seems heavy-handed in many of its attempts at cultural and linguistic reform. Additionally, the pro-Romanian opposition in Moldova steers too far at times in the direction of exclusionary nationalism. Finally, the weak and, for many, desperate economic situation in the country exacerbates the other challenges by undermining educational institutions and driving people to extremist positions.

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Despite these challenges, there is reason to be optimistic about a bilingual compromise in Moldova. The push toward European Union integration, no matter how distant, encourages the establishment of European standards of democracy, access to education, and minority rights, including linguistic rights. For example, West and Crighton (1999) discuss the progress in reform of examination procedures at schools and universities in Central and Eastern Europe, noting that by the late 1990s Moldova had already taken significant steps. In addition, the foundation of the language rights established by the 1989 language laws and the 1994 Constitution serves as an excellent foundation from which to work, in that it generally promotes the longoppressed majority language, protects linguistic minorities, and encourages a genuinely bilingual compromise. Of course, there are problems in some of the details, most notably the persistence of the ideology of a separate Moldovan language. There are also serious problems in the implementation and enforcement of the laws, due to political posturing, institutional instability, and economic hardships, as detailed in this paper. However, the greatest source of optimism is the younger generation of Moldovans who have grown up and been educated in a country that is more open to the world and to a more balanced set of roles for the Moldovan/ Romanian and Russian languages than the Soviet system offered. If the considerable obstacles of economic poverty and Transnistrian separatism can be overcome, the bilingual compromise in Moldova would likely become more secure and more equitable. The great challenge, as is common in finding locally appropriate solutions to the problems of emergent nations anywhere, is in reaching this balance. Correspondence Correspondence should be directed to Dr. Matt Ciscel, Associate Professor, English Department, Central Connecticut State University, 1615 Stanley Street, New Britain, CT 06105, USA ([email protected]) References Agha, A. (2007) Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, E.A. (2005) Backward, forward, or both? Moldovan teachers’ relationship to the State and the Nation. European Education 37 (1), 53
67. Andrysek, O. and Grecu, M. (2003) Unworthy partner: The schools issue as an example of human rights abuses in Transdniestria. Helsinki Monitor 2003, 101
116. Basa-Press (2004) Militieni transnistreni au luat cu asalt cladirea liceului romanesc din Ribnita [Transnistrian soldiers took by force the building of the Romanian lyceum in Ribnita], 29 July 2004. On WWW at http://www.azi.md/news?ID 30192. Accessed 8.9.07. Biroul National de Statistica al Republicii Moldova [The Republic of Moldova National Office of Statistics] (2007a) Activitatea institutiilor de invatamint primar si secundar general la inceputul anului de studii 2006/07 [The activities of general primary and secondary educational institutions at the beginning of the 2006
2007 school year]. On WWW at http://www.statistica.md. Accessed 2.2.07. Biroul National de Statistica al Republicii Moldova [The Republic of Moldova National Office of Statistics] (2007b) Activitatea institutiilor de invatamint superior la inceputul anului de studii 2006/07 [The activities of the institutions of higher education at the beginning of the 2006
2007 school year]. On WWW at http://www.statistica.md. Accessed 2.2.07.

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Ciscel, M.H. (2006) A separate Moldovan language? The sociolinguistics of Moldova’s ‘Limba de Stat’. Nationalities Papers 34 (5), 575
597. Ciscel, M.H. (2007) The Language of the Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and Identity in an exSoviet Republic. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (2002) Resolution 1280 (2002). On WWW at http://assembly.coe.int//main.asp?link  http://assembly.coe.int/documents/ adoptedtext/ta02/ERES1280.htm. Accessed 5.9.07. Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, The (2002, March 20) Anti-Russian, Anticommunist Protests Sweep Chisinau. Volume 54 (8), 1
4. Departamentul Statistica si Sociologie al Republicii Moldova [The Department of Statistics and Sociology of the Republic of Moldova] (2003) Activitatea institutiilor de cultura in a.2003 [The activities of cultural institutions in the year 2003]. On WWW at http://www.statistica.md. Accessed 1.28.07. Dima, N. (2001) Moldova and the Transdnestr Republic. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs. Dumbrava, V. (2004) Sprachkonflikt und Sprachbewusstsein in der Republik Moldova [Language Conflict and Language Identity in the Republic of Moldova]. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Dyer, D.L. (1999) The Romanian Dialect of Moldova: A Study in Language and Politics. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen. Enciu, N. (2005) Istoria Romanilor, Epoca Contemporana: Manual pentru clasa a XII-a. [The History of the Romanians, the Contemporary Period: Textbook for the 12th grade]. Chisinau: Civitas. Fishman, J.A. (1972) Language and Nationalism: Two Integrative Essays. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Flux (2004) Tiraspolul intentioneaza sa suspenda activitatea scolilor romanesti din Transnistria [Tiraspol intends to suspend the activities of the Romanian schools in Transnistria], 30 January 2004. On WWW at http://www.azi.md/news?ID 27649. Accessed 8.9.07. Gal, S. (1979) Language Shift: Social Determinants of Language Change in Bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press. Gaugas, P. (2004) Labour migration in Moldova: Context and controls. Higher Education in Europe 29 (3), 343
352. Gellner, E. (1983) On Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hegarty, T.J. (2001) The politics of language in Moldova. In C. O’Reilly (ed.) Language, Ethnicity, and the State (Vol. 2) (pp. 123
154). New York: Palgrave. Heitmann, K. (1998) Limba si politica in Republica Moldova: Culegere de studii. [Language and Politics in the Republic of Moldova: A Collection of Studies]. Chisinau: Editura ARC. Jaffe, A. (1999) Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. King, Ch. (1999) The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. King, Ch. (2003) Marking time in the middle ground: Contested identities and Moldovan foreign policy. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 19 (3), 60
83. Kolstø, P. (ed.) (2002) National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies: The Cases of Estonia and Moldova. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Kroskrity, P. (1999) Regimenting languages: Language ideological perspectives. In P. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities (pp. 1
34). Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. LePage, R.B. (1964) The National Language Question: Linguistic Problems of Newly Independent States. London: Oxford University Press. Livezeanu, I. (1995) Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918
1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lucinschi, P. (2007) Moldova si Moldovenii: De ce tara noastra este mereu la rascruce? (incercare de raspuns la intrebare). [Moldova and the Moldovans: Why is Our country

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Always at the Crossroads? (An Attempt at a Response to the Question)]. Chisinau: Cartea Moldovei. Negru, Gh. (2000) Politica etnolingvistica in R.S.S. Moldoveneasca [Ethnolinguistic Politics in the Moldovan S.S.R]. Chisinau: Prut International. Pascaru, A. (2000) Societatea intre conciliere si conflict: cazul Republicii Moldova. [Society Between Reconciliation and Conflict: The Case of the Republic of Moldova]. Chisinau: Editura ARC. Paulston, C.B. (1998) Linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe: An introduction. In C.B. Paulston and D. Peckham (eds) Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 1
17). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Roper, S.D. (2005) The politicization of education: Identity formation in Moldova and Transnistria. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38 (4), 501
514. Stati, V. (2002) Istoria Moldovei [The History of Moldova]. Chisinau: Vivar-Editor. West, R. and Crighton, J. (1999) Examination reform in Central and Eastern Europe: Issues and trends. Assessment in Education 6, 271
285. Woolard, K. (1989) Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Language and Education Orientations in Lithuania: A Cross-Baltic Perspective Post-EU Accession Tatjana Bulajeva University of Vilnius, Lithuiania Gabrielle Hogan-Brun University of Bristol, UK This paper presents an up-to-date overview of language policies and practices in Lithuania, paying particular attention to the latest developments that have taken place in national educational contexts. Against the background of recent sociodemographic changes in the three Baltic republics, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, it analyzes issues pertaining to educational measures chosen in support of both Lithuanian and other locally used languages. In tracing re-evolving individual multilingualisms amongst majority and minority populations around EU accession, it will be shown that these are symbolic of changing orientations, which are socially, politically and economically motivated.

Keywords: education policy, language attitudes, language-in-education, language legislation, Lithuania, bilingualism/multilingualism

Introduction According to the principles formulated by the Council of Europe, European language education policy is based on the promotion of individual plurilingualism. This concept is defined by the number of languages an individual can use and by a person’s potential or actual ability to interact in several languages with varying proficiency. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) describes plurilingual and pluricultural competence as the ability . . . to use languages for communication and to take part in intercultural action, where a person is viewed as a social agent having proficiency of varying degrees in several languages and experience of several cultures. (Council of Europe, 2001: 168) In an increasingly mobile Europe an individual’s capability to use several languages is of social importance as it is likely to contribute to a society’s multilingual and multicultural orientations which in turn can also reap economic benefits. It is a fact that Europe as a geographic region as well as many of its nation-member states are multilingual, although the bulk of the EU member states, such as France or Denmark, declare themselves officially monolingual. The proposals of the Council of Europe to adopt plurilingualism

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as one of the most important language education goals may therefore provide a stable ground for the maintenance of linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as democratic citizenship. Lithuania’s language policy was developed in agreement with EU international principles, which impacted positively on national language education. Before analyzing evolving practices we shall consider some local sociolinguistic realities which were influenced by the country’s national history and contemporary tendencies. Our study will show that whilst multilingualism figures as an important language education objective as agreed upon in many countries Europe-wide, its implementation, which can be a politically sensitive issue for formerly dominant minority groups, has become a real focus of education policy in Lithuania only in recent years. Therefore, there is increasing concern about local language strategy developments both at the macro and micro levels of society, as well as a growing understanding of the political importance of language education and language choice. The peculiarities of Lithuanian views on issues pertaining to language education are manifest in existing political documents, particularly in those dealing with state language policy that inform future language policy developments, as will be elaborated in the remainder of this paper. Tensions between language policy and practice that have arisen in Lithuania have similarities to those existing in Latvia and Estonia. The policies of all three states strive to preserve and strengthen the national (state) languages and cultures, reduce the effects of former enforced russification and meet the present day challenges of globalization (Valstybine˙s kalbos politikos 2003
2008 m. gaire˙s, 2003: 1
2). On the whole, Lithuania’s state language policy lends more support to minorities than Latvia’s or Estonia’s, as will be further explained. In what follows, we give, against a cross-Baltic perspective, an overview of language and social developments in Lithuania since post-Soviet independence. We examine language legislation, state language assessment procedures, language education policies and their implementation, as well as the linguistic, political and social consequences of these policies. In conclusion it will become evident that whilst Western approaches to language and education have greatly impacted on policy-making across the Baltic republics surrounding EU enlargement in 2004, these entailed a number of (ongoing) challenges due to the differing socio-political contexts found there.

Language and Social Developments in Lithuania Past Settings The Lithuanian language belongs to the Baltic sub-group of the IndoEuropean family of languages, as is the case for Latvian (Estonian, on the other hand, forms part of the Finno-Ugric language group). Lithuanian is spoken by approximately three million people in Lithuania and by an additional halfmillion elsewhere in the world, chiefly in the Western Hemisphere. It is commonly referred to as the oldest or the most conservative Indo-European language now spoken, an impression that rests on the high degree of

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Map Lithuania (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/lh.html)

faithfulness with which Lithuanian has preserved aspects of Proto-IndoEuropean phonology and nominal morphology (Fortson, 2004: 382; Schleicher, 1856/7, see also Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas, 2006: 14). Over the centuries, the development of Lithuanian has been adversely affected by political and related sociocultural factors. Lengthy spells of foreign rule led to the imposition of superstrate languages
Polish, German and, twice, Russian
and the relegation of Lithuanian to semi-public and private settings. By the end of the long-term Polish-Lithuanian union (1569
1795), the use of Polish in (southern) Lithuania that began with the Polish rulers, the nobility and the church, started to spread between peasants. This resulted in neglect of the Lithuanian language and the introduction of Polish in social and

Language and Education in Lithuania

125

political institutions of the Polish-Lithuanian dual state (Dini, 2000: 340
341; Plasseraud, 2003: 46). Russification ensued in the second half of the 19th century, replacing earlier attempts at Polonization (Plasseraud, 2003: 67; Zinkevicˇius, 1998: 259). Following the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the greater part of Lithuania became a Russian province. As a response to the Polish uprising of 1863, the Russian government banned the printing of both Polish and Lithuanian books in Latin characters. Whilst it was still possible to publish Lithuanian books and newspapers in a Cyrillic-based alphabet, the subsequent smuggling into Lithuania of Lithuanian books in Latin characters became an act of resistance to Tsarist or Imperial domination. During this period the use of Lithuanian in some domains was restricted, yet the language continued to be used in education and literature, albeit at times under severe curtailment. The advent of the national idea in the nineteenth century Europe brought national, sociopolitical, and cultural renaissance to Lithuania. A wealth of scientific and popular publications in Lithuanian ensued, and the first newspapers appeared. As a result, a standard literary language based on a southwestern dialect evolved (Dini, 2000: 353
354; Zinkevicˇius, 1998: 294
296). The formation of statehood (1920
1940) entailed a phase of stability and sociocultural growth, which in turn enabled the articulation of laws regulating the use of the state language. Following Lithuania’s incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940, russification and Sovietization again impacted on the linguistic situation of the country. Under the Communist regime, Russian became the lingua franca in an increasing range of domains of public life and social interaction. As was the case in the other former Soviet republics, most of the adult population amongst the titular nationals had Russian language skills since Russian was used in public services and in shops; furthermore, as the language of power, it served as a vehicle for social advancement. Therefore, many Lithuanians adapted to external but unregulated bilingualism with Russian. This process of language substitution that favored the language of the ruling power resulted in a prevalence of asymmetrical bilingualism (whereby titular nationals were bilingual but Russian speakers were not for the most part), a limitation of the functions of the local languages, and their ideological stigmatization (Ozolins, 2002: 1) (for more details on historical and linguistic contexts in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007). Following independence, Lithuanian regained its official status and functions in all domains. During the years of transition, the language laws were strengthened, and the Law on National Minorities (Lietuvos Respublikos tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ i˛statymas, 1989), the Law on Education (Lietuvos Respublikos sˇvietimo i˛statymas, 1991), and the Law on the State Language (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybines kalbos i˛statymas, 1995) were put in place. These laws served to expand the˙ sociolinguistic functionality of Lithuanian. They also provided protection for the languages and cultures of the minorities, some of whom displayed diverging attitudes to language and integration. Facilities and language learning provisions were made available to foster additional individual bilingual capabilities amongst the minority representatives who started to increasingly display their knowledge of the titular language (for a

126

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

detailed discussion of the development of Baltic language policy from the end of the USSR to membership in the European Union and NATO, see HoganBrun et al., 2007: 513
540). The Current Sociolinguistic Situation in Lithuania Lithuania’s ethnic composition has remained more homogenous than that in neighboring Latvia and Estonia where there is a greater density of Russian people in particular.1 According to the Lithuanian Census of 2001 (www.stat. gov.lt), over four-fifths (83.45%) of the total population declare themselves Lithuanians. The largest ethnic groups consist of Russians (6.31%), Poles (6.74%) and Belarusians (1.23%). Others (2.27%) include Ukrainians (0.65%), Jews (0.12%), Germans (0.09%), Tatars (0.09%), and Latvians (0.08%). There is also a 2,500 people strong Roma community (0.07%), 700 of whom are settled in the Vilnius region. Most of Lithuania’s 3.5 million inhabitants (70%) live in urban areas. The share of Lithuania’s Poles who have lived in Lithuania for centuries remains stable. In 1989 they comprised 7% of the demographic total (Goskomstat SSSR, 1991), this number has shrunk by barely one-tenth since then. The share of Russians, on the other hand, has undergone greater changes during the same span of time with a notable decrease in the percentage of resident Russians, whose settlement in the Baltic countries was encouraged by the Soviet central authorities. In 1989 they had made up 9.4% of the country’s overall population (Goskomstat SSSR, 1991), while in 2001 the percentage shrank to 6.31% of the population. Apart from generally declining birth rates, these demographic changes are mainly related to political developments in Lithuania since independence, when Soviet military personnel and their families were asked to leave the country. The percentage of the autochtonous Russian-speaking Old Believers who had lived on Lithuanian territory for centuries (4%) has remained stable. As evident in Table 1, ethnicities declared during the Lithuanian Census of 2001 do not always coincide with the native languages spoken by minority groups. A number of Russians, Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews (amongst others) have over time shifted to a language other than the language of their own ethnicity. Overall, Lithuania’s inclusive language policies have helped to positively affect the process of re-evolving levels of societal bilingualism/multilingualism through the simultaneous promotion of linguistic and cultural diversity and societal integration. The demographic, historic and cultural coexistence of these communities is an important part of the cultural heritage of Lithuania, it also appears to be the basis for the future development of Lithuanian society within Europe (see also Hogan-Brun et al., 2007: 540 pp).

Language Legislation In many European countries, such as France or Italy, the process of nationbuilding particularly manifested itself with the elevation of the language of the ruling classes to official status in the second half of the nineteenth century. This

234,989 219,789 42,866 22,488 4,007 3,243 3,235 2,955 2,571 1,477 788 704 437 419 273

Russians

Belarusians

Ukrainians

Jews

Germans

Tatars

Latvians

Roma

Armenians

Azerbaijanis

Moldovans

Georgians

Estonians

Karaims

2,907,293

Lithuanians

Poles

3,483,972

Total

Total

Ethnicity

97

69

76

58

70

108

273

846

1,012

1,587

621

1,330

1,622

13,954

17,233

2,810,684

2,855,780

46

149

140

207

186

487

61

409

1,448

544

2,411

11,737

22,386

196,042

22,439

7,837

277,318

Lithuanian Russian

2




6

2

2

9

2

8

144

12

13

91

2,494

389

187,918

2,478

195,016

Polish

Native language






















2

19




6

15

14,603

77

1,040

131

16,028

1







4

1










2

1

9

7,912

7

91

44

56

8,185










8

3




1,883

5










2

6

2

19

34

2,062




1













4

1,590




2







3

14

8

120

1,749
















1










804

3

1







1

112

963

118

177

167

379

420

754

1




464

2

573

16




28

8

80

5,041

Belarusian Ukrainian Romani Latvian German Other

Table 1 Lithuanian population by ethnicity and native language

9

23

48

46

106

118

347

95

146

291

371

1,384

1,745

9,192

6,279

85,761

121,830

Did not indicate

Language and Education in Lithuania 127

32,921

Not indicated

5,830

304

6

9,530

1,112

147

Lithuanian Russian

Source: Lithuanian Census of 2001 at www.stat.gov.lt.

3,253

264

Total

Others

Chuvashs

Ethnicity

Table 1 (Continued)

1,433

13




Polish

133

1

1

45

12




78

22




7







36

5




277

1,485

92

Belarusian Ukrainian Romani Latvian German Other

Native language

15,552

299

18

Did not indicate

128

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Language and Education in Lithuania

129

would in turn be followed by a period of language consolidation and elaboration. In the Baltic Republics, this development, led by intellectual elites during the period of national awakening and aimed at the consolidation of the national languages (Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian, respectively), was curtailed following their incorporation into the Soviet Union two decades after the establishment of their respective statehoods. During this period (1940
1990), Russian functioned as the main official language and had to be used in all official and public contexts. Newly independent half a century later, these countries had to re-consolidate their own state languages, a process in which they faced several challenges. The first challenge, namely the necessity to conform to Western approaches to multiculturalism and to secure the rights of minority groups and their languages, was faced in a decade long negotiation over the EU accession. Another challenge is seen in a rapidly growing popularity of English, which is often seen as a threat to the state languages. The Council of Europe advanced their recommendations to direct national policies towards plurilingualism at an individual and multilingualism at a societal level to further the progress of national democratic development, to strengthen European citizenship and to promote social consolidation. Whilst Lithuanian institutions and politicians in principle approved of these ideas, this approval did not ease the process of implementation in view of the fact that Lithuania’s history is contradictory, including from a linguistic point of view. The position of Lithuanian as a state language, first legitimated in 1922, was re-instituted in a 1988 pre-independence statute that once more declared Lithuanian an official language. Again, this became officially anchored in Article 14 of Lithuania’s Constitution (Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucija, 1992). A comprehensive definition of this status is presented in the Law on the State Language (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos i˛statymas, 1995), which was adopted by the Parliament of Lithuania (the Seimas) in 1995. This law determines the use of Lithuanian in all spheres of public life, including education. It stresses the necessity to protect and control state language usage and determines means to be applied to guard against violations of the law. However it does not regulate unofficial communication and language use in different ethnic community events. Article 10 of the Law on the State Language states . . . official events (sessions, congresses, meetings, sittings, conferences, etc.) organized by state and local government institutions, state offices and enterprises shall be conducted in the state language. (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybines kalbos i˛statymas, 1995: 1) ˙ This law is supplemented by a number of by-laws, strategic documents and lower-level legal and normative acts that define the standing of the titular language and of other languages used in the republic and specify their status, teaching and use within the educational system as well as in society. This legislative apparatus, which has been adopted similarly in the three republics as a means to secure the status of the titular languages, has radically expanded

130

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

their sociolinguistic functions. The purpose of these laws has been to ensure that the titular languages can be used freely and authoritatively within their national territories
a situation that did not occur during the Soviet period. In Lithuania several institutions act as national agents in charge of the planning, modernization, regulation, administration and supervision of Lithuanian. These are the State Lithuanian Language Commission (Valstybine˙ lietuviu˛ kalbos komisija), the State Language Inspectorate (Valstybine˙ kalbos inspekcija), and a county language service (Savivaldybiu˛ kalbos tvarkytojai) with municipal responsibilities for the local supervision and inspection of Lithuanian language use in the public and semi-public spheres, and for providing consultation via electronic and written media on language-related aspects (for a detailed overview of the Lithuanian language legislation and objectives of each language institution, see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007: 545
547).

State Language Assessment Procedures In addition to the language laws described above, other language regulations specifying the required levels of language proficiency were also instituted for acquisition of citizenship, in the professional and occupational fields, and in education. This section presents a brief overview of State language assessment procedures (for more details see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007: 564
566). Language Requirements for Naturalization Lithuania’s citizenship regulations diverge from those in Latvia and Estonia, although theoretically Lithuanian legislation could have emulated that of its neighboring republics. Due to the relatively small percentage of ethnic communities that tended to have an adequate command of the state language, upon acquiring independence the country was able to opt for inclusive citizenship policies. Hence, the majority of Lithuania’s ethnic population was able to acquire citizenship through a naturalization process offering the so-called ‘zero option’ which permitted all individuals normally residing in the republic at the time of the restitution of independence to become Lithuanian citizens (de Varennes, 1996: 244). In contrast, Latvia and Estonia introduced stricter citizenship criteria pertaining to the immigrant population that had settled there during the Soviet times. After the restoration of independence in 1991, citizenship was granted in Estonia and Latvia to persons who had already resided there by 1940 (the year of Soviet occupation of the Baltic republics) and to their descendants. The regulation of the status of people who had settled in the country after that date (about 400,000 in Estonia and 700,000 in Latvia) was accompanied by heated and emotional debates. Whilst initially many of these immigrants requested citizenship, discussions revolved around the issue of how to impose restrictions in this context. It was feared
especially in Latvia
that a sudden surge in naturalization would result in an organized vote to reunite with Russia (Priedı¯te, 2005). The legal status of those immigrants who were permanent residents but who had not been naturalized became known as ‘non-citizens’. Naturalization

Language and Education in Lithuania

131

requirements in all three republics differ slightly and involve the successful completion of a State language competence examination. In Lithuania, this examination is pitched at the lower intermediate level (which corresponds to Level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL)), in Latvia at the intermediate level (CEFRL level A), and in Estonia at the elementary (oral and written) proficiency level. Since the inception of naturalization in 1993, some 11,016 persons who successfully passed the examinations have been granted citizenship in Lithuania (Valstybine˙s kalbos moke˙jimo kategorijos, 2003). In comparison, 114,000 non-citizens have naturalized in Latvia since 1995 (Social integration in Latvia, 2006) and 145,470 non-citizens in Estonia (Citizenship in Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, www.vm.ee/estonia/pea_172/kat_399/4518.html). Free language tuition is offered to those applying for citizenship in Latvia and Estonia. In Lithuania, on the other hand, tuition is free only for Lithuanians and their families returning from exile. The examination involves a fee, with reductions for such categories of candidates as the unemployed, the disabled, and students. One factor that will continue to contribute to an increase of the proportion of citizens in the Baltic countries will be the various coordinating measures that are being taken to align citizenship language tests with other language teaching and testing. Non-citizen students will be exempt from the language component of the citizenship test if they successfully complete their secondary education (and higher in Estonia) including passing the titular language examination in the final year (Lithuanian as state language in Lithuania, Latvian as a second language in Latvia). State Language Assessment at School At the secondary level, Lithuanian students who pass the state language examination receive certificates equivalent to those of State Language Competence for adults. Since 2001, the examination in the state language has been administered in a centralized way at the national level. The language proficiency of candidates is tested in four areas of language activity: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The purpose of this examination is to assess the communicative competence of the learners. Candidates of non-Lithuanian origin who pass such an examination are able to use Lithuanian in all Lithuanian higher educational establishments, universities, and in all fields of study: humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and technology. School and adult proficiency levels are shown in Table 2. As seen in Table 2, assessment levels of Lithuanian as a second language at school and adult examinations of Lithuanian as a state language correspond to the CEFRL language proficiency levels, and the European language portfolio (Little & Perclova, 2001) is being introduced in schools and used for assessment. The Ministry of Education and Science has proposed to introduce a single examination of Lithuanian as a mother tongue for mainstream schools, and of Lithuanian as a state language for minority schools, but its introduction is still under discussion. Guidelines for this reform are currently being prepared for a

132

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Table 2 Correspondence of state language categories to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) (2001) and Lithuanian state language assessment in minority schools Lithuanian language as a second language in minority schools

CEFRL reference levels of language proficiency

Adult learners

Primary school (no formal assessment)

Basic user: A 2 Waystage (Pusiaukele˙)

First category of the State language competence

Final (non-obligatory) examination, basic school

Independent user: B 1 Threshold (Slenkstis)

Second category of the State language competence

Final (obligatory) examination, Independent user: B 2 secondary school Vantage (Auksˇtuma)

Third category of the State language competence

planned implementation. However, there are a number of complex problems relating to differences in the curricula for teaching Lithuanian as a mother tongue and as a second language that still need to be addressed. ˇ adeikaite˙ (2006), a comparative analysis was carried out As discussed in Z by a working group formed by the Ministry of Education and Science in 2005
2006, on the secondary school curricula, education standards and the examination content used for mainstream and minority schools. Then, in April 2006 a single pilot examination was organized for 2,000 students from 80 schools (52 with Lithuanian as a medium, 14 with Polish and 14 with Russian). Results have revealed that students from minority schools are not yet prepared for a common examination. Therefore, the decision was taken to further unify curricula, syllabi and examination requirements in mainstream and minority schools and to stage an additional pilot examination (bandomasis egzaminas) in 2008. Language regulations specifying the required levels of language proficiency were also instituted in professional and occupational fields. These requirements for various professional categories were introduced for individuals who held relevant positions but who had not attended titular language education institutions, i.e. who had been schooled through Russian during the Soviet period. They range from basic listening comprehension to full proficiency in the titular language. Since these requirements were applied without reference to the individuals’ ethnicity, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians who had attended Russian-language schools also needed to take these language attestation tests. In Estonia and Latvia, the requirements pertained to all those who were in positions of contact with the public, whether in private or public institutions; in Lithuania they only concerned officials in public institutions. Ensuing from international pressure deriving from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the EU, Estonian and Latvian laws were amended by introducing the principles of public interest and proportionality, so that language restrictions would be proportionate to the communicative needs involved (Adrey, 2005: 460).

Language and Education in Lithuania

133

Regulations for Occupational Language Use of the State Language in Lithuania According to the Law on the State Language all of Lithuania’s institutions should ‘ . . . conduct business, keep records, and produce reports, financial and technical documentation as well as their correspondence in the titular language’ (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos i˛statymas, 1995: 1). With Lithuanian used as a means of all oral and written communication in the public and semi-public domain, access to the titular language is considered a prerequisite for equality in social and economic participation, and its mastery has become vital for those who hold relevant work-related positions or wish to further pursue their career. As regards professional language requirements for individuals in public and semi-public positions, the Law on the State Language states that: Heads, employees and officers of state and local government institutions, offices, services, as well as heads, employees and police officers, law-enforcement services, institutions of communications, transportation, health and social security and other institutions providing services to the population must know the state language according to the language knowledge categories established by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos ˛istatymas, 1995: 1) In 1992, the Lithuanian government approved three qualifying categories of state language competence for adults and determined the mechanisms of how employees in the public and semi-public sector can acquire a language certificate. A system of adult language testing was subsequently created and later approved by the State Commission of the Lithuanian language. The three state language competence categories correspond to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) (2001) and are described as follows: .

.

.

The first category (CEFRL Level A2) is required for people working in the sphere of services, production, transport (drivers, waiters, shop assistants, technicians, etc.), i.e. all those who due to the specificity of their work have to communicate with clients and fill out simple forms. The second category (CEFRL Level B1) is necessary for those working in education, culture, health and social security as well as state servants, officers (Levels B and C) who have to regularly communicate with individuals and fill out different types of documents. The third category (CEFRL Level B2) applies to people employed at state and governmental institutions and those holding managerial positions (A level), for staff teaching in the state language, and aviation and sea/water transportation specialists (flight staff, ship captains, etc.) (Valstybine˙s kalbos moke˙jimo kategorijos, 2003: 1).

In order to meet the above requirements of the Law on the State Language (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos i˛statymas, 1995) those who at that time were holding a relevant work-related position or who wished to further

134

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

pursue their careers had to acquire an appropriate category of competence in the state language and pass the relevant examination. According to the State Language Teaching: Teacher Professonal Development Center (Valstybine˙s kalbos mokymas: Pedagogu˛ profesine˙s raidos centras, see www.pprc.lt/vkm/), the total number of non-native speakers of Lithuanian who between 1993 and 2006 have successfully passed the state examination for employment in the public and semi-public sector is 76,822 (the pass rate is aproximately 86%). Among these, 30,693 chose the first category examination, 37,620 the second category, and 8,509 the third category. There is not much debate on these issues in Lithuania, but as reported in Laisvoji rinka (the electronic publication of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute), the existing Law on the State Language sometimes creates obstacles, namely for medical doctors coming from abroad (e.g. the USA) who mainly use English. For instance, specialists who come to Lithuania in order to treat seriously ill patients or perform surgery that cannot be provided by local professionals may not be legally employed on a regular basis without certified state language competence. Consequently, their work may not be remunerated and can only be considered as humanitarian aid (Laisvoji rinka, 2000, 2: 1). As far as migration is concerned, according to the International Migration of Lithuanian Population (Lietuvos gyventoju˛ tarptautine˙ migracija) 2006 report (available at www.state.gov.lt), in 2005 the number of those emigrating from Lithuania (15,571) was higher than the immigration level (6,789). In 2006, the net migration was still negative, though the emigration level decreased (12,602), whereas the immigration level slightly increased (7,745). This data is in line with increasing mobility of the labor force from the eastern to the western EU countries. The greatest number of immigrants who come to Lithuania are from the UK (1,400), Russia (900), Germany (700) and USA (600). These people are likely to face similar language-related problems in the future. Therefore, it has been suggested that the existing law on the State Language should be amended so that in some cases work-place communication could take place through an interpreter and be accepted as equal to communication occurring without mediation. At the time of the writing, the revised version of the Law on the State Language is under active discussion in the Parliament.

Languages of General, Vocational and Higher Education According to Lithuania’s Constitution (Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucija, 1992) and several other legal acts, such as the Law on National Minorities (Lietuvos Respublikos tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ i˛statymas, 1989), the Law on the State Language (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos i˛statymas, 1995), and State Language Policy Gudelines for 2003
2008 (Valstybines kalbos politikos ˙ right to use their 2003
2008 m.gaires, 2003), minorities are guaranteed the ˙ own languages in private contexts, in minority community events, and in education. Several of these laws were refined during the initial stages of independence in the early 1990s. To meet the norms set by the international frameworks, Lithuania has also signed the 2000 Framework Convention for

Language and Education in Lithuania

135

the Protection of National Minorities (Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ apsaugos pagrindu˛ konvencija). Contrary to the situation in Estonia and Latvia, Lithuanian politicians never enforced Lithuanian as the sole language of instruction to be used at schools. Though minority languages do not have official status in Lithuania, they nevertheless serve as a means of instruction in minority educational establishments (mainly Polish, Russian, and Belarusian) and teachers working there are offered opportunities to acquire relevant training and qualifications at universities. Thus in administrative territories where ethnic minorities live in sufficient numbers, state minority schools can be established. They are located mainly in the Sˇalcˇininkai and Vilnius regional municipalities of Southeastern Lithuania, where many Poles reside, as well as in the seaport town Klaipe˙da, in Visaginas near the nuclear power plant Ignalina, and in Vilnius city where many Russians have settled. At the beginning of the academic year 2006
2007 in Lithuania there were 1,240 schools with Lithuanian as the language of instruction, 63 Polishmedium schools, the majority of which were located in rural areas, 42 Russianmedium schools, mainly found in urban areas, and one Belarusian school in Vilnius (Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 57). These educational establishments are financed from the national budget and implement the same curricula used in mainstream schools. Minority school graduates pass the same state exit examinations as students from Lithuanian-language schools. According to an analysis of the curricular plans for the school year 2007
2008 (Bendrieji ugdymo planai, 2007), the teaching time allocated to foreign languages in both mainstream and minority schools is the same. The number of hours spent on mother tongue teaching, on the other hand, differs slightly and varies between 29 hours per week at mainstream schools and 28 hours at minority schools. The amount of hours of teaching Lithuanian as a state language in minority schools ranges from 12 hours per week at the primary level to 20 hours at the basic school level. At the secondary level this difference disappears and an equal amount of time is given to both Lithuanian as a mother tongue and Lithuanian as a state language (Bendrieji ugdymo planai, 2007: 19
22). In 2002, the Education Guidelines for National Minorities (Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ sˇvietimo nuostatos, 2002) were developed in order to promote the process of integration of minority schools into Lithuania’s general education system. Accordingly, minority and mainstream schools became entitled to decide more flexibly on the teaching time, depending on students’ needs. In line with this flexibility, minority schools are encouraged to include into their curriculum the teaching of some subjects in the state language in order to provide equal rights and opportunities for students wishing to pursue higher education in Lithuania (Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas, 2006). The first reaction to these guidelines amongst ethnic populations was that of protest because many people were under the impression that this law aimed to reduce and restrict the use of their own languages. The officially stated intention however had been to allow for further integration of these groups and for

136

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

enhanced provision of equal rights through continuing education in Lithuanian-medium institutions at different levels. Subsequently, according to Lithuania’s 2003 Law on Education (Lietuvos sˇvietimo i˛statymas, 2003), conditions had to be created for children of immigrant parents who have the right to live permanently or temporarily in the country to learn and receive education in Lithuanian and, if possible, to develop their mother tongue. Therefore, mainstream schools began to enroll such students on parental demand. However, they were included into Lithuanian-medium school groups according to their age as opposed to their educational attainment level and the level of Lithuanian language proficiency, which caused some problems in terms of integration, and, as a result, motivation. Extra hours were therefore allotted for more intensive Lithuanian language teaching to achieve the necessary language proficiency level for those with no initial Lithuanian language proficiency. Individual curricula also started to be developed to provide minority language teaching with an appropriate language specialist amongst the staff; alternatively, facilities would be provided in informal settings (Bendrieji ugdymo planai, 2007: 11). In 2003, 200 minority children, most of them ethnic Russians, attended Lithuanian mainstream schools. Encountering no significant language or communication problems, none of them opted to switch back to attend Russian-medium schools. During the subsequent scholastic year, the number of such students in general education increased to 291 (Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas, 2006: 19). The 2003 Education Law also supports the learning of minority languages as a mother tongue in non-formal educational settings on an extra-curricular basis. For this reason numerous communities living today in Lithuania have established their own organizations (e.g. the Lithuanian Armenians‘ Society; the Lithuanian Karaims‘ Culture Society; the Lithuanian Estonians‘ Society; Vilnius Latvians‘ Society; Lithuanian Russian Orthodox St. Euphrosinia‘s Education Association). Sunday schools opened by such organizations currently number about 40 in total (Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas, 2006: 21). Language-in-education Policies and Practices Although Lithuania’s minority communities have the legally acknowledged right to receive education in their mother tongue, the percentage of students choosing this option is diminishing, as is the case in Latvia and Estonia (Hogan-Brun et al., 2007: 550
560). Different reasons account for this trend, such as decreasing birth rates and growing mobility coupled with EU integration. We shall now provide an overview of language-in-education practices at all levels of education in Lithuania.

General comprehensive schools The legal documents discussed above have successfully created conditions for minority students to attend mainstream schools. Table 3 highlights some changes in the choice of general schools by minority students in Lithuania at the primary, basic and secondary levels.

Language and Education in Lithuania

137

Table 3 Number of students in Lithuania’s general schools by language of instruction at the primary, basic and secondary levels (2000
2007) 2000 2001




2004 2005




2005 2006




2006 2007

89.1

91.3

91.6

92.0

Russian (%)

7.1

5.0

4.8

4.5

Polish (%)

3.8

3.6

3.5

3.5

Language of instruction Lithuanian (%)




Source: Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 57.

We can also see in Table 3 that the bulk of students currently opting for Lithuanian as the language of instruction is increasing from year to year. As far as instruction in a minority language is concerned, the percentage of students attending Russian-medium schools is steadily decreasing. In contrast, the share of students in Polish-medium schools has remained more or less the same during this span of time. Lithuania’s Belarusian community too has its own school in Vilnius named after Pranciscus Skorina. Following several earlier attempts it was opened in 1994, when sufficient student numbers became available. These numbers have remained stable ever since. Before 1995 Belarusian youngsters were most often sent to Russian-medium schools as are Ukrainian children today because their numbers are too low to open an educational establishment for them. Children of the Roma community, who tend to be bilingual in Romani and Russian, are now being integrated into general secondary schools. So far there are no teachers with the ability to speak both Romani and Lithuanian, and no relevant textbooks are available yet. However, not all these children are sent to school and many girls end up quitting early (Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas, 2006). Overall, the percentage of pupils attending schools with Lithuanian as the language of instruction has increased from 80% in 1990 to 89.1% in 2000 and to 92% in the school year of 2006
2007 (Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 57). These figures attest to a tendency that is also developing in language education practices in Latvia and Estonia, namely that starting from pre-school education through to primary and secondary schools increasing numbers of minority children are brought to mainstream educational establishments (Hogan-Brun et al., 2007: 550
551). As a result of these developments, the percentage of pupils with no or limited mastery of Lithuanian rose to 60% in some mainstream classes. In 2001 the Ministry of Education introduced a bilingual education project with the aim of promoting open and multicultural education, and 34 minority schools took part in it. The flexibility of the project allowed the participating schools to make decisions about their choice of a bilingual education model. As a result a variety of models were adopted and implemented, starting from dual or parallel schooling in the minority language coupled with Lithuanian as a second language at primary level, and moving to the teaching of 1
3 (up to 7) school subjects in Lithuanian at basic and secondary school levels (for further

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Table 4 Percentage of vocational students according to the language of instruction (1995
2007) 1995 1996




1998 1999




2001 2002




2002 2003




2003 2004




2005 2006




2006 2007

Lithuanian (%)

89.8

91.6

95.2

96.6

97.8

96.9

97.3

Russian (%)

9.6

7.7

3.9

2.6

1.8

2.0

1.5

Polish (%)

0.6

0.7

0.9

0.8

0.4

1.1

1.2

Language of instruction

Total (%)

100

100

100

100

100

100




100

Sources: Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 69, 91.

details on these educational models see Hogan-Brun & Ramoniene˙, 2004: 69f). This project started gradually since didactic models, textbooks and trained teachers were needed to implement the bilingual curriculum (Skripkiene˙, 2001).

Vocational schools Changes in Lithuania’s vocational education have led to a decrease in the number of vocational establishments from 106 (with 49,190 students) in the academic year 1995
1996 to 80 (with 45,382 students) in 2006
2007. Table 4 shows that the percentage of vocational students studying in Lithuanian has grown steadily, from 89.8% in 1995 to 97.3% in the academic year 2006
2007. Corresponding figures of students choosing instruction in Russian have rapidly decreased from 9.6% to 1.5% during the same span of time. A certain stability in the number of students enrolled can be observed for Polish, though here the rate is also decreasing, possibly because Lithuanianmedium vocational institutions are perceived as a gateway for higher education.

Higher education According to Article 11 of the Law on the State Language (Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos i˛statymas, 1995), ‘the state will guarantee the residents of the Republic of Lithuania the right to aquire general, vocational, higher post-secondary and university education in the state language’ (p. 2). Accordingly, higher education is offered in the titular language in Lithuania as well as in Latvia and Estonia (Hogan-Brun et al., 2007). Currently there are 15 state universities and 16 non-university colleges (nonuniversity studies are practice-oriented professional studies) as well as seven private universities and 12 private non-university colleges that are accredited. Among the non-state (private) institutions many are denominational. There are also some international educational institutions: the University of Management and Economics (accredited, with English and Lithuanian as the languages of instruction), and the Lithuania Christian college in Klaipe˙da (accredited, with English as the language of instruction). In 2006 the International Humanitarian University (IHU), a private Belarusian university, was temporarily accredited in Lithuania where it was in exile after it had been closed in Belarus. Two

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Table 5 University students by language of instruction (%) 2000 2001




2005 2006




2006 2007

99.4

98.8

98.7

Russian

0.8

0.5

0.7

Polish

0.2

0.1

0.1

English

1.9

2.5

3.0

German

0.3

0.3

0.3

French

0.2

0.1

0.1

Belarusian

0.1

0.1

0.4

Language of instruction Lithuanian




Source: Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 91.

universities, namely the Polish Bialystok University and the Russian Moskovskij Gosudarstvennyj Industrialnyj Universitet (Moscow State Industrial University), are attempting to open branches in Lithuania. As seen in Table 5, the vast majority of students pursue their studies in Lithuanian. Since the academic year 2000
2001, the percentage of those using English and Belarusian as their language of instruction has marginally increased, with studies in Lithuanian slightly decreasing during the same time. The percentages of those studying in Russian, Polish and French from 2000
2001 onwards have only slightly diminished, and those choosing German have remained the same. Of all university students only 2.4% choose to follow their courses in two languages (mainly Lithuanian and English). However, the number of units delivered in English, German and French is constantly growing (from 2.4% in 200
2001 to 3.4% in 2006
2007), and they serve to provide the infrastructure required for foreign students who come to Lithuania through exchange programs. Their number has grown rapidly, from 611 students in the academic year 2000
2001 to 1,872 students in 2006
2007; 50.2% of these students come from other EU countries (Sˇvietimas 2006, 2007: 96). Foreign Language Education Policies in Lithuania In contemporary Lithuanian society, there has been a clear shift in the social understanding of the status and role of foreign languages and in public attitudes to learning languages. Whilst previously foreign languages were understood principally as a school subject, nowadays their potential as symbolic capital is foregrounded. The importance of this symbolic social capital is rapidly growing together with expanding international social, cultural, and economic cooperation and collaboration. Foreign language competence is now increasingly perceived as an asset on the job market in the EU member-states, and its promotion has become one of the most important political and strategic national issues. According to a recently published report of the Eurobarometer (2005) subdivison of the EU Commission conducting public opinion surveys, the

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ability to communicate in a foreign language in different countries varies considerably, from 99% of the population in Luxemburg, to 30% in the UK and 29% in Hungary; the EU (25 states) average being 50% (see Figure 1). In Figure 1 Lithuania ranks at the 90% mark in this respect. One of the reasons for this is the fact that most of the country’s population, particularly those at a senior age, can speak Russian. Various EU initiatives, such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001), and the European Language Portfolio (Little & Perclova, 2001), that are aimed at developing a common European language policy, have played a major role in foreign language policy formulation both at the macro (national) and micro (school) levels. In Lithuania, the improved versions of the National Core Curricula and Education Standards developed in 2002
2003 for all school levels are matched up with Common European Framework language proficiency levels (as discussed earlier in the paper). The process of introducing the European Language Portfolio in Lithuanian schools has also begun.

Status of Russian in the foreign language curriculum After the re-establishment of independence in 1991, foreign language education policy underwent a number of changes. The first foreign language (chosen amongst English, German and French) is obligatory from the fourth

Figure 1 Ability to correspond in foreign languages (percentage of respondents per country). Adapted from the Nauja daugiakalbyste˙s pagrindu˛ strategija [New Strategy of pliurilingualism] (2005, 596, p. 16), based on the Eurobarometer Report 237 (2005) Europeans and their languages (www.ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ ebs_237.en.pdf)

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141

Table 6 Foreign language distribution in Lithuanian schools (2005
2006) Total number of students studying the language

Number of students studying English

Number of students studying German

Number of students studying French

First foreign language

469,935

407,400

47,753

8,813







Second foreign language

283,948

23,288

45,856

7,703

206,492

609

4,704

1,654

735

586

1,334

363

Status of language

Third foreign language

Number of students studying Russian

Number of students studying other languages

Source: Sˇvietimo informaciniu˛ technologiju˛ centras http://www.ipc.lt/21z/duomenys/ataskaitos//2005
2006/1mokykla/bendra/1mokyklanauja.xls.

grade to the end of secondary education (grade 12). All secondary school graduates must take an examination in the first foreign language. A second foreign language is introduced two years after the first one and is compulsory for grades 6
10. A minimum of two foreign languages are required, while the third foreign language is optional. With the introduction of a western European language as the first foreign language option, Russian, which had been taught as an obligatory second language in Soviet times, became the most popular second foreign language choice (see Table 6). Several reasons account for why the position of Russian as a second foreign language remains very strong in Lithuanian schools: there are many highly qualified Russian language specialists available at schools; parents often advise their children to choose Russian as a second foreign language because they know it and can provide help; Russian is still widely used in some professions and institutions, mainly in the service sector (among salesmen, transport, postal, medical and social care specialists). At the same time, due to the change in the local status of Russian, many Russian language teachers who wanted to stay in the educational market have re-trained and obtained additional qualifications in order to be able to offer additional school subjects. Some politicians and linguists2 are sceptical about the benefits of the widespread choice of English as the first and Russian as the second foreign language. Among the doubts that have been expressed is the issue of whether this foreign language palette will be adequate to meet Lithuania’s present day social and political needs following its successful integration with NATO and the EU, which implies that more attention should be paid to a wider range of languages popular in the EU.

Status of early foreign language teaching in Lithuania Contemporary language policy initiatives aim at expanding the cooperation between central and local governments and educational institutions (Rado, 2001). The purposes of this cooperation are the decentralization of power, promotion of democracy and involvement of all levels of society in decisionmaking processes. Such decentralization processes give more decision-making

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power to schools and have evolved elsewhere in Central/Eastern Europe as well (Hogan-Brun, 2007: 558). Favorable conditions are now being created for the involvement of different interest groups (parents, school teachers, school heads, other social partners) in language policy developments. This is manifest in new national policy initiatives for early foreign language teaching. Starting in 2000 Lithuania’s Ministry of Education and Science had allowed schools to introduce early foreign language teaching on an experimental, voluntary basis from the 2nd grade at the primary level, two years before the customary obligatory start in the 4th grade (the last year of primary schooling). In a subsequent move, the Core Curriculum and Education Standards of Early Foreign Language Teaching were developed and approved by the Ministry as an improved version of the Core Curricula and Education Standards for the primary school (Bendrosios programos ir isˇsilavinimo standartai pradinei mokyklai, 2003). According to this early foreign language curriculum, pupils who start learning a foreign language in their second year of schooling are poised to reach the A1 (Breakthrough) level of the Common European Framework (2001) by the end of their fourth year. In an attempt to satisfy local and school community needs, an increasing number of schools are taking advantage of an opportunity to offer early foreign language teaching on a voluntary basis. By the school year 2005
2006, 47.3% of all primary establishments had implemented a non-obligatory early foreign language curriculum. Research commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science carried out at the end of 2005 found that the rate of voluntary early foreign language teaching in the primary sector had increased by 5% from 2004 to 2006 (Bulajeva et al., 2005). According to the Center of Information Technologies on Education (Uzˇsienio kalbu˛ mokymas, 2005
2006), in 715 schools that had implemented early foreign language teaching curricula during the school year 2005
2006, English is commonly the first choice (98.3% of the second-graders), followed by German (0.8%), French (0.6%), and other languages (presumably Russian) (0.3%). As might be expected, the parallel existence of two different early foreign language curricula (obligatory and non-obligatory) has created a continuity problem in the fourth grade. Only 84% of all the schools so far guarantee those who have covered the non-obligatory/voluntary early foreign language curriculum adequate continuation, thereby offering a higher language learning level curriculum for pupils at a more advanced level. The study commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science has shown that most of the school community members were positive about the introduction of early foreign language teaching (Bulajeva et al., 2005). Most respondents (parents, foreign language teachers, primary teachers) also felt strongly that the selection of the language(s) should be done according to democratic principles. Some of those who are opposed to the introduction of compulsory early foreign language teaching (20% of the respondents) voiced their concern that this addition would increase the pupils’ workload and cause learning problems and difficulties. Others fear that it may impact negatively on the pupils’ developing competence in Lithuanian, which in turn could affect their national and cultural identity (Bulajeva et al., 2005). This could be because some Lithuanians may still harbor strong feelings about the

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russification process that had taken place during the Soviet period; consequently, they may be concerned that giving more attention to foreign languages in general and in primary curricula in particular may lead to westernization (anglification) and undermine the development of national and cultural identity.

Language Attitudes in Lithuania Attitudes Towards the Language of Instruction Education is one of the spheres where the best conditions can be ensured for the preservation of a national language and the fostering of minority languages. As noted above, changes in the regional sociopolitical landscapes that have occurred during the past decade and a half in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have affected parental attitudes to schooling. The reasons minority parents most often provided for their selection of a Lithuanian-medium teaching institution for their offspring are ‘You have to know the (Lithuanian) language, since you live in Lithuania’, and ‘we speak Lithuanian at home’ (Lithuanian Survey, 20023; Hogan-Brun & Ramoniene˙, 2005: 434). Generally, Polish parents tend to be more cognitively and affectively oriented, choosing Polish-medium schools that emphasize their native language and culture. Representatives of the local Polish-speaking communities participate actively in Lithuania’s democratic development and in policy decision-making processes.4 They are intent on securing their right to have their own schools and preserve their national identity and cultural traditions in the regions that they inhabit densely (Vilnius and Sˇalcˇininkai regions in the Southeast of Lithuania). Russian parents from the eastern and southeastern areas of Lithuania surveyed by Hogan-Brun and Ramoniene˙ (2005) are inclined to display a more pragmatic approach, arguing in favor of ‘a better choice of Lithuanianmedium universities’. This is because Russian school graduates predominantly attend Lithuanian higher education institutions that function in Lithuanian. These findings support earlier observations (Hogan-Brun & Ramoniene˙, 2003: 38) echoed in the Lithuanian Census (2001: 21) that Russians constitute the highest proportion of university graduates amongst the minority groups in Lithuania (15.9% as opposed to 6.3% of Poles). This is mainly because Russian schools are chiefly situated in cities and towns, and Polish ones in rural areas where the quality of secondary education tends to be somewhat inferior. Some students (Russian, Polish and Lithuanian) choose to pursue higher education abroad (Russia, Poland, and other countries). The Lithuanian Survey (2002) indeed confirmed that the number of minority parents who perceive it to be desirable for their children to be educated in Lithuanian-language schools is increasing. The main reason provided by respondents was that it is important for their offspring to know the language of the society in which they live. However, it also became evident from the survey data that it is mainly the more educated minority population that favors Lithuanian-medium schools for their children. Seeing their future directly linked to success in the Lithuanian society, these parents do not want

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education to limit their offspring’s chances by offering them education in minority languages only. They perceive integrative learning as being of instrumental value in today’s changed environment (see Hogan-Brun & Ramoniene˙, 2004: 71), which points to changing evaluations of the linguistic marketplace. Attitudes Towards Lithuanian as the State Language Attitudes to state language use in general have changed considerably over the years. Rose’s (2000) large-scale Baltic survey reflects this shift. In replies to the propositions ‘people like us should not be made to learn the titular language’ and ‘should people who want to become citizens have to pass an examination in the titular language?’ over half of the Russian-speaking respondents disagreed with the former and approved of the latter (Rose, 2000: 48f). These replies indicate that some people seem to have accepted the legitimacy of the language laws in the public and semi-public domains in this geographic region. In the wake of the recent sociopolitical changes, they may have been spurned by extrinsic motivation as a means to obtain material benefits and better jobs through the mainstream society. Findings from the Lithuanian Survey (2002) clearly showed that the vast majority of people from Lithuania’s multi-ethnic eastern and southeastern regions also value the importance of Lithuanian. Slightly fewer respondents (two-thirds) also support the necessity of the state language examination. The main motives provided are integrative in nature: to raise the level of competence in Lithuanian, to make people learn it and to unify the country. Instrumental orientation seeking job security and equal opportunities figures less prominently here. Overall, it appears that Lithuania’s inclusive language and citizenship policies have positively affected attitudes amongst the minority communities. The picture however continues to be more complex in neighboring Estonia and Latvia (see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007, forthcoming; see also Rannut, this issue).

Concluding remarks This overview of language policies and practices in contemporary Lithuania has sought to depict how changing attitudes since EU accession have impacted on re-evolving language and educational orientations. As we have seen, the implementation of means employed to foster multiculturalism and multilingualism, which have become a real focus of local education policy only in recent years, can be a politically sensitive issue in the eyes of members of formerly dominant minority groups (Poles, Russians). Overall, Lithuania’s legislative framework has worked to allow for liberal approaches to schooling, providing for inclusive educational measures to support multilingualism whilst at the same time promoting equal opportunities through linguistic integration. Supported by the educational curriculum, children from minority communities are offered a (late-exit) maintenance form of bilingual schooling through minority-medium and other, more diverse

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bilingual options. The aim is to raise minority numbers in higher education, which is provided solely in the state language. Literacy in the state language is taught at all levels of non-mainstream education in the three republics. Finalists must take a language exam that certifies their level when graduating, which will enable them to pursue further education and/or enter the job market. This partially explains the continuously rising rate of bilingualism with the titular language amongst the resident minority populations. Such pragmatic, utilitarian attitudes that are instrumentally oriented and seek to gain status and economic success also explain the increasing demand for mainstream-medium education for offspring of parents from minority language communities. The patterns of re-evolving individual multilingualisms amongst the country’s majority and minority populations reflect an opening towards the West through the rising popularity of English, whilst also showing an increasing local awareness of the need to stay rooted in Central/Eastern European constellations through maintenance of knowledge of Russian. These symbolic utterances of changing orientations, which are socially, politically and economically motivated, are evidence of a society that moves forward with a sense of context. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Tatjana Bulajeva, Education Department, University of Vilnius, Universiteto g. 9/1-410, LT-01513 Vilnius, Lithuania ([email protected]) or Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, Graduate School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK ([email protected]) Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

Today, approximately 37% of Latvia’s population consists of russophones (this includes 29.6% Russians, 4.1% Belarusians, 2.7% Ukrainians, and 0.4% Jews); Estonia’s russophone community amounts to approximately 29.6% of the total population (this includes 25.6% Russians, 2.1% Ukrainians, 1.3% Belarusians, and 0.2% Jews) (2000 Round of population and housing censuses in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, at www.csb.gov.lv/images/modules/items/item_file_2064_baltcen3.pdf; www.stat.ee). Among them are the authors of Kalbu˛ mokymo politikos aprasˇas (2006): Daniel Coste ´ Riaga´in (Ireland), Joseph Sheils (France), Pavel Cink (Czech Republic), Pa´draig O (European Council), Stase Skapiene (Lithuania) and Eike Thu¨rmann (Germany). These findings were obtained through a British Academy supported survey conducted in 2002 amongst community representatives in Lithuania’s most multiethnic and multilingual eastern and southeastern regions. Out of four political parties, Lietuvos lenku˛ rinkimine akcija (The Election Action of Lithuanian Poles), Lietuvos rusu˛ sa¸junga (The Union of Lithuanian Russians), Politine˙ partija Rusu˛ aljansas (Political Party of Russian Alliance), and Lietuvos lenku˛ liaudies partija (Peoples’ Party of Lithuanian Poles) representing national minorities of Lithuania in the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) and local governments, the party Lietuvos lenku˛ rinkimine˙ akcija (The Election Action of Lithuanian Poles) representing the Polish community won two seats in the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) in the 2004 election and 50 mandates in local governments in the 2002 election. On the other hand, Lietuvos rusu˛ sajunga (The Union of Lithuanian Russians) has 11 mandates, and the other two parties mentioned have 3 and 1 mandates, respectively (Politine˙s partijos. Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ ir isˇeivijos departa-

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146

mentas prie LR vyriausybe˙s). This is because a great part of the Russian population supports other (not minority-based) political parties in national and local elections.

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Lietuvos Respublikos sˇvietimo i˛statymas [The Law on Education of the Republic of Lithuania] (1991) On WWW at http://www.tic.lt/scripts/sarasas2.dll?Tekstas  1&Id 2550. Accessed 12.1.06. Lietuvos Respublikos sˇvietimo i˛statymas [The Law on Education of the Republic of Lithuania] (2003) On WWW at http://www.tmid.lt/index.php?page_id  231. Accessed 11.8.07. Lietuvos Respublikos tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ i˛statymas [The Law on National Minorities of the Republic of Lithuania] (1989) On WWW at www.lrvk.lt/main.php?cat  401&d  4001. Accessed 1.10.07. Lietuvos Respublikos valstybine˙s kalbos istatymas [The Law on the State Language of The Republic of Lithuania] (1995) On WWW at http:/www.vlkk.lt/i/istatymai/ 2Kalbos_ist.doc or English version http://www3lrs.lt/cgi-bin/getfmt?C1  e&C2  21941. Accessed 12.2.06. Lithuanian Census [Gyventoju˛ surasˇymas. Pagrindiniai rezultatai] (2001). On WWW at http://www.stat.gov.lt/lt/pages/view/?id  1198. Accessed 8.4.07. Lithuanian Survey (2002) Rytu˛ ir pietrycˇiu˛ Lietuvos gyventoju˛ apklausa [Survey of Inhabitants of Eastern and Southeastern Lithuania]. Vilnius: Statistikos departamentas. Little, D. and Perclova, R. (2001) European Language Portfolio Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers. Strasbourg: Modern Language Devision. Nauja daugiakalbyste˙s pagrindu˛ strategija [New strategy of plurilingualism] (2005). On WWW at http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/doc/com596_lt.pdf. Accessed 8.4.07. Ozolins, U. (2002) Post-imperialist Language Situations: The Baltic Republics. Paper presented at the World Congress on Language Policies, Barcelona, 24 June 2002. On WWW at http://www.linguapax.org/congres/taller/taller1/Ozolins.html. Accessed 6.26.05. Plasseraud, Y. (2003) Les Etats Baltiques. Les Socie´te´s Gigognes. La Dialectique Minoritiesmajorite´s. Crozon: Editions Arme´line. Politine˙s partijos. Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ ir isˇeivijos departamentas prie LR vyriausybe˙s [Political parties. The Department of National Minorities and Lithuanians living abroad under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania]. On WWW at http:// www.tmid.lt/index.php?page_id  221. Accessed 8.11.07. Priedı¯te, A. (2005) Surveying language attitudes and practices in Latvia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25 (6), 409
424. Rado, P. (2001) Transition in Education. Budapest: Open Society Institute. Rose, R. (2000) New Baltic Barometer IV: A Survey Study. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde. Schleicher, A. (1856/7) Handbuch der Litauischen Sprache [A Handbook of the Lithuanian Language]. (2 Vols.) Weimar: H. Boehlau. Skripkiene˙, R. (2001) Dvikalbis ugdymas Lietuvoje:prielaidos, siekiai ir galimybe˙s. [Bilingual Education in Lithuania: Preconditions, Objectives and Opportunities] On WWW at http:// www.pedagogika.lt/puslapis/bps/pddvik1.doc. Accessed 11.13.06. Social integration in Latvia: Towards mutual understanding and cooperation (2006) On WWW at http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/news/Newsletters/Integration/2006/59. Accessed 8.10.07. Sˇvietimas 2006 [Education 2006] (2007) Vilnius: Statistics Lithuania. Sˇvietimo informaciniu˛ technologiju˛ centras [Center of Informational Technologies of Education] On WWW at http://www.ipc.lt/21z/duomenys/ataskaitos/ataskaitos. php?suvestine  Sˇalies. Accessed 11.12.06. Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ apsaugos pagrindu˛ konvencija [The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities Rights] On WWW at http://www.hrmi.lt/ downloads/structure/tautiniu_mazumu_apsaugos_pagrindu_konvencija.pdf. Accessed 1.18.07. Tautiniu˛ mazˇumu˛ sˇvietimo nuostatos [Education Guidelines for National Minorities] (2002) On WWW at http://www.tmid.lt/index.php?page_id232. Accessed 11.12.06.

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Uzˇsienio kalbu˛ mokymas 2005
2006 m. Sˇvietimo informaciniu˛ technologiju˛ centras [Teaching Foreign Languages, 2005
2006. Center of Informational Technologies of Education]. On WWW at http://www.ipc.lt/21z/duomenys/ataskaitos//2005
2006/1mokykla/bendra/1mokyklanauja.xls. Accessed 8.6.07. Valstybine˙s kalbos moke˙jimo kategorijos [The Categories of State Language Knowledge] (2003). On WWW at http://www.pprc.lt/vkm/kategor.htm. Accessed 12.2.06. Valstybine˙s kalbos mokymas. Pedagogu˛ profesine˙s raidos centras [State Language Teaching. Teacher Professional Development Center). On WWW at http://www. pprc.lt. Accessed 1.18.07. Valstybine˙s kalbos politikos 2003
2008 m.gaire˙s (State language policy for 2003
2008 guidelines) (2003) On WWW at http://www.infolex.lt/scripts/sarasas2.dll?Tekstas  1&Id  64710. Accessed 1.18.07. Zinkevicˇius, Z. (1998) The History of the Lithuanian Language (Ramute˙ Plioplys, trans.). Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopediju˛ leidybos institutas. ˇ adeikaite˙, L. (2006). De˙l pasirengimo vienodo turinio lietuviu˛ kalbos brandos Z egzaminui [Concerning the preparation for the same content Lithuanian language maturity examination]. On WWW at http://www.smm.lt.ugdymas/docs/vienodo_ egz_link.pdf. Accessed 8.12.07.

Estonianization Efforts Post-Independence Mart Rannut Tallinn University, Estonia The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Estonia. The paper opens with a historic overview, followed by an overview of the current demographic situation and of post-Soviet language and education policies and practices. It is argued that Estonia represents a success story in terms of language policy, in that it managed to shift Estonian from a minoritized position of the Soviet time to the national and official language that has gained a competitive edge over Russian, the former language of prestige. Nevertheless, some tensions persist in the republic. The Russian-speaking population in Estonia is not homogeneous, and while some members of this community adopted an integrative attitude, those whose language skills constrain their upward mobility continue to display a negative attitude toward Estonia and Estonian language.

Keywords: Estonia, Estonian language, Russian language, language policy, education policy

Introduction Baltic countries differ from other countries of the former Soviet Union in terms of their history of incorporation and statehood. The fact that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania functioned independently prior to 1940 makes their legal starting point and applicable standards of international law in various domains (citizenship issues, language rights, etc.) distinct in the post-Soviet context. In order to comprehend the specific situation in Estonia, a brief historic overview is essential.

Historic Overview Throughout much of its history, Estonia was subject to foreign powers. It was first conquered in the early thirteenth century during the Crusades and ruled by Danes and the Livonian Order (until the sixteenth century), Swedes and Poles (sixteenth
seventeenth centuries) and the Russian Empire (1721
1918). Despite this long chain of foreign rulers, Estonia stayed mostly monoethnic, with non-Estonians comprising 7
11% in toto until the nineteenth century (Hogan-Brun et al., 2007), with the share fluctuating due to wars and famines. The main ethnic groups with historic roots in Estonia were Baltic Germans (whose language functioned in various official functions until the beginning of the twentieth century), Swedes (on the islands and the northwestern coast), Votic people (in the northeast), Russians (from the seventeenth century on the shores of Lake Peipsi) and Jews (from the nineteenth century on). In the sixteenth century, two Estonian literary languages were established,

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Map Estonia (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/en.html) the Tallinn and the Tartu versions, although the latter dropped out of use in the nineteenth century. In 1918, following the 1917 October Revolution and dissolution of the Russian empire, Estonia, like Latvia and Lithuania, declared its independence. During the years 1918
1940, between the two World Wars, the three countries enjoyed independence and sovereignty. According to the 1934 census, the ethnic composition of the population of Estonia in this period was as follows: 992,000 Estonians (88%), 90,000 Russians (8%), 16,300 Germans (1.5%), 7,600 Swedes (0.7%), and 4,400 Jews (0.4%), plus several smaller ethnic groups (Rannut, 2004). Most ethnic non-Estonians were bilingual in Estonian and their native language. The official language, Estonian, was used in all functional and territorial domains, in some instances alongside local minority languages. The majority of the largest minority group (Russians) lived in rural areas, the

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most ‘Russian’ areas being the town of Narva, containing 29.7% of Russians, the territories east of Narva, and the Petseri region. In Tallinn the percentage of Russians was 5.7%. Other major ethnic groups, Germans and Jews, lived mostly in towns, Swedes in the Estonian coastal region and on the islands (Rannut, 2004). In 1940, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in agreement with the Secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between the USSR and Nazi Germany in August 1939. From 1941 to 1944, the USSR had lost control over these territories to Nazi Germany. WWII brought abrupt changes in the demographic composition of the country, reducing the numbers of indigenous minorities. In October 1939, most Germans left Estonia, in response to an appeal from Hitler. By 1941, the beginning of the Nazi occupation, Estonia was claimed by the Nazis to be judenfrei (Jew-free). In 1943, in accordance with a German
Swedish treaty, Estonian Swedes (ca. 7,500) left their homes in the Estonian coastal region and islands for Sweden, in order to get out of the war. In 1944, before the arrival of the Soviet army, around 75,000 Estonians left as refugees (mainly for Sweden and Germany), in fear of the return of the Soviet terror. In 1944, Estonia was re-annexed by the USSR and part of Estonia beyond the Narva river and Seto areas with mixed Estonian-Russian population was transferred to Russia, thus leaving the main bulk of Estonian Russians behind the border. As a result of these dramatic changes, by 1945 the Estonian population had numerically decreased by one-fifth (200,000) to 854,000. At the same time, its proportion in the overall population had grown: in 1945, ethnic Estonians constituted 97.3% of the country’s population and minorities a mere 2.7% (23,000) (Katus & Sakkeus, 1992). The Soviet regime brought further changes to the ethnic composition of Estonia. These changes resulted from executions of anti-Soviet guerilla rebels, often referred to as ‘forest brothers’, imprisonment of autochtonous inhabitants, and mass deportations to Siberia and the Far North, coupled with immigration from Russia and other Soviet republics (for more information, see Valge Raamat, 2005). Consequently, the proportion of Estonians in the overall population fell from 97.3% in 1945 to 61.5% in 1989 (Population of Estonia, 1995). The Soviet government promoted mass migration to Estonia. In addition to placing members of the Soviet military there, workers and collective farmers were recruited through the organized recruiting system (orgnabor) to participate in construction work, the oil industry, etc. These migrants moved to Estonia to take advantage of the higher living standard and the opportunities to occupy privileged positions in certain trades where Estonians were not trusted. These trades included communication (which potentially allowed access to state secrets) and transportation systems (which were open to the risk of sabotage and offered Estonians a chance to flee abroad). The Soviet government also implemented a series of language and social policies, which aimed at creating favorable conditions for territorial and functional language shifts from Estonian to Russian: .

Russian was declared the ‘second native language’ in education (not a foreign language);

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Russian replaced Estonian in several functional domains, including banking, statistics, the militia (Soviet police), railways, naval and air transport, mining, and energy production; parallel linguistic environments were created, where some residential areas, institutions, offices, plants, factories, and education and entertainment facilities functioned exclusively in Russian and others only in Estonian; a massive program of Russian language teaching was implemented at the expense of teaching Estonian (Rannut, 1994; Sinilind, 1984; Taagepera, 1983).

As a result of these and other measures, the status and the use of Russian rose rapidly, creating a situation of asymmetrical bilingualism. Estonians had to learn Russian for the sake of keeping their jobs. In contrast, knowledge of Estonian was not considered necessary by most non-Estonians, hence the low percentage of knowledge of Estonian (13
20%) among various ethnic groups (Population of Estonia, 1995; for information on language teaching during the Soviet period see Sinilind, 1984; Vare, 2002). A sizeable Russian-speaking environment was created in Estonia that had marginal contact with Estonians and Estonian language, hindering any potential integration. To sum up, by the 1980s, Russian had been established as the official language of the republic, while Estonian functioned as a de facto minority language; other languages spoken in Estonia had no official recognition. Two competing major linguistic groups were formed, the Estonian-speaking and the Russian-speaking, both adhering to their own language hierarchy and identifying themselves as the majority in Estonia, while representing opposing views on several crucial issues. Due to the ever-increasing constraints upon official and public use of the Estonian language, the threat of further decay and, in the long run, death of the Estonian language had turned into an eventual possibility. The years from 1988 onwards reflected a gradual restitution of Estonia’s independence. The conditions of Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost provided more freedom, making it possible to expose totalitarian wounds. The three Baltic republics were the most receptive to perestroika, taking up two main directions that were not actually desired by the Soviet leaders, namely the restitution of national sovereignty and restoration of linguistic and cultural human rights. Estonia passed a Declaration of Sovereignty in November 1988, declaring the supremacy of Estonian law over Soviet law. The proclamation of Estonian as the official state language in Estonia, and its legalization as such by a corresponding Constitutional amendment, was adopted in December 1988. The Language Act that regulated language use and functions in more detail was passed in January 1989 (for more details, see Rannut, 1994). It was a provisional law, matching the needs of the transformational process underway in Estonia. Though it described Estonian as the sole official language for political expediency, the main principle was based on Estonian
Russian bilingualism, which required that holders of certain jobs should have proficiency in both Estonian and Russian (in most cases

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knowledge of 800 words, i.e. an elementary level, was sufficient). To reach the required level, a four-year delay was introduced in the law, therefore it came into effect in 1993. This 1989 Language Act was in force until 1995, when a new Language Act was adopted (see Language Act, 1995). The Language Act of 1989 should be seen as a remedy to language problems at that time. The main problem was a catastrophic growth of Russian monolingualism caused by the demographic changes, the low status of Estonian in several functional and regional domains, and a non-integrative approach to education. The law was guided by the following principles: .

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The principle of bilingualism in services and state agencies, with customers having the right to choose the language of communication, introduced constraints upon the monolingualism among administration and service personnel, which, taking the situation into account, meant restrictions mainly upon ethnic Russians, who were overwhelmingly monolingual at that time; it also placed language constraints on them concerning upward mobility and employment in positions involving contact with the public. The legislation expressed no ethnic preferences but instead introduced language requirements and confirmed language rights (Ozolins, 1994: 168). Simultaneously, several programs were launched for other minority groups in Estonia in order to promote and encourage maintenance of their ethnic languages and cultures. Language policy was implemented through concrete short-term programs, such as the creation of language requirements for employment or the use of Estonian in public signage.

From the formal point of view, the Language Act of 1989 did not alter the situation substantially, but rather maintained the status quo by granting the right to receive education in one’s native language (either Estonian or Russian). Nevertheless, Ozolins (1994) considers these initial modest language policies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania a crucial element in national reconstruction and transition from the Soviet system. The Language Act of 1989 granted Estonian the status of the language of state and administration, and of the majority of social discourse (Ozolins, 1994: 161). In this way, the Act signalled the redistribution of power and thus the formation of new elites in Estonia. The Act directly affected 12% of the Russian-speaking population, who were employed in positions where communication in Estonian with customers or with subordinates in state administration was required. In this way the ambiguity of the situation with the two endo-majorities remained, causing several further conflicts and offering grounds for external political influence. In August 1991, independence was declared and Estonia’s sovereignty was re-established. A new constitution came into force in 1992, replacing the old constitution adopted in 1938. After the restoration of independence, the Estonian government introduced a linguistic normalization program to facilitate repatriation and integrate the non-Estonian speaking population. Immigration was brought under control via the Act on Immigration (already

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adopted in 1990) and the Law on Aliens (adopted in 1993). A major issue in this context has been that of Estonian citizenship based on the principle of ius sanguinis. This meant that immigrants (including the Soviet period immigrants that constituted almost one-third of the population in 1991) had to go through the naturalization process, which requires a basic knowledge of Estonian (similar to the Waystage level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2001). In 1999, an element of ius soli was added to this policy, granting automatic citizenship to children born in Estonia from 1992 onwards. Though ‘visible’ goals of the language policy (official use of Estonian, Estonian-language public signs and labels, etc.) were accomplished promptly, further steps were necessary toward national consolidation and linguistic normalization that included an integrated information space and mastery of Estonian as the common language by all members of the population. The lack of competence in Estonian was only one of many issues facing Russianspeakers in Estonia. The Estonian language requirement for legal naturalization and some areas of employment first signalled the fall in the status of Russian-speakers from the high position of the non-accommodating Herrenvolk to a minority group with limited rights. The shift from the socialist economic order to capitalism also destroyed established political and economic power relations, with emerging priorities requiring new social and economic networks. These changes created a conflict between inner identity values and outer conditions (loss of citizenship, decreased competitiveness in the economic marketplace, worsening living conditions) that led to an extensive identity crisis within the Russian-speaking population; a part of this population experienced the feeling of ‘betrayal’ and resisted the new environment, longing for the old times and the return of the Russian troops (Kruusvall, 2005; Rannut, 1994). Members of this group also displayed negative attitudes toward the Estonian language and its speakers (Kruusvall, 2002; Pettai, 2002). Notably such attitudes were not witnessed among those proficient in Estonian (Ku¨u¨n, forthcoming). Positive attitudes towards the new reforms were also witnessed among russified ethnic minorities and among autochtonous Russians, bilingual in Russian and Estonian (Rannut, 1994). In turn, those experiencing discontent became an easy object for manipulation by politicians from Russia who began to actively support Russians residing in Estonia in their demands for maintaining the Soviet-style language regime, meaning the abolition of the Estonian language requirement in employment and naturalization and the right to Russian monolingualism (Ozolins, 1999). Though Russia has regularly raised the issue of alleged linguistic human rights abuses in the Baltic States in a variety of international forums, in recent years the bulk of the Russian population in Estonia has apparently lost interest in these issues (for details, see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007; Kruusvall, 2005; Rannut, 2007). At the same time, due to the heritage of the Soviet period, the normalization process has been slow and complicated. Estonian society has continuously been linguistically divided, with little contact between Russian- and Estonian-speakers, due to their different workplaces, different cultural habits and the low number of mixed marriages. There is little accommodation in the local Russian population for the Estonian

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language and cultural environment (Kruusvall, 2002; Pettai, 2002; Vihalemm & Masso, 2003).

Population and Languages At present, according to Statistics Estonia (2006), Estonians constitute the bulk of the country’s 1.4 million population (68.6% in 2006). Other major ethnic groups include Russians (25.7%), Ukrainians (2.1%), Belarusians (1.2%) and Ingrians (Ingermanland Finns) (0.8%). In total, there are 145 ethnic groups in Estonia. As mentioned earlier, the non-Estonian population is dispersed unevenly: more than 60% of non-Estonians reside in and around Tallinn, the capital, and almost 30% in the county of Ida-Virumaa, adjacent to Russia and located in the northeast of Estonia. As is common for immigrant residence patterns, the non-Estonian population is mainly concentrated in bigger cities: according to Statistics Estonia (2006), 91% of all non-Estonians are urban dwellers. Autochthonous ethnic minority groups in Estonia are small in size, comprising Russians (mostly Old Believers from the shores of Lake Peipsi) (approximately 39,000), Jews (1,900), Germans (1,900), Swedes (300
1,500),1 Ingrians (11,000), Roma (600
1,500) and Tatars (2,500) (Population Census, 2000; Statistics Estonia, 2006). Since the restoration of independence in 1991, the overall population of Estonia has decreased, but the number of Estonians has receded only marginally, while other ethnic groups have considerably decreased in size
Russians by more than a quarter, Ukrainians and Belarusians by more than a third, and members of other minority groups by almost a half (Statistics Estonia, 2006). This general decrease was mainly caused by post-1991 emigration from Estonia; this emigration has decreased in the recent years. According to the Population Census (2000), 109 different languages were declared as mother-tongues by the respondents. The most common were Estonian (67.3% of the total were speakers of Estonian as a native language) and Russian (29.7%). Language loyalty is particularly strong amongst two ethnic groups: 98.2% of the Russians and 97.9% of Estonians speak their respective languages. The processes of russification and, during the last 20 years, estonianization have been insignificant among these groups due to the high status of these languages. One can also see that the proportion of Russian speakers is higher than that of ethnic Russians (29.7% versus 25.7%). This is because, with the exception of ethnic Russians, only 40% of members of ethnic minority groups have maintained their language of ethnic affiliation, others shifted to Russian during the Soviet times. At present, due to the presence of these russified minorities, the number of people speaking Russian as their mother tongue is almost 400,000, which is considerably higher than the number of ethnic Russians (approximately 345,000). Due to repatriation from other countries, there has also been a rise in the number of non-Estonianspeaking (mostly Russian-speaking) ethnic Estonians. In total, over 97% of the population have Estonian or Russian as their mother tongue. Only about 3% of the population speak the other 107 languages. In comparison with the 1989 Census (Population of Estonia, 1995), a decrease in the use of one’s ethnic language has been recorded for all of these minority languages, whose former

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speakers show a continuing pattern of assimilation (Verschik, 2005). Commonly, smaller ethnic groups lose their languages in the third generation, after leaving their native language territory; as a result, in the school-age population, only 32 languages are used as home languages (Rannut & Rannut, 2007; Vare, 2002). Changes are also apparent in the direction of assimilation: while in the Soviet times, speakers of various languages tended to shift to Russian, nowadays a shift to Estonian has become more apparent, reflecting the high status of the language. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Education and Research (2007), based on whether students choose to attend a school using Estonian or another language of instruction, the share of speakers of Estonian as the first language will continue to rise to comprise approximately 80% of the Estonian population in the next generation. Simultaneously, new ethnic languages appear as a result of globalization and migration movements. Since the declaration of Estonian as the national language of the Republic of Estonia in 1989, knowledge of Estonian among non-Estonians has increased from 14% in 1989 to 38% in 2000 (Population Census, 2000; Population of Estonia, 1995). However, since 1995, this trend has become less pronounced, possibly due to the shift in governmental policies that now place more emphasis on the social equality of different ethnic groups than on language issues. Though in itself this emphasis is highly commendable, this shift has reduced the motivation for learning the national language as a way of reaching equal footing in society. Estonian now functions as the common language in all territorial and functional domains in Estonia. Those whose proficiency in Estonian is insufficient for social and territorial mobility have often opted to stay in districts in and around Tallinn as well as in other cities of northeast Estonia, with high rates of unemployment, homelessness and crime (Population Census, 2000). Most of these are Russian speakers, who still ascribe high status to Russian, the previous dominant language. This attitude, common for postcolonial contexts, makes the learning of a previously minoritized language difficult for former elites. The reluctance may also be explained by the fear that the learning of a new language may affect one’s native language competence. Regardless of its sources, however, this is an attitude that hinders improvement of Estonian language skills in these Russian speakers. Their political and cultural loyalties are often also with Russia, therefore it is not uncommon for local Russians to celebrate the arrival of the New Year by Moscow time or to support the Russian team during a soccer game between Estonia and Russia (Rannut, 2007). As already mentioned, Estonian is the sole language spoken all over the country, but speakers of Estonian and other languages are distributed ¨ lle Rannut (2003), Estonian functions in unevenly in Estonia. According to U four different types of language environment: .

Estonian provides the sole linguistic environment throughout the major part of the Estonian territory, with the exception of major cities, such as Tallinn, Tartu, and Pa¨rnu, and their surrounding regions as well as Russian border areas in the east.

Estonianization Post-independence .

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Estonian competes with Russian in an environment of stratified linguistic pluralism in Tallinn, Tartu, and Pa¨rnu, and in monoindustrial towns with large Russian-speaking populations (Haapsalu, Loksa, Maardu, Paldiski, etc.); in these contexts there is only modest contact between Estonian and Russian-speaking communities. Estonian and Russian coexist peacefully on the eastern border with Russia, on the western shore of Lake Peipsi where an indigenous Russian minority is situated; in several municipalities in this region Estonians account for less than 50%, however, due to widespread societal and individual bilingualism based on historical traditions, no conflicts over ethnic or linguistic issues have occurred in this area. Finally, Russian dominates in some towns in the northeast of Estonia, bordering with Russia, where Russian-speakers are the vast majority, and Estonians constitute less than 20% of the population (e.g. Kohtla-Ja¨rve (17.8%), Narva-Jo˜esuu (15.2%), Narva (4.9%), and Sillama¨e (4.3%)) (Population Census, 2000; see also Vseviov, 2002).

While the first and the third environments have existed in Estonia traditionally, contexts where Russian dominates or competes with Estonian were created during the Soviet times, through political and ideological decisionmaking. Foreign languages in Estonia are widely taught in secondary and higher education and used in the service sector. The capacity of this domain has risen steadily in response to a growing demand. Among Estonians, Russian is still the most widely known foreign language (half of the population can speak it), followed by English, German and Finnish (Population Census, 2000). Due to the separation of Estonian- and Russian-speaking communities, Russian is often learned by Estonians as a foreign language with almost no informal contact (excluding cities in northeastern Estonia). In contrast, Finnish, a typologically close language, is rarely studied at school, it is mostly acquired in informal contexts, through TV programs, communication with Finnish friends, and short-time visits, courses, or employment in Finland. In the younger generation, Russian has been sidelined by English: the graduation examination in English as a foreign language is twenty times more popular than that in Russian, German holds a steady third place (not far behind Russian), knowledge of French has improved but is still lower than that of the other leading languages (REKK, 2007). Among non-Estonians, foreign language proficiency levels appear to be more modest (Population Census, 2000). The main reason for this is the fact that in Russian-medium schools Estonian takes up the curriculum slot for the first foreign language. Since the re-establishment of Estonia’s sovereignty in 1991, initially heated citizenship debates have cooled down (for details, see Hogan-Brun et al., 2007; Ozolins, 1994, 1999; Smith, 2003). The arguments that Estonia must grant citizenship to settlers who arrived after the Soviet annexation without the naturalization process requiring basic Estonian language proficiency have been, for the most part, discarded as futile and contradicting international standards. According to the Population Census (2000), at present 84% of the residents of Estonia are Estonian citizens, 6% are citizens of Russia, 1% are

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citizens of other states, while almost 9% are stateless. In rural areas, Estonian citizens account for 95% of the population, while in some townships around the capital and along the northeastern border with Russia, Estonian citizens account for less than 50% of the population. The stateless group is on average older and consists mainly of Russian speakers who do not know Estonian, therefore they cannot pass the language test required for acquiring citizenship. Members of the younger generation have higher proficiency in Estonian and readily apply for Estonian citizenship. Naturalization in Estonia requires a basic knowledge of Estonian that is commonly attained in primary school (for more details on language testing across Baltic countries, see Bulajeva & Hogan-Brun, this issue).

Current Language Policy The 1992 Constitution combines Estonian legal tradition from the first period of independence with international developments. While the Constitutional structure of Estonian state organs resembles the pre-Soviet period, constitutional freedoms and rights of people living in Estonia reflect tendencies in modern international human rights law (cf. Chapter 2 of the Constitution). The Constitution proclaims Estonia to be a nation-state and a politically unitary state (Article 2) so that ethnically autonomous regions would be unconstitutional. Language issues are regulated by several articles of the Constitution, which address a desirable situation to be reached in the near future. Together, the 1992 Constitution and the 1995 Language Act provide the basis for language policy in Estonia. The two main language-related directions for nation-building in Estonia involve the introduction of Estonian as the official (national) language and a common language and the hierarchization and regulation for minority languages. These directions provide for two types of language contexts: Estonian language environment functioning throughout the country; additive Estonian-minority language bilingual environment reflected in two different forms:
territorial autonomy (established regionally);
cultural autonomy (established by and within the ethnic group).

. .

Additional languages may be introduced by the Estonian government in specific functional areas, such as customs, tourism, international relations, and medicine (e.g. English, Latin). Linguistic human rights have a prominent place in the legislation. The nondiscrimination principle (equality before the law) is articulated in the Constitution, with special language rights provisions for persons under arrest or in custody. Communication rights (including freedom of expression) are articulated in the Constitution and elaborated in subordinate acts. The right to communicate in the Estonian language on the whole territory of Estonia is articulated in Article 4 of the 1995 Language Act. According to Article 4, ‘everyone shall have the right to use the Estonian language when dealing with the administration in state institutions, local government, cultural autonomy

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bodies, as well as in institutions, enterprises and organizations. All employees of institutions, enterprises and organizations must be guaranteed workrelated, Estonian-language information’ (official English translation). The law does not differentiate between public and private judicial persons, and subordinate-superior positions and places obligations upon all institutions. The 1995 Language Act establishes various standards and necessary links to other linguistic norms for this principle (e.g. the right of the consumer to Estonian-language information). However, the implementation of measures for language normalization was slowed down by Estonia’s accession to international governmental organizations, such as NATO and the European Union, promising higher security and economic standards. As accession interests were primary, language normalization became a secondary goal. In 1995
1997, the Estonian Language Board, the specialized language planning agency was reshuffled and downgraded to Language Inspectorate, with solely inspection functions left. Reforms in educational system were postponed (Vare, 2002). Though new government programs in this domain were introduced, these were less ambitious in their language goals than the previous program. In 2000, a new state program, Strategy for the Integration of Estonian Society 2000
2007, was adopted by the government, with acquisition of Estonian (through secondary and adult education), minority language maintenance support and legal naturalization process for aliens regarded as the main priorities. However, due to inefficient governance, the goals of the program were not achieved by 2007, and currently a new program, Strategy for the Integration of Estonian Society 2008
2013, is being drafted. In 2004, Estonian Language Development Strategy 2004
2010, a special program in support of the Estonian language was adopted by the government; this program will provide continuous financial assistance in several key domains. As a result of these policy changes, Estonian language learning motivation among adult Russian monolinguals has decreased. For example, in Tallinn, language course attendance decreased to one-third of the previous number (Rannut, 1997) and the growth in the numbers of speakers of Estonian as a second language slowed down (Proos, 2005). Hostile attitudes towards acquiring Estonian were voiced more loudly (Kruusvall, 2002, 2005; Pettai, 2000, 2002, 2005).

Language Policy in Education One of the key roles of education is to provide general literacy and professional competence in the national language. Consequently, education is the most important means of ensuring the development and status of the national language. Compulsory education is of fundamental importance here because of its impact on the use of the language in various domains. According to the documents Estonian Language Development Strategy 2004
2010 (2004) and Strategy for the Integration in Estonian Society 2000
2007; 2008
2013, language policies in Estonian education have the following goals:

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universal proficiency in the national language, including mastery of the literary standard, enabling employment in the Estonian language environment and higher education; maintenance of regional and non-territorial autochtonous languages by ethnic groups; integration of new immigrant children in the Estonian educational system.

The first step toward achieving these goals was the rearrangement of the segregated Soviet-period system that included Estonian- and Russian-medium schools. Instead, various bilingual options were introduced in Russianmedium schools to ensure that students achieve proficiency in the national language. At present, the main options for non-Estonian children are as follows: . . .

Russian-medium primary school with bilingual teaching modules; Estonian-language immersion programs for ethnic Russians; Estonian-medium schools.

There also exist international schools in Tallinn and Tartu, as well as Jewish and Finnish schools in Tallinn and a Swedish school in Pu¨rksi that cater to the needs of local minorities and immigrants. Language teaching in these and other types of schools is regulated by the corresponding laws. Article 14 of the Law on Private Schools gives the owner of the school the right to determine the language of the school and requires the teaching of Estonian from the third grade. The Law on Vocational Schools prescribes Estonian as the language of education (Article 18(3)). The use of other languages is determined by the founder of the school. The Law on Universities prescribes Estonian as the language of instruction (Article 22(8)), leaving the use of other languages and its extent to be determined by the University Council (Vare, 2002). The full implementation of the language policy goals in education is facing several challenges, the first of which is the large number of pupils with Russian as a home language and their isolation from Estonian-speakers. At the end of the 1980s more than 40% of the first-graders in Estonia chose the Russian-medium education track that provided only a scarce knowledge of the Estonian language (Vare, 2002). In 1991, the share of pupils involved in Russian-medium education constituted 37%, in 2000 it was 28%, and in 2006 it was 20% (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007). By the 2003/2004 school year in Estonia, there were 521 Estonian-medium schools, 87 Russian-medium schools and 25 bilingual schools. Currently, there are 33,308 pupils in Russianmedium schools, a number that decreases by 4
5% every year (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007). In pre-school institutions, the share of Russianspeaking children currently constitutes 20%, in primary education 19%, and in vocational training 31% (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007). The main reason for the drop in numbers is an extremely low birth rate (ca. 3,000 children born to Russian-speaking families annually), resulting in a shortage of pupils. As a result, a significant number of Russian schools were closed down.

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The second reason for the decrease in numbers is Russian parents’ instrumental desire to place their children in Estonian preschools and schools in order to immerse them in the national language and thus increase their competitiveness and opportunities for their careers. Studying and working in the Estonian language environment has become increasingly popular among ethnic non-Estonians. Since 1992, educational levels and average salaries of Estonian speakers have been higher than those of others. Research has shown a strong connection between Estonian language proficiency and salary level: according to Ku¨u¨n (forthcoming) those who received high grades in Estonian in Russian-medium schools were much better off five years after graduation even if the only reason for high grades in Estonian was a bilingual background at home. At the same time, current Estonian-as-a-second-language teaching strategies implemented in Russian schools have not brought about the required returns. Students of non-Estonian-medium primary schools are expected to acquire Estonian on the level B2 on the CEFR scale, which will enable them to continue their studies or seek employment in the Estonian-language environment. However, preparations for this have been inadequate, thus the main bulk of graduates stay below this level (REKK, 2007). In 2002, 7% of Russianmedium high school graduates were fluent in Estonian, while 40% were unable to converse in Estonian (Vihalemm & Masso, 2003). This has forced 60% of more talented graduates to continue their studies in small private universities offering Russian-medium education that may lead to the further impasse. For the same reason, Russian students are overrepresented in vocational schools: 31% of all vocational school students are Russian speakers and 50% of the groups offer instruction in Russian, preparing skilled workers for less popular professions (welders, locksmiths, etc.) (Vare, 2002). To improve the teaching of Estonian in Russian-medium schools, since 1996 Estonian has been taught from the first grade. Subject areas are taught mostly in Russian, but 60% of Russian-medium primary schools (grades 1
9) use Estonian as a language of instruction in certain subjects (history, geography, etc.), similar to partial immersion (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007). In 1997, a requirement was imposed to increase the number of subjects taught in Estonian up to 60% (Ministry of Education and Research, 2007). Language immersion programs also present a potential solution to the problem of Estonian as a second language. After several unsuccessful attempts in 1992 and 1995 (stopped by the new government), a total immersion program was launched in 2000 with the help of experts from Canada and Finland. Currently this program involves 12 schools in early immersion (from grade 1) and 20 schools in late immersion (from grade 6). Some 10% of the Russianspeaking pupils are currently involved in this program. The knowledge acquired during the implementation of the program serves as the basis for extending bilingual teaching to other Russian schools. Estonian schools are also highly valued among Russian-speaking parents seeking opportunities to help their children become bilingual. This is reflected in the composition of pupils in Estonian-medium schools, where one-sixth of the students are from language minority families (Proos, 2005; Vare, 2002). Most of these children come from local Russian-speaking families, but the

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share of new immigrant children born abroad is also growing fast (Rannut & Rannut, 2007). The shift from almost monoethnic to an international composition of pupils in Estonian-medium schools has created challenges for the schools, resulting in lower proficiency levels in Estonian and in other disciplines for all pupils. To avoid these negative effects, the number of Russians in Estonian-medium educational institutions has been limited. Simultaneously, new disciplines such as teaching Estonian as a Second Language (and simultaneously, Russian as a native language) and special ethnic maintenance modules (Russica, Ukrainica, etc.) are introduced together with teacher-in-service training (including courses in cross-cultural communication and multicultural education). To ensure the necessary language competence for entering Estonianmedium primary schools, language minority children start to learn Estonian in preschool child care institutions. At present, 78.4% of preschool institutions are Estonian-medium. The growing influx of non-Estonian-speaking children poses a challenge for Estonian-speaking kindergarten teachers who, as a rule, do not have sufficient knowledge to teach Russian-speaking children. Consequently, finding a vacancy in these schools may be difficult and the number of children with non-Estonian home language is limited to two to three per group. In 1995 teaching Estonian as a second language to 5
6 year olds in preschools was launched. In 2000 the obligation to teach Estonian was extended to kindergarten and grade one levels. At present, the basics of Estonian may be acquired in 78 Russian-medium preschools and 50 EstonianRussian bilingual preschools, which educate a total of 12,000 children in Russian kindergarten groups. The main problem with Russian-medium preschools is the low competence of teachers of Estonian. There are currently more than a 100 Estonian as a second language kindergarten teachers employed, but 56% do not work full-time and 30% have not completed formal training in the domain (Ranne, 2003). In order to overcome these challenges, an extensive in-service training program was launched for kindergarten personnel in 2003, achieving only modest results. To further strengthen this domain, an early total immersion program in Estonian for Russian-speaking children was successfully launched in 2003, which is currently extended to 24 kindergartens.

Conclusions For survival and sustainable development, Estonia, like any other country, needs a common language as a symbolic icon and as a means for information processing and retrieval and for integrative communication. At present, almost a generation since the restitution of Estonia’s independence, the struggle over the negative impact of more than four decades of the Soviet regime on language policy is still not over. Gradual linguistic normalization with Estonian as the national language known by the vast majority has not yet been fully implemented. Language policy, though quite successful by outside estimates, has not been stable, suggesting that full consensus on language issues at the highest political level has not yet been reached. Nevertheless, the

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core acceptable for all major political parties has been articulated. This core includes the following principles: .

.

. . . .

common language principle with Estonian as the sole national and official language; minority language protection through territorial and cultural autonomy (hierarchization and regulation of autochthonous languages); respect for individual linguistic human rights; various functional foreign language regimes; active promotion of integration; compliance with international law.

To ensure that the society is a democratic and civic one, this approach in language legislation strives to be as fair and instrumental as possible. Ethnicity has no legal basis in establishing one’s position in society; instead, proficiency in the national language is valued across domains (citizenship, employment, elections, etc.). The state has an obligation to ensure this proficiency through compulsory education. Large numbers of Russian-speaking students and their isolation from Estonian-speakers represent major challenges to the process. It is expected that immersion and bilingual programs will improve the situation in the future. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Mart Rannut, Tallinn University, Narva mnt. 25, 10120 Tallinna, Estonia ([email protected]) Note 1.

In the case of Swedes and Roma, the lower number is taken from the census and the higher number from the data provided by ethnic organizations.

References Bulajeva, T. and Hogan-Brun, G. (2008) Language and education orientations in Lithuania: A cross-Baltic perspective post-EU accession. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(3&4), 347
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2010 (2004) Tartu: Atlex. On WWW at http://ekn.hm.ee/system/files/strat_en.pdf. Accessed 11.11.07. Hogan-Brun, G., Ozolins, U., Ramoniene, M. and Rannut, M. (2007) Language policies and practices in the Baltic States. Current Issues in Language Planning 8(4), 469
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Ku¨u¨n, E. (forthcoming). Eesti venekeelsete noorte keeleline ja etniline identiteet [Linguistic ¨ kogumik/TLU ¨ and ethnic identities of Russian-speaking youth in Estonia]. EFTU kirjastus. Language Act (1995) On WWW at http://www.legaltext.ee/en/andmebaas/ava.asp? m  022. Accessed 11.11.07. Ministry of Education and Research (2007) On WWW at http://www.hm.ee/vana/ hm/client/index.php?135262301328541054. Accessed 11.11.07. Ozolins, U. (1994) Upwardly mobile languages: The politics of language in the Baltic States. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 15 (2&3), 161
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47. Pettai, I. (2000) Eestlaste ja mitte-eestlaste vastastikune sallivus [Mutual tolerance of ¨ Estonians and non-Estonians]. Integratsioon Eesti u¨hiskonnas. Monitooring 2000: TPU RASI, MEIS, 6
10. On WWW at http://www.meis/est/raamatukogu/uuringud. Accessed 11.11.07. Pettai, I. (2002) Eestlaste ja mitte-eestlaste sallivustu¨poloogia [Typology of tolerance of ¨ Estonians and non-Estonians]. Integratsioon Eesti u¨hiskonnas. Monitooring 2002: TPU RASI, MEIS, 25-41. On WWW at http://www.meis/est/raamatukogu/uuringud. Accessed 11.11.07. Pettai, I. (2005) Sallivus rahvussuhetes Eestis [Tolerance in ethnic relations in Estonia]. Integratsioon Eesti u¨hiskonnas. Monitooring 2005. On WWW at http://www.meis/est/ raamatukogu/uuringud. Accessed 11.11.07. Population Census (2000) On WWW at http://pub.stat.ee/px-web.2001/I_Databas/ Population_Census/Population_Census.asp. Accessed 11.11.07. Population of Estonia (1995). Statistical Office of Estonia: Tallinn. On WWW at http:// www.stat.ee/133763. Accessed 11.7.07. Proos, I. (2005) Eestivenelaste keeleoskus ja suhtumine 2007 aasta gu¨mnaasiumireformi [Language proficiency and attitudes of Estonian Russians towards the secondary school reform of 2007]. Uuringu ‘Integratsiooni monitooring 2005’ aruanne. Tallinn: ¨ Rahvusvaheliste ja Sotsiaaluuringute Instituut. On WWW at http://www.meis. TLU ee/est/raamatukogu/uuringud. Accessed 11.11.07. Ranne A. (2003) Eesti keele kui teise keele o˜petamine lasteaias [Teaching Estonian in the kindergarten]. On WWW at http://www.meis.ee/est/raamatukogu/uuringud/ #lasteaed. Accessed 11.11.07. Rannut, M. (1994) Beyond linguistic policy: The Soviet Union versus Estonia. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and R. Phillipson (eds) Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination (pp. 179
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4, 7
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Statistics Estonia (2006) On WWW at http://pub.stat.ee/px-web.2001/I_Databas/ Population/01Population_indicators_and_composition/04Population_figure_and_ composition/04Population_figure_and_composition.asp. Accessed 10.26.07. Strategy for the Integration of Estonian Society, 2000
2007. On WWW at http://www. rahvastikuminister.ee/public/state_programme.pdf. Accessed 12.8.07. Strategy for the Integration of Estonian Society, 2008
2013. On WWW at http:// www.rahvastikuminister.ee/?id 10673. Accessed 11.11.07. Taagepera, R. (1983) The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940
1980. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Valge Raamat (2005) Valge raamat eesti rahva kaotustest okupatsioonide la¨bi [White book on losses of Estonian nation through occupations]. Eesti Entsu¨klopeediakirjastus. On WWW at http://www.riigikogu.ee/public/Riigikogu/ValgeRaamat.pdf. Accessed 11.11.07. Vare, S. (2002) Eesti keel vene koolis II. Eesti keele kasutamine vene u¨ldhariduskoolis [Estonian in Russian school II. Use of Estonian in Russian comprehensive school]. On WWW at http://www.hm.ee/index.php?popup  download&id  3971. Accessed 11.11.07. Verschik, A. (2005) The language situation in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies 36 (3), 283
316. Vihalemm, T. and Masso, A. (2003). Identity dynamics of Russian-speakers of Estonia in transition period. Journal of Baltic Studies 34 (1), 92
116. Vseviov D. (2002) Kirde-Eesti urbaanse anomaalia kujunemine ja struktuur pa¨rast II maailmaso˜da [Formation and Structure of Urban Anomaly of Northeastern Estonia ¨ kirjastus. after World War II]. Tallinn: TPU

Language Policies of Kazakhization and Their Influence on Language Attitudes and Use Juldyz Smagulova Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economic and Strategic Research, Kazakhstan/King’s College London, UK The paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of language policy in Kazakhstan in the context of the current sociolinguistic situation and historic, demographic, sociopolitical, and economic factors. Highlighting some of the challenges facing the official policy of kazakhization, this review allows for better understanding of the functioning of the two main languages of Kazakhstan, Kazakh and Russian. To assess the impact of kazakhization policies on language attitudes and use, the paper examines the results of a large-scale self-report survey conducted in Kazakhstan in 2005 2007.




Keywords: Kazakhstan, language policy, Kazakh, Russian, kazakhization, language attitudes, language use

Introduction The goal of this paper is to trace the changes in language policies and practices in Kazakhstan after the 1991 independence. The main focus of analysis is on the social re-positioning of Kazakh and Russian. The paper begins with a brief overview of central processes that have given rise to specific economic, political, demographic, and ethnic relations defining the social values of Kazakh and Russian today. This overview is followed by a description of the current demographic and sociolinguistic situation. Then I describe the efforts of the Kazakh government to re-establish Kazakh as a state language post-1991. Subsequently, the impact of these efforts is analyzed through responses to a large-scale self-report survey conducted in Kazakhstan in 2005
2007.

Background Information The Republic of Kazakhstan borders Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and occupies a territory of 2,717,300 square kilometers (sq km), making it the ninth largest country in the world with an average population density of 5.5 persons per sq km (see Map 1). In 2004, the population of Kazakhstan was 14,951,200: ethnic Kazakhs constituted 57.19% of the population and Russians and other ethnic groups 27.24 and 15.57%, respectively (Smailov, 2004). Major traditional religions are the Sunnite branch1 of Islam practiced by Kazakhs and other Turkic people, and Eastern

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Map Kazakhstan (Source: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ geos/kz.html) Orthodox Christianity practiced by Russians and other Slavs. Additionally, there are adherents of minority religions, such as Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Buddhists. Formation of the Kazakh people2 began in the fifthteenth century as a political union of various nomadic Mongol and indigenous Turkic tribes. By the end of the fifthteenth century, circa 1465, three Kazakh tribal groupings, the Small (Kishi zhuz), the Middle (Orta zhuz), and the Great (Uly zhuz) Hordes, were assembled in a Kazakh khanate ruled by a single khan. During the rule of Qasym Khan (1511
1521), who is credited with the creation of the centralized Kazakh khanate, the territory expanded with the addition of other Turkic tribes and through military takeover. In the words of Olcott (1995), ‘It was possible for the first time to consider the Kazakhs a people: they were approximately one million strong, spoke the same Turkish language, utilized the same type of livestock breeding, and shared a culture and a form of social organization’ (p. 9). In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the tribes of the Small Horde were forced to seek military protection of the Russian Empire from Zhungars. This was the beginning of a long process of inclusion of the Kazakh tribes into the Russian Empire. Some tribes followed the example of the Small Horde and voluntarily signed agreements, while others were conquered; among the last defeated were the tribes of Zhetysu and Tashkent (1863
1867). The Russian administration took a range of actions to incorporate the newly subjugated Kazakhs into the empire. There were a number of administrative-political reforms that were ultimately aimed at transferring political, military, economic, and legislative power from numerous Kazakh khans and lords to centralized governmental bodies. By 1882, the institute of khans was abolished and Kazakh lands were consolidated within three main

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territorial-administrative divisions under the military administration: Turkistan, Orenburg, and West-Siberian regions. Initially, Russian military forts were built along the northern border, which became the starting point of organized migration of Russians, Cossacks and other ethnic groups into the inner Kazakh territories. Two major waves of migrants caused a dramatic increase of Slavic populations in the Kazakh steppe: the first took place after the appearance of the Law on Voluntarily Relocation of Rural Citizens to State Lands (1863) and the second during Stolypin’s Agrarian Reform (1906
1917). According to Masanov and associates (2001), in 1897 the share of Slavs in the total population of Kazakhstan was 14.7% (626,400 people), and in 1911 their share reached 28.5% (1, 500, 000 people). The proportion of Slavs was especially high in the northern regions. For instance, in 1897 Russian-speakers represented about 30% of total population in Akmola and Ural areas (oblasts). In 1920, Kazakhstan within its current borders became the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian Federation, and in 1936 it was proclaimed a separate Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The Republic of Kazakhstan became independent in 1991. Kazakhstan is a constitutional republic with a very strong presidential power. The current president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, initially came to power in 1989 as head of the Kazakh Communist Party, and was elected President in 1991. Since 2000, the country has enjoyed significant economic growth, partly due to its large oil, gas, and mineral reserves. Genealogically, languages of Kazakhstan belong to the following language families: Turkic languages (26 languages including Kazakh, Azeri, Uzbek, Tatar, Turkish, Uyghur, etc.), speakers of which make up 60.5% of total population in the republic, and Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, etc.), speakers of which constitute 34.6% of total population; 4.9% of the population speak languages of other language families (Germanic, Finn-Uralic, China-Tibetan, Nakhsko-Dagestanian, Semitic, and others). The Kazakh language belongs to the western branch of Turkic languages. Syntactically, it is a Subject Object Verb (SOV) language with highly agglutinative morphology. As most Turkic languages, Kazakh is characterized by vowel synharmonism. Turkic tribes used various runic scripts for writing, the earliest of which is dated to the seventh
eighth century; it is also believed that literacy was widespread among the Turkic tribes (Amanzholov, 2003). After the arrival of Islam to the steppe, all other writing systems were gradually replaced by the Arabic script. For literary and scientific purposes, from the eleventh century to the beginning of the twentieth century, Turkic people used Chagatai, a supradialect literary variety. In 1924, the Arabic script used for writing in Kazakh was modified by Akhmet Baitursunov3 to better reflect the phonetic structure of Kazakh. In 1929, ‘the new Turkic alphabet’, based on the Latin script, was introduced. Finally, in 1940 the script was changed once more to Cyrillic. In the first years after the 1991 independence, the issue of replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin script was broadly discussed in mass media; however, the government and the majority of the public and the scholarly community opposed the idea, and the discussion gradually died out. At the start of 2006, President Nazarbayev raised the issue of alphabet change once

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again and asked his government to present a feasible action plan within six months (Nazarbayev, 2006a). By June 2007, the Ministry of Education and Science developed a detailed plan of action according to which the alphabet transfer should start in 2008 and end in 2014 (Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2007). However, in November 2007 it was decided to halt the process for an indefinite period (based on personal communication with a member of the government committee on language policy, November 2007). By the time of this writing, no new developments in this area have been made public.




Soviet Kazakhstan in the 1930 1980s The 1930s in Kazakhstan were marked by a romantic belief in equality and sovereignty, the right to free self-determination (and secession) and the formation of independent states, the abolition of all national and nationalreligious privileges or restrictions, and the free development of all ethnic minorities of the former Tsarist Empire (Declaration of Rights of People of Russia, 1917, in Tishkov, 1997). These beliefs found their reflection in the nativization (korenizatsiia) policy, which had played a vital role in transforming the Kazakh national identity (on korenizatsiia in Soviet language policy, see Pavlenko, 2006, Smith, 1998). The major outcomes of this period were the emergence of Kazakhstan as a distinct political entity, the strengthening of Kazakh ethnic identity, and the development of Kazakh as a standard national language to be used in political and educational institutions. Mass education and the policy of nativization played a fundamental role in re-distribution of power in Kazakhstan, allowing large numbers of Kazakh nationals to enter Soviet political and cultural arenas. The nativization policy came to a halt after Stalin’s accession to power. By that time, regions, including Kazakhstan, had already started to take steps towards economic sovereignty, but were promptly accused of nationalism. The new regime brought about a complete shift in attitudes to nationalism and national languages: no manifestation of nationalism of any kind was tolerated any longer and anti-nationalist cleansing had begun. In the 1930s most of the Kazakh intelligentsia, especially national leaders, were repressed and executed. Olcott (1985) writes that ‘virtually no Kazakh intellectuals
and by this is meant individuals who asserted a distinct Kazakh cultural identity, survived the decade, and the few who did carefully faded from the public eye. Those sacrificed were replaced by Kazakh cadre willing to actively pursue a policy of Russification’ (p. 195). The new policy of russification, promoting Russian as a universal second language, was set in motion. In 1938, the teaching of Russian in all nonRussian schools was declared obligatory (Suleimenova, 1997). In 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was imposed (ibid, pp. 177
180), and in 1941, benefits for specialists who knew Kazakh were terminated (ibid, p. 217). In 1955, obligatory teaching of Kazakh as a subject in Russian schools was terminated (ibid, p. 225). The most serious blow that significantly weakened the position of Kazakh was the 1958
1959 educational reform. The new thinking was a radical shift from previous beliefs that children must be taught in their native

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language; now the choice of the language of instruction was left to parents. However, as Wright (2000) notes, taking into account the numbers of Kazakhand Russian-medium schools and the disparity in potential education attainment in both languages, ‘there was evidently little maneuver for choice there’ (p. 2). For graduates of Kazakh-medium schools the choice of higher education fields was limited to humanities, education, culture, and agriculture. Moreover, the quality of education at the Russian-medium schools was higher which is understandable
these schools had a longer history of teaching which in turn meant better developed teaching materials and more and better prepared teachers. As a result, approximately 700 Kazakh-medium schools were eliminated (Fierman, 1998). Schooling for Kazakhs in their own language became unavailable, especially in urban areas where ‘such schools were often nearly non-existent’ (Olcott, 1985: 2000). In the 1960s in Almaty, then the capital of Kazakhstan, there were four Kazakh-medium boarding schools for rural students, but not a single school for city children. Kazakhmedium school #12 opened in Almaty in 1968 under pressure from the Kazakh cultural, academic, and political elite whose children and grandchildren became the first students in this school (interview with Rafika Nurtazina, the principal of school #12 from 1971 to 1986). This school remained the single Kazakh-medium school for city children until the end of the 1970s. As a result of these measures, the enrollment at Kazakh-medium schools dropped: in 1958, 75% of Kazakh children attended Kazakh-medium schools; in 1991, only 34.4% attended such schools, most of them in rural areas (UNDP, 1992). The demographic context was also not conducive to the preservation of the position of Kazakh in society. According to Dave (2003) and Masanov et al. (2001), Kazakhs accounted for more than half of the population of the republic (58.2%) in 1926,4 but during the next 33 years, the Kazakh population shrunk by almost half. Over 1.5 million5 Kazakhs died from starvation as a result of the destruction of the traditional economy,6 when nomad Kazakhs were forced to abandon their lifestyle and become farmers. Later, Kazakhstan became the place for deportation of political and criminal convicts and ‘anti-socialist’ or ‘enemy’ ethnic groups, believed to be potential collaborators of Japan and Nazi Germany. As a result, Kazakhstan became home to 444,005 Germans, 244,674 Chechens, 95,241 Koreans, 80,844 Ingushs, 35,735 Karachai, 28,130 Poles, 28,497 Meskhetian Turks, 16,819 Balkars, and many other ethnic groups. By January 1953, there were 988,373 ‘special settlers’ (spetsposelentsy) in Kazakhstan. When the population of the country still did not reach the level of 1926, an immigration of Russians and Ukrainians, up to 325,000 per year, made Kazakhs a minority in their own country. Industrialization and the campaign of Virgin lands (tselina) aimed at increasing the wheat production brought about 2 million people to the republic. By 1959, Kazakhs constituted a mere 30% of the total population. Most of these were rural Kazakhs; in 1970 the Kazakh share in the urban population was 20%, while Slavic groups (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) represented the urban majority even in primarily Kazakh regions in the south and southwest of the country. Russians were not just a demographic majority, they were also a dominant group politically, economically and culturally. As evidence, Laitin (1998: 74)

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provides the following numbers: in 1955
1972, native occupancy of Kazakhs in all leading jobs was 46.6%, native occupancy in administrative positions was 6.7%. Russians also controlled intellectual life: the share of non-Russian scientific workers in 1960 was 21.4%, and in 1973 this figure was 29.8% (ibid). Ethnic stratification of the labor force had its consequences in terms of the relative prestige of particular ethnic groups and social values of Kazakh and Russian. Since Russian-speaking newcomers were employed in better paid and more prestigious economic sectors, while Kazakhs worked on the land, the prestige of ethnic Kazakhs and their language dropped. Such an asymmetrical distribution of power in society, combined with the lack of Kazakh-medium social and educational institutions and Russian dominance in the urban environments eventually led to language assimilation among urban Kazakhs. As a result, Russian language oral proficiency and literacy were very high among urban Kazakhs: 75.3% of them reported fluency in Russian (All-Union Census, 1989). Laitin (1998) explains this tendency as follows: For Kazakhs, the motivation to learn Russian was to become in Abram de Swaan’s formulation, ‘‘monopoly mediators’’ standing between Russian rule at the center and Kazakh society in the periphery. Those who learned Russian and developed other forms of cultural capital enabling them to earn the trust of Soviet officials were not only able to get higher education (unavailable in Kazakh) but were also able to advance to positions of local or regional authority. (p. 71) Language reinforced other social differences among Kazakhs. Russianspeaking Kazakhs were more likely to have university degrees or professional training and to be urban, cosmopolitan, and more prosperous. Kazakhspeaking Kazakhs were more likely to have lower levels of education and to be rural, poor, and religious. Russian became a trademark of urban Kazakhs. Kazakh came to be associated with backwardness and rural residency. Yessenova (2005) who studied urban migration in modern Kazakhstan argues: The ‘‘city’’ was created in the Soviet past as a distinct cultural universe through a number of deliberate social and economic strategies, including residence permits, resource allocation, language, and education, which shaped a strong sense of entitlement among its citizens. (p. 678) Nevertheless, the role of Kazakh as an emblem of Kazakh ethnic identity remained very high. According to All-Union Census (1970, 1979, 1989) results, Kazakhs almost unanimously claimed Kazakh as their native language (98% in 1970, 97.5% in 1979, and 97% in 1989). To sum up, by the time of the dissolution of the USSR, the russification policy and a great influx of monolingual Russian speakers and their concentration in political, economic and cultural centers seriously weakened the status of Kazakh and restricted its sociolinguistic functions. The share of Kazakhs who claimed fluency in Russian steadily increased from 41.6% in 1970, to 50.6% in 1979, and reached 62.8% in 1989, while less than 1% of Russians claimed to speak Kazakh (All-Union Census 1970, 1979, 1989). This asymmetrical bilingualism reflected the ethnic stratification of the Soviet

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Kazakhstan, where Kazakh-speakers found themselves dominated politically, economically, and culturally, and threatened demographically: the Kazakh SSR was the only Soviet republic where the titular nationality was a minority. Urban Kazakhs, who happened to be in the forefront of the social transformation processes, were caught in an assimilation/separation dilemma. On the one hand, anyone who desired any social advancement was expected to acquire proficiency in Russian, without it there were few possibilities to gain access to symbolic and material resources. On the other hand, the hierarchical nature of the all-union state, language shift, privileged status of Russian and marginalization of Kazakh made local elites question the status quo and voice their complaints. Political liberalization of the mid-1980s, that followed Gorbachev’s access to power, accelerated ethnic mobilization among Kazakhs. Kazakh may have lost its prestige and material value, but its symbolic value as an emblem of ethnic identity remained high.

Kazakhstan in 1989 and Today: Demographic Background As demonstrated above, towards the end of the Soviet period the demographic situation in the republic was less than conducive to implementation of the new language policy of kazakhization aimed at Kazakh maintenance and restoration of Kazakh in official domains. According to the AllUnion Census of 1989, Kazakhs
the titular nationality
represented a mere 39.7% of the total population of the republic. The share of Russians was 37.8% and over a hundred other ethnicities made up nearly a quarter of the population. Russians concentrated in the cities, political, economic and cultural centers, making up half of the Kazakhstan urban population, while only 26.7% of urban dwellers were Kazakhs. Fluency in Russian among other ethnic groups was nearly universal: 100% of Belarusians, 98% of Ukrainians, 97% of Koreans, and 91% of Tatars reported Russian proficiency (All-Union Census, 1989). Since the 1960s, urban Kazakhs were undergoing a rapid language shift (Khasanov, 1987; Kopylenko & Saina, 1982), whereby urban Kazakhs with a higher level of education (which usually corresponds to higher social status and income) were more likely to have little or no proficiency in Kazakh. Khasanov (1987) surveyed language use at urban homes and found that even students at Kazakh-medium schools used Russian more frequently than Kazakh at home: a mere 17.4% of schoolchildren reported speaking Kazakh at home, while 22.7 and 59.9% of the respondents reported speaking Russian or both languages, respectively. Kazakh was practically displaced from all public spheres, including the system of education, especially in urban areas. The social, political, and economic changes that took place after the breakup of the Soviet Union have considerably reshaped the demographic structure of Kazakhstan. As seen in Table 1, by 1999 the share of Russians, Slavs, and Germans had decreased, mainly as a result of mass emigration following the dissolution of the USSR (All-Union Census, 1989; Smailov, 2001). In turn, the Kazakh share of the country’s population increased due to higher birth rates among Kazakhs, and as a result of the state policy of repatriation of ethnic Kazakhs from other countries. Since 1991, 117.6 thousand families (or more

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Table 1 Dynamics of demographic changes in the Republic of Kazakhstan* 1970 Size (1000s)

1979 %

Size (1000s)

1989 %

Size (1000s)

1999 %

Size (1000s)

%

Total population 13,013.0 100.0 14,688.3 100.0 16,199.2 100.0 14,953.1 100.0 1. Kazakhs

4,338.4

32.6

5,293.4

36.0

6,496.9

40.1

7,985.0

53.4

2. Russians

5,521.9

42.4

5,991.2

40.8

6,062.0

37.4

4,479.6

30.0

3. Ukranians

993.5

7.2

898.0

6.1

875.7

5.4

547.1

3.7

4. Uzbeks

216.3

1.7

263.3

1.8

331.0

2.0

370.7

2.5

5. Germans

858.1

6.6

900.2

6.1

946.9

5.8

353.4

2.4

6. Tatars

285.7

2.2

312.6

2.1

320.7

2.0

249.0

1.7

7. Uyghurs

120.9

0.9

147.9

1.0

181.5

1.1

210.4

1.4

8. Belarusians

198.3

1.5

181.5

1.2

177.9

1.1

111.9

0.7

9. Koreans

81.6

0.6

92.0

0.6

100.7

0.6

99.7

0.7

10. Azeri

57.7

0.4

73.3

0.5

89.0

0.5

78.3

0.5

11. Turks

18.5

0.1

25.8

0.2

49.5

0.3

75.9

0.5

12. Poles

61.4

0.5

61.1

0.4

59.4

0.4

47.3

0.3

13. Dungans

17.3

0.1

22.5

0.2

30.0

0.2

36.9

0.2

14. Kurds

12.3

0.1

17.7

0.1

25.4

0.2

32.8

0.2

15. Chechens

34.5

0.3

38.3

0.3

49.1

0.3

31.8

0.2

356.2

10.8

369.5

9.6

403.6

11.6

243.4

7.9

16. Others

*The table shows 15 largest ethnic groups out of 126 registered by the 1999 Census (Smailov, 2001).

than 464.4 thousand ethnic Kazakhs) have returned to Kazakhstan from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, China, Iran, and Mongolia. Of these returnees (oralmans), 288,594 have already received Kazakhstani citizenship. In 2005 alone, more than 25,000 oralmans arrived in Kazakhstan (Expert Kazakhstan, November 7
13, 2005, p. 8). They are mainly settled in the northern regions, with predominantly Slavic populations, in order to increase the share of Kazakhs in these regions. The repatriates’ yearly quota and their settlement are controlled by the State Migration Agency and financially supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. The government provides them with housing and/or land, relieves them from the customs tax and the state fee for the citizenship application, grants them educational privileges (scholarships, university entrance privileges, free preparatory courses), provides access to free health care, and pays retirement pensions to the elderly. Rapid urbanization of Kazakhs also increased their share in the cities from 27.1% in 1989 to 48.5% in 1999, while the share of Russians dropped from

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50.8 to 37.0% (All-Union Census, 1989; Smailov, 2001). The relocation of the capital from Almaty in the south to Astana in the north of the country has led to the redistribution of Kazakhs due to internal migration from the Kazakhdominated south, where Kazakhs constitute between 70 and 97% of the population to the Russian-dominated north, where Kazakhs make up less than 50% of the population. The demographic division between north and south is manifested in different levels of Kazakh and Russian proficiency. The southern and western regions are already nearly monolingual Kazakh with limited or no functional knowledge of Russian among the youth, while northern, central and eastern regions remain predominantly Russian speaking (Smailov, 2001). The knowledge of Russian is also widespread among non-Russian ethnic groups. Only Uzbeks and Tajiks, residing densely in the border territories with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan show relatively low proficiency in Russian, 59.2 and 35.8% respectively (Smailov, 2001). Most non-Turkic ethnic groups are linguistically russified: only a quarter of Koreans claim to speak their native language, the situation is even more dramatic for speakers of Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and many other languages.

Language Policy in Independent Kazakhstan Current language policy in Kazakhstan reflects the sociodemographic and linguistic complexity in the republic. On the one hand, Kazakhstan’s government pursues the monolingual policy of kazakhization aimed at establishing Kazakh as the state language of independent Kazakhstan. On the other hand, Kazakhstan has historically been a multinational state with a large majority of the population speaking Russian as a native or second language. This led the government to introduce a multilingual policy aimed at the maintenance of Russian and other languages. The rapid penetration of English into Kazakhstani society coupled with the government’s ambitions of making Kazakhstan a competitive player in the regional and world economy also forced the government to adopt a multilingual ideology. What follows is a brief overview of current language policy based on analysis of legislative documents, political speeches, and mass-media materials. This analysis is supplemented by the results of interviews I conducted in 2006
2007 in Almaty. The aim of these interviews was to see how people in various workplaces (banks, business companies, and educational institutions) dealt with new language policy requirements. The semi-structured interviews were quite short and were tailored to the specifics of their job context. The informants were asked whether they use Kazakh at work, for what purposes and how often; whether they make any efforts to learn Kazakh themselves and whether they make any efforts to teach Kazakh to their children; and what changes have they noticed with regard to kazakhization. The city of Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, was chosen as the interview site because of its size (about 2 million inhabitants) and its role as a financial, political, and cultural center.

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Restoration of Kazakh Kazakh is the sole state language of Kazakhstan (Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Article 7). This monolingual approach was motivated by the need to define the identity of newly independent Kazakhstan. As E. Kazhybekov, chair of the Language Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan, stated in a recent interview, ‘a state language is a face of any country, it is a symbol just like its flag, coat of arms, and anthem’ (Abramov, 2006). The territorial principle is fundamental in this choice: Kazakhstan is the land of Kazakhs who speak Kazakh and Kazakhs are ‘the state-forming nation’ (e.g. Principles of Formation of State Identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 1996). The aim of the language legislation is to improve the status of Kazakh in relation to Russian, on the basis that Kazakh has been treated as a minority language in its own titular republic long enough (Abdygaliev, 2003; Omarova, 2007). A corollary of this view are the state’s status planning efforts aimed at incorporation and legitimization of Kazakh in the major state institutions such as government bodies, education, and mass media, as well as in the names of geographic locations, streets, roads and organizations. Dave (2003) argues that the situation in Kazakhstan is typical of ethnically diverse societies where the ‘indigenous’ group was once marginalized by more mobile ‘non-indigenous’ groups, and seeks superiority through status reversal. Consequently, the major purpose of Kazakh language legislation was to upgrade the status of the Kazakh language. Listed below are the key Kazakh language policy documents. In addition to these, there are numerous internal orders, official letters, memos, etc. issued by specific ministries, departments, municipalities, and other governmental bodies. 1995

Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1996

On the principles of language policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1996

Principles of formation of state identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1996

On the order of naming and renaming of entities, organizations, institutions, railroad stations, airports, and geographical objects in the Republic of Kazakhstan and the change in their spelling

1997

Law on languages of the Republic of Kazakhstan

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1998

On official interpretation of item 2, Article 41 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1998

Decree on expansion of the usage of the state language in state bodies

1998

State program of the functioning and development of languages

1998

Decree on the state onomastics committee

1999 1999 1999, modified in 2007 1999

Law on state service Law on mass media Law on education in the Republic of Kazakhstan

1999

On regime of control of the implementation of language legislation

Law on labor in the Republic of Kazakhstan

1999, Decree on requirements for placing information in Kazakh modified and Russian on product labels (O in 2000 2000

Order of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan on financial incentives for government officials preparing documentation in the state language

2001

State program of the functioning and development of languages for the years 2001
2010

2002

Decree on implementation of the state program of the functioning and development of languages for the years 2001
2010

2006

Principles of extension of the spheres of use of the state language

(For the full text of these documents, see http://www.rcpi.kz/bd.htm or http://www.kz.spinform.ru/.)

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The Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan stipulates the need for proficient knowledge of the state language for the highly symbolic positions of the President of the state and the Chairperson of the Parliament. In October 1998, the Central Election Committee sent a request to the Constitutional Committee to clarify the meaning of the words ‘fluent proficiency in the state language’ and to specify the procedure for determining the proficiency of the candidates. It was decided that ‘fluent proficiency’ refers to the ‘ability to read and write accurately, and to express ideas and speak publicly effortlessly, without any difficulties’ (On official interpretation of item 2, article 41, of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 1998, author’s translation). In accordance with this document, the Central Election Committee gathers an adhoc linguistic committee of no fewer than five people who then evaluate the candidates. In October 2005, 5 of 18 candidates running in the presidential election failed to pass the language test and were eliminated from the race. At the same time, language requirements are not specified for any other high political posts, though talks about it are constant. For instance, in April 2005 when the Parliament was discussing the amendments to the Law on Elections, Parliament Members Shakhanov and Aitaly, more nationalistically oriented politicians, proposed to introduce the Kazakh language test for all candidates for the Parliament seats, including ethnic Kazakhs. However, only 18 out of 77 members present at that session of the lower chamber of the Parliament, Mazhilis, voted for the introduction of the Kazakh language test. The proposition was condemned by most members of the Parliament as violating the language and human rights of the Russian-speakers. Kazakh nationalists used the same argument maintaining that the inability of the politicians to speak Kazakh violates the language and human rights of the Kazakh population who are unable to communicate with the government and their own representatives in the Parliament. There could also be a more mundane explanation for the vote: not many Parliament and government members are fluent Kazakh speakers, even fewer possess Kazakh literacy skills. The legal documents that the Parliament discusses are still developed in Russian and later translated into Kazakh; but even then the quality of the Kazakh translation is often so bad that to understand it one has to check the Russian version. Another measure aimed at kazakhization of the state apparatus and work places is the transfer of all paperwork into Kazakh, which is supposed to be completed by 2010. Five out of 14 regions, southern Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda, Atyrau, Zhambyl, and Mangistau, all with a predominant Kazakh-speaking population, have already done so. In January 2006, despite the protests of the local governments and the public, Aktobe, western Kazakhstan, Karaganda and two major cities, Astana and Almaty, have begun the transfer. The northern regions with the predominantly Russian-speaking populations will be the last to do so. The regulation applies not only to state-controlled organizations and institutions, but also to privately owned businesses that should submit financial, taxation, statistic and technical documents in Kazakh and Russian. In addition to maintaining official correspondence with the government institutions in Kazakh, the Law on Languages obliges organizations

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to match the language of the written response to the language of the client’s inquiry. Lack of Kazakh literacy skills among employees seriously hinders the process of kazakhization of the paperwork. In governmental bodies the share of paperwork in Kazakh is about 20
30% of the total volume, the rest of the paperwork is in Russian (Principles of Extension of the Spheres of Use of State Language, 2006). The results of our survey conducted in 2005
2007 and discussed in detail later in this paper demonstrate that less than 50% of the whole sample claim the ability to write in Kazakh, with the share even lower among older respondents where reported writing fluency is less than 40%. As a result, at the moment only the central government bodies, such as the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Finance, located in the capital Astana, as well as organizations located in the Kazakh-predominant southern and western regions, issue their documents either in Kazakh only or in both languages. Most organizations continue to produce most of their documents (especially internal documents) in Russian, with the exception of those they are required to submit to the central state bodies, i.e. various ministries or state agencies, such as the Agency of Financial Control. An interview I conducted with the head of the Halyk Bank branch showed that only one among 35 members of the staff had some Kazakh literacy skills. During the week the interview took place, this bank branch received 67 letters, but only two were in Kazakh while the remainder was in Russian. Similarly, a financial director of a private oil company whose headquarters are located in Almaty admitted that receiving a letter in Kazakh (most often they arrive from the central government bodies and from the western regions of Atyrau and Aktau where the oil fields are located), is a ‘minor crisis’: ‘We run around trying to find someone who can tell us what the letter says’. In most cases the weight of the paperwork and customer relations in Kazakh is placed on the shoulders of ethnic Kazakh employees who are expected to know or learn their native language sufficiently well in order to be able to perform their duties in Kazakh. Concerned with the slow implementation of Kazakh in state structures, the government decided to take more aggressive measures. It had launched a new campaign, ‘2007 is the year of the Kazakh language’, by the end of which all state structures were expected to considerably increase not only the volume of the paperwork in Kazakh but also its quality; they were also expected to expand the availability of services in Kazakh. The campaign was coordinated by the Language Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Information jointly with the Prosecutors’ Office, the latter was placed in charge of controlling whether the state structures follow the language legislation. To support the campaign, the state considerably increased the budget for language planning: in 2007 it planned to spend about 3 billion Tenge (more than 25 million dollars), this does not include additional funding for the publishing of teaching materials and dictionaries (http://ru.governement.kz/site/news/ 2007/08/55). The Ministry of Culture and Information jointly with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare are developing a new legislative document stipulating language requirements for particular governmental positions. The purpose of this document is to specify

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language requirements for particular jobs, whereby potential job candidates will have to pass a standardized language test as part of the job application process. This law will be presented to the Parliament in 2008 (Abramov, 2006), meanwhile the Kazakh language proficiency test has already been piloted in the years 2006
2007 (Kuzekova et al., 2007). The body responsible for the test development is the Testing Center that also develops standardized exit tests for secondary school graduates. Due to the lack of specialists in the area of assessment in general and language assessment in particular, the quality of the test is said to be poor (interview with Olga Altynbekova, an expert at the Testing Center). Special attention is given to the standardization and terminological unification of Kazakh with the goal of bringing it to the level of ‘developed’ languages so it could fully meet the new demands placed upon it and compete with Russian as a language of culture, education, and technology. As the use of Kazakh during the Soviet era was limited to a few domains, it lacks modern vocabulary and stylistic variation. Unfortunately, while status planning has always been a highly centralized activity, corpus planning has suffered from the lack of coordinated efforts. The state approach to corpus planning was ‘a free-for-all’ and its main concern was the expansion of functional domains rather than unification of language use. The state participates in corpus planning through the State Terminological Committee; however, the pace of this organization is too slow. Kazakh is largely developed through the efforts of individuals
intellectual elite, enthusiasts, writers, editors, translators, educators, students
basically all language users who are forced to be inventive by the circumstances. Often these people have had no formal training in Kazakh, only in Russian. For example, educators who previously used to teach only in Russian were compelled to develop Kazakh terminology in the field of their expertise because they were pressed to teach in Kazakh. Such an uncoordinated chaotic language development led to wild terminological variation and poor quality of Kazakh texts that are often simply ungrammatical or do not make much sense. Ana Tili (Mother Tongue) newspaper constantly raises the issue of correctness and adequacy of Kazakh translations (e.g. Akhmetov, 2007; Zhanakulov, 2007). To improve the situation, in November of 2007, the state included issues of terminological unification and language standardization in the agenda of the newly formed State Commission on Language Policy Improvement chaired by the Prime Minister. In addition to appeals to citizens’ loyalty (‘It is a responsibility of each citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan to learn the state language’) and Kazakhs’ obligation (‘Kazakh, speak Kazakh with a Kazakh!’) that were widely seen on the billboards and heard on the radio during the height of the campaign, the new campaign organizers had come with a new image of a ‘competitive Kazakh’ to appeal to people’s economic interests. The argument in official statements (e.g. Nazarbayev, 2006b) is that the lack of Kazakh proficiency and resistance to it in official and public domains impedes the development of Kazakhstan as an economic power because only a consolidated nation could gain economic power and a common state language is a means of such unification. The language campaign itself is positioned as part

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of the new program of the country’s strategic development aimed at making Kazakhstan one of the top 50 economically competitive countries. Maintenance of Russian and Other Languages Russian is de jure and de facto an official language of Kazakhstan. Its status was elevated from a language of interethnic communication (1989 Law on Languages of the Kazakh SSR, 1993 Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan) to an official language in the 1995 Constitution. All legislative documents, official announcements, and forms have to be issued in two languages. However, variations in formulations specifying the status of Russian from a quite direct ‘In state organizations and local government bodies Russian is officially used on equal footing with Kazakh’ (Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Article 7) to a rather evasive ‘could be used if necessary’ in the Law on Languages leave room for interpretation. While they permit the use of Russian, acknowledging citizens’ constitutional right to choose a language of communication with the bureaucratic apparatus, the legislative documents also strongly suggest the supremacy of Kazakh, the sole state language, which must be used in all spheres regulated by the state. Lately, especially after the paperwork transfer into Kazakh, some rural branches of state organizations, for example those of the Land Committee, stopped providing forms in Russian. These latest developments have caused uneasiness among the Russianspeaking population, and the issue of Russian as a second state language has been raised once more, this time even by ‘loyal’ ethnic groups. For example, the chair of the Association of Chechen and Ingush people, Muradov, expressed his concerns with recent aggressive kazakhization and proposed to consider Russian as a second state language, appealing to the example of Finland where Swedish people whose share is only 6% in the total population have Swedish as a state language (Kurbatov, 2006). This made Nazarbayev declare during his meeting with young state officials of the non-Kazakh ethnic background that the transfer to Kazakh paperwork does not imply Kazakhonly policy, it means that all paperwork must be bilingual in Kazakh and Russian; he also warned against ethnic and language discrimination (Kazakhstan Today, December 13, 2006). Extreme Kazakh nationalists blame the government for being too nice, too slow, and too timid in implementing language laws and regulations. However, Nazarbayev and his political entourage, who are more moderate, have been quite concerned about the possible social consequences of stricter policies. While promoting Kazakh as a state language and building a national state, the government also undertook stability-enhancing measures to prevent ethnic conflicts and to maintain the loyalty of its non-Kazakh citizens. After the dissolution of the USSR, Kazakhstan
unlike Latvia and Estonia
granted citizenship to those who were residing in Kazakhstan at the time of the breakup regardless of their ethnic background. To date, no citizenship language tests have been used in Kazakhstan. Until now, the policy has been moderate, with few sanctions for failure to comply with language laws and legislations (Fierman, 2006). As shown above, many organizations continue to

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issue their documentation in Russian only, despite the requirement to do so in Kazakh or in both languages. Many, especially private, organizations still fail to meet the requirement to display visual information in both languages or to provide product information in Kazakh. To my knowledge, there were no cases when a person was fired because of the lack of Kazakh proficiency. In July 2007, the government announced the adoption of a new cultural project, Trinity of languages (Triedinstvo iazykov). The goal of the project is to develop societal trilingualism whereby the majority of the population would be able to speak in three languages, Kazakh, Russian and English, Kazakh being the main language. The Minister of Culture and Information Ertysbaev in his official statement declared: ‘We should not allow such a situation when Kazakh youth in some regions shows no knowledge of Russian. In language policy there should be no extremes’ (Khabar Agency, July 24, 2007). It is said that the new project stressing the importance of Russian is Kazakh government’s response to Russia’s 2006 Federal Program of assisting ethnic Russians willing to relocate to Russia (Kazakhstan Today, August 17, 2007). It is also noteworthy that the new project was announced during the time of Parliament elections, possibly as a political means of gaining voices of non-Kazakh voters. In line with the project objectives, the Testing Center is developing a Russian language proficiency test for government workers. This measure is taken to ensure that language requirements are not discriminatory; job applicants regardless of their ethnic background should demonstrate proficiency in both official languages, Kazakh and Russian (interview with Olga Altynbekova, an expert at the Testing Center). In addition to financing development of new language teaching materials and methods, it is planned to finance more Sunday schools and to provide financial assistance to already existing ones so that they teach not only ethnic languages, but also Kazakh and English. At the same time, the Ministry of Information and Culture signed a memorandum stating that the Russian community should take some responsibility for teaching Kazakh to Russian youth (Khabar Agency, July 24, 2007). Overall, Nazarbayev’s government has been putting a lot of effort in keeping ethnic minorities loyal to the state. As will be shown below, demographically strong ethnic groups in places of dense residence have access to state-financed education in their native languages. Diasporas also receive educational and financial help through the embassies of their homeland countries, such as Germany or Poland. At present, there are 365 national cultural centers in Kazakhstan; 31 are represented in the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan. There are 11 newspapers published in minority languages, including Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in German, Kore Ilbo in Korean, Uigur Aivazi in Uyghur, and Ukrainski Novyny in Ukrainian (http://ru. government.kz/resources/docs/doc8). There are also Uyghur, Korean and German theaters. Language Education The education system in Kazakhstan remains divided by the language of instruction as it was during the Soviet time: children attend either Kazakh-medium or Russian-medium schools; the choice is made by the

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parents. As the school curriculum is unified, it is theoretically possible to transfer a child from a Kazakh-language to a Russian-language school and vice versa. Since 1989, the enrollment in Kazakh-language schools has increased rapidly, while the enrollment in Russian-language schools has decreased. From the school year 1988
1989 to 2006
2007, the share of schoolchildren enrolled in Kazakh-language schools has nearly doubled from 30.2 to 54.8% (Fierman, 2006; State Program of the Development of Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2005
2010, 2005). The number of Kazakh-medium schools has increased by 781 in comparison to 1991 (Kuzakov, 2007). Nevertheless, in urban areas Russian-language schools are still prevalent. For instance, in Almaty there are 41,081 pupils in 42 Kazakh-medium schools and 64,784 pupils in 80 Russian-medium schools. In addition, there are 49 mixed schools where 22,403 pupils are taught in Kazakh and 30,010 in Russian (interview with an officer of the Department of Education of Almaty city). Currently about 80% of Kazakh children attend Kazakh-medium schools (Kuzakov, 2007), while in 1991 only 34.4% did (UNDP, 1992). However, almost 80% of Kazakh schools are located in rural areas (Principles of Extension of the Spheres of Use of the State Language, 2006). The share of urban Kazakhs in Russian schools remains high, especially in the northern regions. Interviews with parents, conducted as part of my workplace study mentioned earlier, reveal a variety of reasons for selecting Russian-language schools. Among the most frequently mentioned are the lack of Kazakh-language schools nearby, fear of being unable to help a child with school work because of the lack of Kazakh language skills, and a belief that Russian-language schools provide better quality education. For the most part, Kazakh-medium schools remain mono-ethnic; only about 20,000 non-Kazakhs are enrolled in Kazakh schools across Kazakhstan (Kuzakov, 2007). Russian and Kazakh are required school subjects in Kazakh secondary schools: Russian is obligatorily taught in Kazakh-medium schools and Kazakh in Russian-medium schools. In Kazakh-medium schools, Russian is introduced from grade 4. It is taught 2 hours a week; in addition the children are taught Russian literature: 1 hour in grades 5
9 and 2 hours in grades 10
11. In 2002, the requirement to divide language classes into two subgroups in cases where the number of pupils exceeded 20 was cancelled for urban schools, though in rural schools the regulation remains in force. In Russian-medium schools, Kazakh as a subject is taught from grade 1. Until this year, the language curricula in Kazakh- and Russian-medium schools mirrored each other. In 2007 by order of the Ministry of Education, Russian-medium schools were given orders to increase the number of hours allocated to the Kazakh language. Currently in Russian-medium schools, Kazakh is taught 3 hours a week in grades 1
4; 4 hours a week in grades 5
9; and, 3 hours a week in grades 10 and 11. Additionally, there is 1 hour of Kazakh literature in grades 1
9 and 2 hours in grades 10
11 (interview with an officer of the Department of Education of Almaty city). Since 2008, the National Standard Test, acting both as a secondary school exit test and as a university entrance test, will test the knowledge of the second language. Graduates of Kazakh-medium schools will have to demonstrate their knowledge of Russian while graduates of Russian-medium schools will

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have to show proficiency in Kazakh. Young people competing for the state scholarship, Bolashak (The Future), for studying abroad need to demonstrate Kazakh language proficiency by writing an application essay in the state language. In addition to Kazakh and Russian, some children are receiving secondary education in minority languages. At present, about 3.3% of Kazakh schoolchildren attend 119 minority language schools. Secondary education (grades 1
11), financed by the state, is available in Uzbek (83,200 pupils, 82 schools), Uyghur (21,700 pupils, 13 schools), Tajik (2,700 pupils, 3 schools), as well as Ukrainian, German, Turkish and Tatar. Thirteen minority languages (German, Polish, Korean, Dungan, Tatar, Turkish, Azeri, Kurd, Chechen, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew, and Belarusian) are taught as subjects in 126 schools (Kuzakov, 2007; Smailov, 2004; http://edu.gov.kz). There are 196 Sunday schools where more than 7,000 children and adults are learning their native languages (Erden Kazhybek, head of the Committee on languages of the Ministry of Culture and Information, in an interview with Enaleev, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, 16 August, 2007). As already mentioned, in 2007, the government announced a new trilingual policy in the area of education. According to this policy, each Kazakhstani child should acquire three languages, Kazakh, Russian, and English, not only by taking them as subjects but by studying in them. Several experimental trilingual schools have already started teaching subjects in three languages (interview with Eleonora Suleimenova, a member of the State Committee on Language Policy Improvement). Since English is intrinsically linked to upward social mobility and economic success, it is the most demanded foreign language in Kazakhstan. It is taught at secondary schools between 3 and 7 hours a week depending on the schools’ foreign language curriculum. Both Kazakh- and Russian-language schools face severe teacher shortages in most subjects, including languages. For example, in 2002 the shortage of teachers for Kazakh schools alone was 2,100 (Fierman, 2006). While the state makes efforts to increase enrollment in teacher training universities, low salaries make the job unattractive: few graduates choose to work in the area of education. The situation with training of the Russian language and literature teachers is particularly catastrophic. For example, in 2006
2007 at the Kazakh National University there was only one group of 20 students in the department of Russian philology while there were 5 groups, 100 students in total, in the department of Kazakh philology (an interview with the head of the Philology School). In comparison, when the author entered the same university in 1987, there were two equal size groups of 70 students and the interest in Russian was so high that five candidates competed for one place. Today, despite the state grants, the number of applicants to the Russian philology departments is extremely low which raises concerns for the future of Russian language teaching in Kazakhstan. In higher education, most universities offer education in two languages, and there are usually two streams in any department
Russian-language and Kazakh-language. The situation of Kazakh in higher education has improved and today, unlike in the Soviet times, Kazakh speakers have access to all areas of specialization. Commercialization of higher education and high demand for

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Kazakh language education forces universities to open new Kazakh-language departments and increase the number of Kazakh-language groups. In fact, in many university departments, Kazakh-language students outnumber Russianlanguage students. Kazakh and Russian are compulsory university subjects. Students from the departments teaching in Russian must take Kazakh, while students from Kazakh-language departments must take Russian. Along with measures aiming to strengthen the use of Kazakh on the institutional level, the government is taking steps to make learning Kazakh more attractive to adults. Each Ministry has a language department responsible for implementing language policy decisions and teaching Kazakh to its staff. Employees of government bodies have access to free Kazakh classes, which they are allowed to attend during their working hours. Many private organizations have a Kazakh language division; for instance, KazakTelecom, the biggest telecommunication provider made free Kazakh classes available to its workers (interview with M. Perizat, Kazakh language instructor at KazakTelecom). In 2007, the state opened several language centers in different regions where anyone can take a free Kazakh language class. To attract the attention of the younger strata of the population, much emphasis is placed on the use of IT technologies in teaching Kazakh. The government is also about to launch a monetary reward scheme for non-Kazakhs who know Kazakh, the proposed benefits could make up to 20
25% of their current salary (interview with Eleonora Suleimenova, member of the State Commission on Language Policy Improvement).

Responses to Language Policy As seen in the discussion above, the state has put much effort into legitimizing and institutionalizing Kazakh as a state language. The overall goal of the kazakhization policy is to create conditions when people opt for Kazakh over Russian. This section presents the previously unpublished data of a survey of the impact of language policy on people’s beliefs about Russian and Kazakh languages and their reported proficiency and use. The survey data was collected as part of the INTAS7-funded project ‘New language identity in transforming societies: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan’ (INTAS Ref. N 04-79-7292, grant for the period May 2005
May 2007) (see also Orusbaev et al., this issue). The Kazakh team included three researchers: Nursulu Shaimerdenova (team leader), Eleonora Suleimenova and the present researcher, Juldyz Smagulova, as well as one technician, Madina Akberdi. The decision to choose a self-evaluation survey methodology was motivated by several factors. First, it would allow us to get a broad sociolinguistic picture, capturing variation in reported language proficiency, reported language use, language behavioral intentions, and language values among different age groups. Second, the survey format was selected because of its relatively low cost and time efficiency. Finally, we were well aware of the fact that the international funding agency would probably be more interested in a large-scale quantitative project ‘which are perceived as having a far greater impact on policy and potential for change’ (Roberts, 2006: 5) than a small-scale qualitative study.

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The questionnaire was drafted in August 2005 by the Kazakhstan team and was distributed for reviews to other project teams. The first draft was in Russian. In September 2005, the survey was first tested among the faculty members of the School of Philology of the Kazakh National University in Almaty. During the procedure, the respondents were asked both to answer the questions and to comment on the questionnaire. At this stage, we made considerable changes to the wording and the layout of the questionnaire. Then the questionnaire was translated into Kazakh. To ensure quality, the Kazakh version was checked by several native Kazakh speakers from the Department of General Linguistics of the Kazakh National University. The second testing took place at the same venue, but this time the respondents were 100 undergraduate and graduate students. The data collected during the second piloting stage was used mainly to troubleshoot potential errors during the data collection procedure and to create an SPSS database. The main sample of 2,255 respondents interviewed in the study is divided into five ethnic groups: 1,022 ethnic Kazakhs (45.3%), 527 Russians (23.4%), 351 (15.6%) respondents of Turkic background (Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Tatars, Turks, Kyrgyz, Azeri, etc.), 86 (3.8%) respondents of Slavic background (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles) and 267 respondents (11.8%) from other ethnic groups (Koreans, Germans, Chechens, etc.).8 Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Tatars, Turks, Azeri, Kyrgyz, etc. speak related Turkic languages that are mutually comprehensible; all these ethnic groups are traditionally Muslim. Turkic ethnic groups in Kazakhstan have a high degree of ethnic language retention in comparison to other ethnic groups, such as Koreans, Germans, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, etc., who are linguistically russified. In terms of gender, the sample consists of 1,548 female respondents and 703 male respondents (four participants did not respond to the question). These respondents were between the ages of 16 and 80 years of age. Consequently, the sample is divided into four age groups: 886 respondents are 23 years old or younger, 602 respondents are between 24 and 35 years of age, 588 respondents are between 36 and 55 years of age, and 167 respondents are older than 55 (12 participants did not report their age). The self-report questionnaire drew on several earlier surveys conducted in Kazakhstan (Laitin, 1998; Masanov, 2002; Rivers, 2003; Son, 1999) and contained 48 questions. Forty-five of these were multiple choice and three questions, about age, ethnicity and native language (mother tongue), were open-ended. The questions on language use allowed respondents to choose among given options and/or add additional languages (Suleimenova et al., 2005). The data collection started in November 2005 and ended in February 2007. The survey was administered by graduate students of the Department of General Linguistics of the Kazakh National University. The respondents, all citizens of Kazakhstan, were asked to volunteer to participate in the survey. If agreed, they could choose between questionnaires in Russian or Kazakh. They were asked to fill out the questionnaire in the presence of the researcher. The average time to complete the entire questionnaire was about 20
30 minutes. The data was gathered by convenience sampling in schools, universities, workplaces (kindergartens, government offices, shops, industries, construction

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sites, etc.), and families in cities and villages in different regions of Kazakhstan. The survey measured language attitudes, competence and performance. These variables were adopted from Fishman’s (1991) Reversing Language Shift framework, which was also designed to analyze change in language behavior. The framework was found useful because it distinguishes between ‘wanting to (attitude/volition), being able to (competence) and actually doing so (performance)’ (Fishman, 1991: 44). The choice of social variables for the analysis of sociolinguistic change was based on results of earlier empirical studies of the sociolinguistic situation in Kazakhstan, which demonstrated the importance of the place of residence (urban/rural), level of education, gender, and age in predicting Kazakh/Russian language proficiency and use among Kazakhs (Khasanov, 1987; Kopylenko & Saina, 1982; Laitin, 1998; Rivers, 2002). Self-evaluation-based mass surveys of language abilities and language use are often misleading because they do not necessarily represent the actual language behavior and the wider context, but reflect the way the respondents would like to envision themselves. Also, since the survey was administered by representatives of the Kazakh National University, a state-sponsored educational and research institution, our respondents could assume that the data was collected for the government and may have adjusted their views to make them seem more loyal to the state than was actually the case. We hoped that the anonymity of the survey could somehow minimize this ‘social desirability bias’. Another potential cause of bias is convenience sampling. It could be that the accessible respondents may have different language attitudes than the less accessible ones. Although this bias is hard to gauge, we tried to reduce the error by increasing sample size and making it more representative by collecting data in different geographical locations, in urban and rural areas among people of different ethnic, educational, and occupational backgrounds, different levels of income and different ages. In post-Soviet countries, where citizens are especially sensitive to language issues, people have ‘strategic reasons to misrepresent their language patterns’ (Laitin, 1998: 369). As previous survey data show (e.g. Census results), citizens of Kazakhstan tend to overemphasize their ethnic belonging and the link between language and ethnicity (cf. Suleimenova & Smagulova, 2005). To lessen the halo effect, in our survey the question about the native language(s) preceded the question about ethnicity and both questions were left open-ended. We were also well aware of the shortcomings of cross-sectional studies. As already stated, the major assumption we had to accept was that variation between age groups is an indicator of language behavior change that had taken place over time. In the words of Fishman (1991): Although this assumption may be quite correct, it may also be less than completely valid. We are dealing with different subjects at each age, rather than with the same subjects at different ages, and there is no way of being completely sure that the former (the different subjects at each age) are really comparable in all relevant language-related respects. It is possible that they might be different in their degrees of language use
even if they were all the same age, i.e. even if they grew up at the

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same time
due to factors on which they have not been or cannot be equated. (p. 42) Of course, the most convincing study of language shift is a repeated survey of the same sample with a time interval (Fishman, 1991: 41). However, given the limits of the funding period and the amount of funding, we had no alternative to a single cross-generational study. To minimize this problem we added other social variables
gender, ethnicity, place of residence, and income
so that the survey would reflect not only age differences, but also age-related social and cultural differences. At the same time, while I am aware of the conceptual difference between conclusions about language shift drawn from snap-shot data and true change in dynamics, I believe that in some ways age-related differences may be more indicative of social change than the change in language attitudes of the same generation measured by a repeated survey. With age, language behavior becomes more rigid and more difficult to change. Consequently, age-related differences in responses may reflect socialization differences, i.e. differences in language ideologies, opportunities for language acquisition, and availability of institutional support, and, therefore, reveal social shifts. In the following, I will discuss in some detail only those questionnaire responses that have immediate relevance to the topic of this paper, namely the possible effects of kazakhization policies.

Survey Results Reported Language Proficiency The survey asked respondents to evaluate their speaking, listening comprehension, writing, and reading skills in Kazakh and Russian on the following scale, where 1 ‘fluently’, 2 ‘with difficulty’ and 3 ‘don’t speak/understand/read/write’. Obviously, this type of questionnaire raises the usual doubt about validity of self-assessment of language skills, especially when languages in question are valued as symbols of ethnicity and statehood. To partially overcome the problem, self-reports were matched against the choice of the language of the questionnaire. As already mentioned above, the respondents were given an opportunity to choose between Kazakh or Russian versions of the questionnaire. Their choices and discontinuities between selfassessment and language choice allowed us to identify the direction of the bias and to speculate about possible strategic reasons for misrepresentation. As seen in Table 2, Russian remains the dominant language of communication among the respondents: the competence in Russian is widespread among Kazakhs and nearly universal among non-Kazakhs. Even among the Kazakhs, the share of monolingual Kazakh speakers in the sample is only 5.7%. On the other hand, when asked about proficiency in Kazakh, almost half of the Russians, one-third of the Slavs and a quarter of respondents from other ethnic groups reported that they do not speak Kazakh. Table 3 displays the self-assessed proficiency in Kazakh and Russian by age. For the sake of simplicity and economy of space, the table displays only results from respondents who claim fluency in Kazakh and/or Russian. Table 3 shows

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Table 2 Reported oral proficiency in Kazakh and Russian by ethnicity (%) Kazakhs*

Russians

Turkic peoples

Slavs

Others

Fluently

82.7

3.6

57.3

0.0

31.8

With difficulty

13.5

36.1

31.3

44.2

29.2

1.1

48.4

7.1

37.2

24.0

Fluently

58.4

98.9

88.0

97.7

84.6

With difficulty

18.3

0.2

7.4

0.0

7.5

5.7

0.0

1.4

0.0

0.7

Kazakh language

Don’t speak Russian language

Don’t speak

*A high proportion of Kazakhs (17.1%) chose not to respond to the question about Russian oral proficiency, while only 2.0% did not respond to the question about oral proficiency in Kazakh.

two interesting trends. First, there is a clear increase of reported proficiency in Kazakh and a decrease of proficiency in Russian among the younger respondents. Second, while in three older age groups we observe the expected decrease in proficiency level from oral to literacy skills in Kazakh and Russian, the youngest group’s reports are somewhat different. Among the youngest respondents, more people claim to read and write in Kazakh fluently than to speak and understand Kazakh oral speech. The same holds true for reported reading skills in Russian: again more respondents state that they read fluently in Russian. The change in oral skills is even more intriguing. While there is a rather slow decrease with age in Russian literacy skills, the decrease in reported oral skills is very sharp
the difference between the shares of respondents who claim to speak Russian fluently drops from 92.8% among the eldest group to 67.7% among the youngest group. Table 4 offers a closer look at the oral proficiency data among ethnic Kazakhs. Combined together, data summarized in Tables 3 and 4 seems to signal growing monolingualism among Kazakhs. The share of ethnic Kazakhs who claim not to speak Russian has grown from zero among the eldest group to 10.4% among the youngest group. At the same time, the majority of Kazakhs are Kazakh/Russian bilinguals (see also Table 2). Yet there is a deterioration in Russian proficiency among our respondents: the younger the respondents, the more likely they are to report speaking Russian with difficulty. It also possible that most people continue speaking Russian, but speak ungrammatical Russian. In fact, these days one may easily find examples of ungrammatical or stylistically inappropriate Russian even in public announcements, advertisement and mass media. Reported language use To observe if there are any generational changes in language use, we can consider self-reported use of Kazakh and Russian by different age groups (Table 5). These data show the same pattern as proficiency data: younger

52.8

43.5 39.5

69.2 76.7 72.8 85.6

B23

24
35

36
55


55

46.0

Kazakh

Listening comprehension Russian

Languages

Skills

92.8

83.5

81.1

67.6

40.7

49.0

48.7

55.4

Kazakh

Speaking Russian

Table 3 Reported fluency in Kazakh and Russian by age (%)

88.0

75.9

77.0

71.0

Russian

35.9

41.5

47.5

66.0

Kazakh

Reading

68.9

68.5

68.4

64.8

Russian

32.9

38.6

44.9

62.5

Kazakh

Writing

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190

Table 4 Reported oral proficiency in Russian among ethnic Kazakhs by age (%) B23

23 35




36 55





55

Speak fluently

45.7

67.2

70.8

90.3

Speak with difficulty

24.0

14.3

12.3

9.7

Don’t speak

10.4

2.3

0.8

0

respondents claim higher use of Kazakh and lesser use of Russian in comparison with the older informants. Table 6 considers these patterns from an ethnic group perspective, comparing the reports of ethnic Kazakhs and those of ethnic Russians. The purpose of such a comparison is to find out whether there is social pressure for non-Kazakhs to use Kazakh for interpersonal communication. As we can see in Table 6, reported language practices of Kazakhs and Russians in selected domains are extremely different. Kazakhs are more likely to report bilingual language use whereas most Russians maintain that for interpersonal communication they use only Russian. Comparison of Tables 2 and 6 reveals a gap between reported speaking proficiency in Kazakh and its reported use: while more than 95% of Kazakhs claim to speak Kazakh, either fluently or with difficulty, less than half of them report using Kazakh at work and only about 70% say they speak Kazakh with their friends. It could be that the respondents are over-rating their language skills or it could be that the social conventions and expectations are not conducive to the use of Kazakh. The data also seem to suggest that while there is not much pressure to use Kazakh in official and business domains, there is Table 5 Reported language use by age (%) Kazakh language only







Russian language only







B23 24 35 36 55
55 B23 24 35 36 55
55 Interaction in school

29.5

17.8

18.0

7.8

28.2

42.0

44.4

52.1

Interaction at work

15.2

13.5

12.6

7.8

23.7

36.7

45.2

56.3

Interaction in state offices

15.0

8.8

11.9

6.6

46.7

47.2

48.6

55.7

Interaction in banks

12.1

6.6

8.5

5.4

43.8

51.8

49.7

62.3

Interaction with friends

24.0

16.1

15.6

9.0

33.0

40.0

42.3

52.7

Listening to the radio

15.1

6.8

10.5

7.8

38.8

44.5

43.2

46.7

Watching TV

12.4

4.8

8.3

2.4

35.2

36.6

40.0

46.1

Reading newspapers

19.6

9.1

10.0

6.0

35.0

45.0

50.5

60.5

Reading non-academic literature

25.4

12.3

13.3

6.6

35.7

45.0

50.7

62.3

Reading academic literature

22.0

10.6

11.2

7.2

40.3

45.7

46.9

52.7

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191

Table 6 Reported language use by Russians and Kazakhs (%) Kazakh language

Russian language

Kazakh and Russian languages

Kazakhs

25.6

14.8

23.6

Russians

0.6

71.7

6.1

Kazakhs

19.4

21.1

30.8

Russians

0.2

84.4

4.0

Kazakhs

16.9

25.3

30.7

Russians

0.2

84.3

1.7

Kazakhs

21.4

21.9

41.7

Russians

0.2

88.0

7.0

Kazakhs

36.9

12.8

33.2

Russians

0.4

83.1

7.4

Interaction at work

Interaction in state offices

Interaction in banks

Interaction in shops

Interaction with friends

growing peer pressure to use Kazakh in informal contexts, such as communication with friends and co-workers. In fact, the results on interaction with friends correlated with ethnicity and age and revealed that younger Kazakhs are more likely to report speaking Kazakh with their peers. While 29% of the eldest informants state that they speak Kazakh with their friends, 42.4% of the youngest respondents claim to communicate with their friends in Kazakh. The same pattern exists for Russians: the youngest respondents are twice as likely to report bilingual Kazakh-Russian language use with their friends in comparison with the eldest group members (9.8 versus 5.0%). The results, summarized in Table 7, suggest that the use of languages is also mediated by reported spending, a measure used here as a correlate of economic status. Kazakh is more likely to be used by those who spend less. The respondents who reported higher spending also reported using more Russian and English: a quarter of the respondents who said they spend more than $500 a month use English at work; in contrast only 1% of the informants from the lowest income group claim to use English. This and the fact that a combination of Kazakh and English is reported by just a few respondents allows us to infer that a knowledge of English presupposes proficiency in Russian.

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192

Table 7 Languages at workplace by spending (%) Kazakh and English

Kazakh

Russian

Kazakh and Russian

Kazakh, Russian and English

Russian and English

B$50

15.4

29.4

10.6

0.5

0.5

$50
100

17.1

33.3

19.0

2.0

2.0

0.1

$100
300

11.7

39.3

22.5

3.7

3.7

0.3

$300
500

8.4

43.6

19.3

5.9

5.9


$500

4.5

31.6

21.8

12.8

12.8

Languages

x2  6927.8; df 2870; a 0.000.

Table 8 Schooling in Kazakh by urban and rural Kazakhs (%)




23 35

B23

Kazakh




35 55


55

Urban

Rural

Urban

Rural

Urban

Rural

Urban

Rural

45.2

57.6

21.3

30.4

14.3

39.7

37.5

47.8

Data on the language of schooling, summarized in Table 8, shows that the youngest urban respondents are three times more likely to report attending Kazakh-medium schools than respondents from the generation of their parents (aged 35
55). To summarize, the results on reported language use show that Russian is a dominant language of communication across all domains. It is also the language of a more powerful social group
affluent urban residents. However, age-graded analysis implies that the sociolinguistic situation is changing: more respondents from the younger age group report using Kazakh for interpersonal communication and literacy activities. The data also implies that these changes are emerging from the Kazakh community. While Russian remains the dominant language of the public domain, Kazakh is challenging Russian as a language of the private domain. Kazakhs, according to these findings, are making conscious efforts to reverse language shift by educating their children in Kazakh. Language Views and Normative Expectations Table 9 compares responses to the following statements: ‘Do you agree that Kazakh should be a single state language?’ and ‘Do you agree that Kazakh must be a required school subject?’ The first statement refers to the ongoing debate of whether Russian should be proclaimed the second state language (currently it has a status of an official language). While de facto Russian functions as a working language of the government institutions, only Kazakh is recognized as a language symbolizing the state of Kazakhstan. About half of the sample (53.3%) agreed with the first statement, while 37.8% disagreed with it and 8.2% were undecided.

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193

Table 9 Opinions about Kazakh by ethnicity (%) ‘Do you agree that Kazakh should be a single state language?’

‘Do you agree that Kazakh must be a required school subject?’

Agree

Disagree

Don’t know

Agree

Disagree Don’t know

Kazakhs

74.6

16.8

8.1

94.4

2.5

2.0

Russians

13.9

78.4

7.4

81.8

11.0

7.2

Slavs

16.3

68.6

14.0

88.4

8.1

3.5

Turkic peoples

68.9

22.5

8.3

92.6

4.0

2.8

Others

41.9

47.9

8.2

86.1

5.2

5.2

Not surprisingly, the majority of Kazakhs agree with both statements. They are followed by other Turkic peoples, most of whom have Kazakh language proficiency (see Table 2). Russians and Russian-speaking Slavs are least likely to agree with the first statement: almost 80% of Russians and almost 70% of Slavs disagree with the current legislation declaring Kazakh as the only state language of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Even among Kazakhs, almost 20% of the respondents are against the hegemony of Kazakh. However, responses to the second statement are diametrically opposed. Respondents from all ethnic groups accept the statement that Kazakh must be taught at school. We might infer that people are open to the idea of acquiring Kazakh but not at the expense of their language rights; they are willing to add languages to their repertoire but not to replace one with the other. These results also indicate that ethnic Kazakhs may display different degrees of ethnic loyalty in different social arenas. To tap respondents’ beliefs about the future linguistic situation in Kazakhstan and the social value of languages, the respondents were asked to choose a prospective language of schooling for their children and grandchildren (Table 10). The respondents could choose one language or a combination of languages. As seen in Table 10, there is a general belief in the growing importance of Kazakh among non-Russians: a third of Kazakhs, a quarter of Turkic peoples Table 10 Prospective language of education (%) Kazakh and English

Russian and English

28.7

11.5

4.4

12.7

31.1

0.2

13.7

6.3

6.8

19.4

2.0

5.7

7.9

7.9

26.2

1.1

10.9

Kazakh, Kazakh Russian and Russian and English

Kazakh only

Russian only

Kazakhs

34.7

4.4

8.0

Russians

3.0

26.2

Turkic peoples

29.6

Others

24.0

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and a quarter of other respondents favor the idea of sending their children (or grandchildren) to Kazakh-medium schools. The respondents are skeptical about the usefulness of education in Russian only: only a quarter of Russians have selected Russian-only as a prospective language of education. It is interesting to compare these data with the results of the survey conducted by Zakaeva and Sarsenbayeva (1998: 55) a decade ago. According to their data, 25.2% of parents preferred Kazakh and 49.0% opted for Russian. In our survey, a mere 11.5% of the respondents selected Russian only and 6.5% both Russian and English. Even when combined, the share of respondents who prefer to educate their children in Russian without Kazakh is less than 20%. At the same time, 23.9% of the respondents opted for Kazakh only, 5.7% for Kazakh and English, 9.1% for Kazakh and Russian, and 27.5% for Kazakh, Russian and English. The comparison shows a shift toward education in Kazakh and away from Russian-only instruction. In general, more people reported a preference for bilingual or multilingual options; there is a noticeable interest in learning English as an additional language. In fact, the results indicate that the competence in English is growing: 14.3% of the youngest respondents claim to speak English fluently, while only 3.0% of the respondents in the eldest category make this claim. To sum up, the findings described in this section seem to imply that Kazakh is gaining social prestige and the respondents are much more likely to accept Kazakh hegemony in highly symbolic domains. The majority of the respondents display a willingness to give their children opportunities to acquire Kazakh, suggesting that they believe this proficiency will be needed. However, while the respondents show increasing interest in Kazakh, they are reluctant to replace Russian with Kazakh. The patterns emerging from the survey seem to suggest that the dominant public ideology is multilingualism.

Conclusion While Kazakhstan remains a bilingual country with Russian language dominating most public spheres and the majority of the population being fluent in Russian, there are signs that the hegemony of Russian has been challenged. The increasing presence of Kazakh is hard to miss: one can see and hear Kazakh on the streets, in shops and public offices, on the radio and television, on money, documents, billboards, and road signs. Besides this visibility of the language in the linguistic landscape, one can also observe changes at the level of language beliefs. The findings discussed here show that reported competence in Kazakh and its use are on the rise among younger respondents, urban residents and people with the highest income. The data on age, urban/rural, and income variation permit us to conclude that Kazakh is gaining social prestige. It is perceived by a growing number of people as a language, the knowledge of which is necessary in the future. Most telling in this respect are the reports on prospective language of education for the children. The majority of the respondents reported that they are interested in educating their children (grandchildren) in Kazakh and that they believe that proficiency in Kazakh could improve economic chances for their children (grandchildren).

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However, while the respondents show interest in Kazakh, they are not ready to give up Russian, which provides access to wider social, educational, economic, and informational resources. There is also a growing attraction to English which, according to the survey answers, is perceived as a highly valuable component of a linguistic repertoire: the demand for English is high, proficiency in it and its use are on the rise. Overall, the survey data allow us to infer that the dominant public ideology in Kazakhstan is multilingualism: the majority of the respondents exhibit belief in the necessity to have proficiency in Kazakh, Russian, and English. If the trends identified in this study are correct, Kazakhstan is in the midst of a language ideology transformation process. The belief that Kazakh is a language representing the new Kazakh state seems to be already wellinternalized. However, Kazakh-language hegemony in less symbolic domains is more likely to be challenged by the respondents. Moreover, the data reveals diversity within and between social groups as well as points of social tension, contestation of the new and the old, the dominant and the emergent, ideologies. The survey revealed considerable variation in reports between different ethnic and income groups as well as between urban and rural respondents. Ethnic Kazakhs are more likely to accept the new language ideology, but even among them, there is an observable tension between group and individual rights, between ethnic loyalty and personal interests. The large-scale self-report study described here yielded valuable insights into the sociolinguistic situation in modern Kazakhstan. The use of quantitative methods allowed us to identify general trends in shifting language behavior and to see the scope and direction of social change. At the same time, while analysis of survey data is undoubtedly strong in identifying and quantifying social factors involved in sociolinguistic change, it is rather weak in explaining causal factors. Quantitative methods ‘cannot supplant qualitative methods if the goal is to go beyond ‘‘How does this community talk?’’ to ‘‘Why does this community talk this way?’’ Each community’s use of language is part of a coherent whole, both quantitative and qualitative methods are needed to adequately analyze linguistic rules in relation to the whole’ (Zentella, 2000: 6). To explain the role of structural factors in social change we need to pay attention to the interplay of bigger social groups and individual actors. Despite the fact that in surveys people respond as individuals, the quantitative approach does not permit us to see speakers as units of analysis and downplays the agency of the respondents. By focusing on the broad picture, we miss people’s local experiences. Besides, by focusing on aggregate social categories we cannot see the local networks and contexts in which respondents co-construct their daily lives. However, it is precisely the everyday language practices within these networks and contexts that produce and re-produce beliefs and views reported by survey respondents. Language ideology is not limited to what people explicitly report orally or in a written form about their language beliefs, it is embodied in their mundane daily practices and exists in the form of locally co-produced, naturalized conventions. In addition, since in a survey most answers are preformulated, there is no way we can be sure that the respondents are either fully free or fully articulate in what they say.

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Finally, surveys approach language behavior as something regular and stable, hiding the complexity of everyday language choices, code-switching, codemixing, and stylization. They also conceal the intricate nature of language proficiency by approaching it as a monolithic uniform phenomenon whereas speakers’ oral proficiency and literacy skills may vary considerably depending on the topic, style, genre, register, situation, etc. These comments make it clear that mass survey results alone cannot be a basis for a strong claim about language shift reversal; they simply indicate changes in society. To find out if there are changes in people’s actual language use, quantitative and self-report data need to be supplemented by qualitative and ethnographic data collected across a variety of contexts. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Juldyz Smagulova, King’s College London, UK ([email protected]) Notes 1. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Sunni Islam is one of the two main divisions of Islam, which started to spread throughout Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the ninth century. The ethnonym ‘Kazakh’ is first mentioned in written documents of the fourteenth century (Masanov et al., 2001). Until 1925, Kazakhs were misnamed as Kirgiz and Kirgiz-Kaisak to differentiate them from Russian Cossacks (on formation of Soviet ethnicities, see Hirsch, 2005). Akhmet Baitursunov (1873
1937) was one of the leaders of the Kazakh nationalist movement. He wrote Kazakh language textbooks and edited the famous newspapers Kazakh and Ak Zhol. He was a member of the national-democratic party Alash, and later joined the Soviets and worked at the People’s Committee of Education (Narkompros). He also became a member of the Central and Kazakhstan Executive Committees. He was executed during Stalinist purges in 1937. The alphabet he reformed is still used by Kazakhs in China. According to Dave (2003), the 1926 census was not completely reliable, given the lack of transportation network and difficulties in offering a reliable count of mobile people. The 1926 Census registered 3,628,000 Kazakhs; in 1931 the number was 5,114,000; the 1937 Census registered only 2,182,000 Kazakhs (Masanov et al., 2001: 376; Mendykulova, 1997: 94). In 1926 only about a fourth of the Kazakhs led a sedentary mode of life, others were dependent on the livestock economy and seasonal agricultural farming (Dave, 2003). INTAS is the International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union (NIS); it was established in 1993 and discontinued in 2007 (www.intas.be). Here and below the total does not always equal 2,255 (100%) because some respondents left certain questions unanswered.

Media Sources On WWW at http://www.expert.ru/ Expert Kazakhstan printissues/kazakhstan/. Kazakhstan Today On WWW at http://www.kz-today.kz. On WWW at http://www.khabar.kz/kaz/. Khabar Agency

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Kazakhstanskaya Pravda kazpravda.kz/.

197

On WWW at http://www.

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Multilingualism, Russian Language and Education in Kyrgyzstan Abdykadyr Orusbaev Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Kyrgyzstan Arto Mustajoki and Ekaterina Protassova University of Helsinki, Finland The study provides an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Kyrgyzstan and the current role of Russian and Kyrgyz in the republic. We present initial results of a mass survey of language use that show that the efforts to introduce the Kyrgyz language on all levels of societal use had some effect. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan is a multinational multilingual state with a high degree of mixed marriages and ethnic tolerance. To know the national language is prestigious and important, yet many Kyrgyz and representatives of other ethnicities prefer to have their children instructed mainly in Russian because Russian provides access to better education, employment, information, and economic advancement. Among the Kyrgyz, mastery of their own language is widespread, whereas for other peoples of Kyrgyzstan, understanding of the specific characteristics of the national ethnolinguistic identity is in the process of development.

Keywords: Kyrgyz, Russian, language policy, bilingualism, post-Soviet studies

Introduction Kyrgyzstan is a Central Asian republic where the Kyrgyz make up about 65% of the population. The primary languages used in the region are Kyrgyz, Russian, Uzbek, Tajik, Turkish, and German. Since proclaiming independence, Kyrgyzstan has proceeded to build a new historical identity of Kyrgyzstani. This idea is based upon the seven precepts of the epic national poem ‘Manas’ (www.welcome.kg/ru/manas): (1) unity and solidarity of the nation; (2) interethnic agreement, friendship, and collaboration; (3) national honor and patriotism; (4) tireless labor towards prosperity and well-being; (5) humanity, magnanimity, and tolerance; (6) harmony with nature; (7) fortification and defense of the Kyrgyz state system. Among the post-Soviet states Kyrgyzstan, closely following Belarus (see Giger & Sloboda, this issue), does not consider the Russian language to be a threat to its national security or historical identity. Language planning is developing, but it seems that the Kyrgyz language is not yet ready to be an omnipotent means of the national academic, administrative, interethnic and intercultural communication. Russian is commonly studied by members of the younger generation because they want to study at Kyrgyz universities where the main scientific literature and textbooks are still in Russian, conduct business with Russia, or work or live in Russia where the standard of living is higher. The tensions between some ethnic groups also

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promote the use of Russian as a lingua franca. At the same time, proficiency in Russian as a second language is declining in the new generation.

Map Kyrgyzstan (Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/kg.html) The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current situation in Kyrgyzstan, affected by the previous experiences of multilingualism, examples of the neighboring countries, and new nation-building expectations. The focus of our discussion is the changing role of Russian and its use as the language at the service of the growing Asian economies, denationalized and free from the Soviet historical cultural background. The new hybrid culture and partly regionalized Russian language serve to unify Central Asian republics with Russia. The former republics of the Soviet Union still function like communicating vessels: when the economic situation in Russia ameliorates, their attitude towards its policy and its language changes. In the following, we will first introduce our theoretical framework and previous studies of language policies and practices in Kyrgyzstan. Then, we will discuss the history of language policy and education in Kyrgyzstan, and the current state of affairs. Since the 1991 independence, language policies and practices have changed many times and the latter discussion had to be revised several times even during the process of writing this paper. Next, we will outline the most interesting results of a large survey about the use of languages and linguistic identity in Central Asia, funded by INTAS, the International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union (www.intas.be).

Theoretical Framework The focus of this paper is on self-identification in the changing sociopolitical circumstances. We understand self-identification as a complex interactive

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process of categorization, authentication, and demarcation, conducted on psychological and semantic levels under given sociopolitical circumstances. This process takes place in the context of the interplay of inside and outside factors, once or repeatedly at different points in the life span of individuals, and is dependent on the potential implications of sincerity. In their discussion of negotiations of identities in multilingual contexts, Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004) underscore the importance of considering language ideologies and power relations in a given context; they also emphasize issues of social significance and social justice. Kyrgyzstan, where several sociopolitical waves have superseded each other in the last two decades, offers an excellent site for the study of such negotiations of identity. Research conducted in Kyrgyzstan over the last two decades shows that Kyrgyz and Russian were competing, but not on the common ground, and that ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Kyrgyzstan Russians had to position themselves again and again towards the state where they live and lived before, the passport they have and had before, the languages they speak and learn now, the ideologies they share and shared before and the work they can do (Huskey, 1995; Kolpakov, 2001; Korth, 2005; Landau & KellnerHeinkele, 2001; Tagaev, 2004; Wright, 1999). The dissolution of the Soviet Union and its ideology had to be discussed and experienced not only on the official level, but also at the grass-roots level. First, former citizens of the USSR had to reject their Soviet identities; then, they had to restructure and build up their ethnic identities; afterwards, they had to work on individual, group, and state levels of identification, to rethink historical processes and to find the fulcrum of their balanced personality (Elebayeva et al., 2000; Mullerson, 1993; Smith et al., 1998). In all post-Soviet countries, language became an important instrument in defining the new independent states and nations; perhaps it was even excessively accentuated in the first years after independence. The consolidation of the nation was conducted based on language, even if the states were multinational. Fierman’s (1997) analysis of transformations of identities in Central Asia during the years following the 1991 independence shows that the key sensitive points were the lowering of the status of Russian, the weakening of the bonds within the former USSR, and the need to learn the titular language. It was only later that the states began to address the interests and rights of different ethnic minorities. In Kyrgyzstan, many government initiatives had exceedingly optimistic visions of multilingualism or of the possibilities to organize life in Kyrgyzstan on the one-language basis, without keeping Russian as an official language (Heuer, 2001; Huskey, 1995; Koenig, 2000; Kolpakov, 2001; Mamedov, 2005; Pannier, 1996). This situation can be compared to other Central Asian countries where Islam also plays an important role (Bergne, 2003; Bingol, 2004; Landau & Kellner-Heinkele, 2001; Olcott, 1997). Eventually, the new Kyrgyz government faced the need to integrate nonKyrgyz elements into the new conception of the Kyrgyz state (Brubaker, 1994; Commercio, 2004; Laitin, 1996); to balance one’s own interests with those of the Russian Federation that remains an important economic partner (Khruslov, 2006; Tishkov, 1997), and to have solid ties to other countries of the world

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while pursuing one’s own geopolitical interests (Gleason, 2001; Khazanov, 1995; King & Melvin, 1999, 2000; Kreindler, 1997; Schlyter, 2001). Schulter (2003) argues that past tensions and suspicions can be overcome through integration, fostered through changes in the school curriculum and the emphasis on multiculturalism and multilingualism among the new ‘Kyrgyzstani’ generation. An important factor in these changes of positioning is that of self-esteem, which is built in the process of claiming historical, intellectual and cultural heritage (see, for instance, discussions on the websites www.bpc.kg, www. politika.kg). The meaning and interpretations of the past vary in these discussions. Those who want to turn to a Kyrgyz-dominant or Kyrgyz-only state exalt the history and praise the Kyrgyz people for all their deeds. Those who want to maintain Russian as a communication tool argue for the need to use it as a lingua franca and to continue the common academic space with countries where Russian is still spoken. Finally, we have to briefly mention our own reliance on the local academic knowledge, traditions, and ideas, which at times diverge from those espoused in the Western literature. Whereas in English-language publications, some researchers (e.g. Wright, 1999) attribute negative developments in Kyrgyzstan to the Slavic influence, academics working locally recognize the complexity and tenacity of regional, clan, and tribal loyalties, pre-modern forms of governance, and personal relationships, which the Soviet rule diminished but did not extinguish (Berdikeeva, 2006; Dukenbaev & Hansen, 2003). As a result, the government faces a dilemma: they have to create an entirely new national identity based either on the artificially reconstructed imaginary pre-Soviet Kyrgyz nation or on the existing system of local-central relationships and coreperiphery ties.

Demographic and Sociolinguistic Profile of Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan is divided administratively into the capital Bishkek with approximately 900,000 inhabitants and seven provinces. There is one exclave Kyrgyz village on the territory of Uzbekistan, as well as four Uzbek and two Tajik enclaves on the territory of Kyrgyzstan. According to the 1999 Census (www.stat.kg), Kyrgyzstan has 4,822,938 inhabitants. It is a country with a growing, albeit sparse population. Almost 65% of the population refers to themselves as Kyrgyz. The country is also inhabited by more than ninety other ethnicities. The largest ethnic minority are Uzbeks (13.8%) who mostly live in the South, in the regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad. The next group is Russians (12.5%) who mostly live in the North. Other prominent ethnic groups include Dungans, Ukrainians, Uyghurs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Turks, Germans, and Koreans. According to the All-Union Censuses of 1979, and the Kyrgyz Census of 1999, about 70% of the country’s population declared that they were proficient in Kyrgyz (only 53% could speak Kyrgyz in 1989). Fluency in Russian was reported by ethnic Russians, 98% of Ukrainians, 81% of Kazakhs, one-third of Kyrgyzs and Uzbeks, and the majority of other ethnic groups (www.stat.kg).

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Table 1 Population of Kyrgyzstan (according to the All-Union Censuses of 1979 and 1989, and the Kyrgyz Census of 1999) 1979

1989

1999

Size (1000s)

%

Size (1000s)

%

Size (1000s)

%

The whole population

3,522,832

100.0

4,257,755

100.0

4,822,938

100.0

Kyrgyz

1,687,382

47.9

2,229,663

52.4

3,128,147

64.9

Uzbeks

426,194

12.1

550,096

12.9

664,950

13.8

Russians

911,703

25.9

916,558

21.5

603,201

12.5

Dungans

26,661

0.8

36,928

0.9

51,766

1.1

109,324

3.1

108,027

2.5

50,442

1.0

Uyghurs

29,817

0.8

36,779

0.9

46,944

1.0

Tatars

71,744

2.0

70,068

1.6

45,438

0.9

Kazakhs

27,442

0.8

37,318

0.9

42,657

0.9

Tajiks

23,209

0.7

33,518

0.8

42,636

0.9

Turks

5,160

0.1

21,294

0.5

33,327

0.7

Germans

101,057

2.9

101,309

2.4

21,471

0.4

Koreans

14,481

0.4

18,355

0.4

19,784

0.4

Other ethnicities

88,658

2.5

97,842

2.3

72,175

1.5

Ukrainians

Source: www.stat.kg

As seen in Table 1, in the years since the 1991 independence, the share of Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, and Tatars in the country’s population has significantly diminished, mainly as a result of emigration. On the other hand, the numbers and proportions of the ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have increased. Scholars discuss different reasons for the exodus of Russian-speakers from Kyrgyzstan. Some describe these emigrants as victims of the conflict between Russians and other European ethnics on the one side and indigenous peoples on the other side. This conflict is leftover from the Soviet times, when the urban, mostly Russian-speaking (even if not Russian) population boasted of its progressive views and disdained the values, traditions, and attitudes of the title nation, while protectionism did not allow Russians to occupy certain posts in the local hierarchy (Savoskul, 2001). Kosmarskaya (2006) questions this oversimplified portrayal. Based on in-depth interviews, collected during numerous field trips to the region, she argues that ‘what looks on the surface like ‘‘ethnic’’ confrontation is to a large extent a conflict of social (ethno-social) groups engendered by a radical redistribution of power and the restructuring of the Soviet sociopolitical hierarchy’ (Kosmarskaya, 2006: 594). Redefining the status of the Russian-speaking communities, Kosmarskaya notes that they display a wide range of characteristics of their way of life, consciousness, and

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behavior. The community of ‘Russians of Kyrgyzstan’ or ‘Central Asian Russians’, dormant until the collapse of the USSR, is specifically based on a sharp differentiation from Russians who have not lived for generations among other peoples under differing climatic and cultural circumstances. After the independence, large numbers of these Russians and russophones repatriated to Russia. Some however were unable to assimilate and returned to Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan has a relatively mild regime with a weak control over social life, and the true opposition tends to be not ‘Russian-speakers against titulars’, but rather ‘powers against a wide opposition’, commonly ordinary people (Kosmarskaya, 2006). Despite ongoing political, regional, ethnic, and religious rivalries, many experts state that the country has some of the most dynamic social movements in Central Asia because the activists distrust many governmental institutions and support societal reforms (Kuchukeeva & O’Loughlin, 2003). Western influence can be seen in financial structures and the transition to market economy, yet agriculture and trade remain to a large degree traditional, which is understandable given that about two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas. At present, rural life is dominated by local languages. Islam is gaining strength (75% of the country’s population are Muslim, mostly Sunni), though the state is a secular one. In the South, there is a tendency toward introducing the Shariat rules in everyday life (e.g. Rotar, 2006). Some shamanist beliefs and worship of animals, connected to pastoral nomadic culture, have survived. Global events, the happenings in the Islamic world, and the situation in Russia provoke the back-and-forth migration of different groups and are affecting the well-being of the Kyrgyzstani more than ever. At present, there are also several international organizations working in Kyrgyzstan with different goals. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Center in Bishkek is building a relationship of trust and confidence with the country’s ethnic communities. It strives to intensify recruitment activities within minority communities in order to address the falling minority representation in the country’s police service, offers training in the management of the sensitive interethnic relations, and implements the ‘Integration through Education’ program, supporting multicultural, bilingual and multilingual education (www.osce.org/bishkek). UNESCO’s international social science program Management of Social Transformations (MOST) has established a joint project with colleagues from Switzerland to introduce policy-makers, legislators, judiciary officials, and representatives of public and non-governmental organizations from Kyrgyzstan to the functioning of democratic governance under the conditions of ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity (www.unesco.org/most/kyrgyz.htm).

Languages of Kyrgyzstan Surrounded by Kazakhstan in the north, Uzbekistan in the west, Tajikistan in the southwest and the People’s Republic of China in the southeast, Kyrgyzstan is one of the Central Asian countries. The Tian Shan Mountains, the Fergana Valley and the Lake Issyk-Kul are geographic symbols of the land and important pieces of the national identity.

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Kyrgyz is a Turkic language understood by people who speak other Turkic languages and is closely related to Kazakh, so that speakers of these languages can understand each other without having studied each other’s languages; however, Mongolian and Altaic elements are greater in Kyrgyz than in Kazakh (Abduldaev, 1998; Oruzbaeva, 1997; Sartbaev, 1986). Kyrgyz emerged as a distinct language of a separate ethnic group in the fifteenth century, and has been studied since the late nineteenth century. The first manual of Kyrgyz was published in 1922, and since 1924, grammars of Kyrgyz began appearing (Abdymambetova, 2001; Fedchina, 1967; Kirgizskaja SSR, 1982). The epic poem ‘Manas’ is a well-known source for the study of the history of the Kyrgyz language and culture (it can be read in Russian on the website www.welcome.kg/ru/manas). As to alphabet, the Kyrgyz have used adapted versions of Arabic (sporadically until 1923, later officially), Latin (1928
1940) and Cyrillic script (since 1940). All in all, during the Soviet times, the unified literacy, both for the written and oral forms of the language, was elaborated, codified, normalized and spread among the population; Kyrgyz literature, art, and history were popularized. At present, some voices suggest the transition to the Latin script
this reflects attempts to unify all Turkic-speaking countries around Turkey. In the course of their history, the Kyrgyz were influenced not only by different Turkic neighbors, but also by Mongols, Kalmyks, Afghani, Pamirs, Uyghurs, Chinese, and Russians. In 1876, the territory became a part of the Russian Empire; in 1919, a part of the Soviet Union; and in 1936, a Soviet Republic (www.kyrgyz.ru). Despite these changes, many Kyrgyz remained nomads and herders and traveled independently of the borders. In the Russian Empire and in the first years after the October revolution, both Kazakhs and Kyrgyz were called Kyrgyz, with the present-day Kyrgyz subdenominated on occasion as ‘Kara-Kyrgyz’ (kara meaning ‘black’) (see www.infoplease.com/ country/profiles/kyrgyzstan.html; see also Fedchina, 1967; Hirsch, 2005; Smagulova, this issue). This joint past leads to many local jokes, for example: Kazakhs who feel richer and more civilized and therefore dominant in the area, ask the Kyrgyz to get together again in the joint state; the Kyrgyz respond that they are ready, but only under the name they had together before mid1920s.

History of Language and Education Policies in Kyrgyzstan The teaching of the Russian language in Kyrgyzstan began in the nineteenth century, under the Russian Empire, with the goals to have interpreters, translators, representatives, and administrators among the local people; later, democratic, civilization and educational aims played an important role as well (Arzygulova, 2007; Marchenko, 2007). During the Soviet era, education in the mother tongue, Kyrgyz, became possible from early childhood until postgraduate studies and the ethnographic culture blossomed, while nationalism was suppressed. Non-natives were required to study the Kyrgyz language at school, but this was rarely carried out properly, if at all. As a result, most residents of European origin had a very low level of mastery of the Kyrgyz language. The countryside was dominated

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209

by Kyrgyz, perceived as ‘rural’, while the cities used Russian, perceived as ‘urban’ and preferred by the ethnic Kyrgyz themselves. Since there was relatively little published in and translated into Kyrgyz in comparison with Russian, Russian was the language of access to world literature and culture, especially for those living in the cities. Russian was also taught at all of the so called ‘national’ schools as the language of interethnic communication of the common state, USSR, so that citizens would have no problems in self-actualization on the all-Union level. Official documents were written in Russian, and when the rural Kyrgyz wrote in Kyrgyz, these letters and documents were translated into Russian in regional centers. In the late 1960s, the benefits of being educated in Russian (more and better possibilities to study at Russian universities, to be involved in the cultural and economic exchange and to act at the all-Union level) were so evident that russification became widespread, entailing a shift to the Russian language in many administrative domains. For example, writers who addressed their readers in Russian got bigger editions and larger audiences. Though proficiency in the oral Kyrgyz was still common, the Kyrgyz elites preferred to educate their children in Russian schools, with the goal of becoming bilingual with dominant literacy in Russian. The prestigious way of life was connected with the everyday use of Russian as supra-ethnic means of communication among different peoples living in the Soviet Union. In comparison with the neighboring Afghanistan, which was very much like Kyrgyzstan before the Soviet time, the Kyrgyz educational system may be considered a major achievement of the Soviet regime. Before the October Revolution, only about 1% of the whole population could read, while by the end of the Soviet Union, about 85
90% of the whole population was literate either in Kyrgyz or Russian, or both.

Current Language Policies and Practices Language Policies The 1989 Law on the State Language celebrated the historical value of the Kyrgyz language, condemned its diminishing use, offered special measures for its protection, and guaranteed the free development of all national languages. After the 1991 independence, the pressure for Kyrgyzification intensified and many Russian-speaking people (locally called ‘Europeans’ independently of their ethnic origin) chose to leave the country (around 600,000 persons). Some returned because they failed to adjust in Russia. Starting in 1991, the first president of the independent Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev ushered in comprehensive economic, political, and educational reforms. Akayev emphasized the secular character of the Kyrgyz state and condemned manifestations of Islamic fundamentalism (these pan-Islamic trends are often linked to more intensive use of Arabic and Turkic languages). The national language Kyrgyz was considered a symbol of state sovereignty and nation building, while Russian was given the status of the language of interethnic communication. The policy of ‘Kyrgyzstan is our common home’ promoted the support of minorities. Kyrgyzstan became a full member of the

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United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. The Law, adopted in 1992, and the Constitution, adopted in 1993, proclaimed Kyrgyz as the only public language from 1997 on (www.krugosvet. ru/articles/117/1011733/1011733a1.htm). However in 1996, the Russian language gained official status alongside Kyrgyz. At present, the status of Russian in Kyrgyzstan is secured through the 2000 Law on the official language of the Kyrgyz Republic. This law designates Russian as a tool of interethnic communication and the language of access to Russian and CIS education, culture, information, and technologies (Orusbaev, 2003c: 154
155). On 20 September, 2000, the Kyrgyz president signed a Program for the development of the state language of the Kyrgyz Republic for the years 2000
2010. This program is designed to revitalize, standardize and modernize the Kyrgyz language (first and foremost, in vocabulary) with the goal of introducing it as the language of administration by 2008. The Program regulates the use of Kyrgyz in state administration and business, in education, science, and culture, in official correspondence, etc. An Institute for the state language and culture was created, at the Faculty of Arts of the Arabaev Pedagogical University. A National Commission on the State Language under the auspices of the President was also created, comprising state administrators, scientists, artists, members of civic organizations and cultural activists. It is argued that the Kyrgyz language should be studied, taught, and learned on a large scale, especially by the younger generation. Its corpus planning
first of all, creation of terminology
should be worked out and spread. According to the program, from 2007 onwards, an examination in the state language was supposed to become obligatory for those wishing to occupy an official post, but there are doubts that the majority of the current post-holders would pass it (furthermore, at the time this article went into production this examination has not been implemented yet). The latest 2004 Law on the State Language of the Kyrgyz Republic also aims at the development of the Kyrgyz language and strengthening of its social role. At the same time, a document was published concerning the development of bilingualism on the level of governmental policy and the measures for effective functioning of both languages. After the so-called Tulip Revolution, Akayev was forced to resign and the new president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was elected in 2005 (for more details, see Marat, 2006a). The new (2006) Constitution has confirmed the status of Russian as an official language, but this Constitution was rejected by the Constitutional jury of the country. The official website of the Kyrgyz Republic, maintained in Russian, reflects these recent events in the republic (www.gov.kg). Language Practices At present, the state language of Kyrgyzstan is Kyrgyz with its national symbolic and cultural function, while Russian, divorced from its links to particular ethnicity, functions as an official language. Yet, discussions about the future of bilingualism and the Russian language in Kyrgyzstan are usually

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211

heated, and the lack of knowledge of Kyrgyz by some ethnic Kyrgyz is also a major point of contention. The periodic issues of ‘Russian Language in Kyrgyzstan’ contain numerous debates about the delimitation of functions for both state and official languages in Kyrgyzstan (Krasnov, 1998, 2000, 2002; Orusbaev, 2003b). The feeling of being bearers of an endangered language compels native speakers of Kyrgyz to fight for its rights. They argue that Kyrgyz is a means of ethnic solidarity and unity and a people’s common national property, reflecting the degree of cultural development, and that it should completely satisfy people’s communicative needs, resolving (self-) contradictions and aiding sovereignty. Members of the two largest ethnic and linguistic minorities, Russian and Uzbek, also have concerns. They are currently underrepresented in administrative, judiciary, and government structures. In some territorial units, Kyrgyzspeakers dominate but in urban regions and in some valleys they are in a minority, even among the ethnic Kyrgyz. The Uzbek minority is seeking recognition for their language as an official language of Kyrgyzstan, and is calling for proportional representation in administration, which has led to certain ethnic tensions. In particular, Uzbeks claim that there are not enough training opportunities and educational materials in their language. Ethnic Russians also express their dissatisfaction with disproportional representation in the power structures through migration. They not only rely on the Russian authorities, but also self-organize in the name of the struggle for their rights and their group identity. It is not surprising then that multilingual practices dominate the country’s linguistic landscapes. Official signage contains parallel texts in Kyrgyz and Russian, and at times English (Picture 1). The language of advertising also uses

Picture 1

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212

Picture 2

Picture 3 these three languages (Pictures 2 and 3), but the texts may be mixed, rather than parallel, they may also contain neologisms, calques, hybrids etc. (Derbisheva, 2007; Duishekeeva, 2007; Rudov, 2007a,b). Internet resources are much richer and more diversified in Russian than in Kyrgyz, this is a sphere where Russian still dominates. Only a few mass-media outlets use Kyrgyz as their main language, while the vast majority are published and

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213

broadcast in Russian, and are therefore in the orbit of Russian political and cultural influence (e.g. news can be read at www.pr.kg, www.24.kg or, in English, www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan). Affected through the images translated by the mass media, most Kyrgyz approve of good relations with Russia. Overall, about 70% of the electronic and paper-printed sources of information are in Russian, mostly from Russia with added materials concerning Kyrgyzstan. Some Russian-language publications, such as Slovo Kyrgyzstana (Kyrgyz Word) or Vechernij Bishkek (Bishkek Evening [News]), are local. Some local broadcasting and media are in local languages. As far as literature is concerned, today, about 92% of the books in the National library are in Russian, 6% in Kygyz, and 2% in other languages, but only a few new publications in Russian arrive on a regular basis. Rural libraries are in decline. Institutional communication in Kyrgyzstan is commonly multilingual. An analysis of such communication comes from a study by Maksimenko (1999) who examined interactions in three Bishkek enterprises: one state-owned Kyrgyz, and two joint ventures, a Kyrgyz-Russian and a Kyrgyz-Turkish firm. The investigation was focused on educated administrative personnel aged between 20 and 50; these participants represented 10 ethnicities and knew, collectively, 15 languages. The researcher found that about 60% of the respondents spoke Russian as their mother tongue. Representatives of ethnic minorities (e.g. Uyghur) were able to speak several Asiatic languages, while ethnic Russians preferred to acquire Western European tongues. Minority languages, like Dungan, Uzbek, or Kazakh, were used for communicating with friends and family. Foreign languages (English, German, French) were used for reading, Internet searches, listening to the radio, and watching movies and TV shows. In the Kyrgyz-Turkish firm, Turkish and English were also employed for professional communication and documentation; the two other companies favored Russian for the same purposes. Another sociolinguistic investigation (Grigorieva & Parmanasova, 2007: 56
59) of language use in state institutions surveyed 364 respondents, 85% of whom were Kyrgyz, 8% Russians, 2% Kazakhs; among the remaining 5% were ethnic Uzbeks, Azeri, Ukrainians, Dungans, and Bashkirs. When asked about language use in communication with clients, 44% of the respondents preferred Kyrgyz (13% of these used mostly Kyrgyz) and 37% preferred Russian (22% of these used Russian only). Some 8% reported that they never use Kyrgyz and only less then 2% reported never using Russian. Despite official bilingualism, however, the documentation in Kyrgyz is already dominating, and there is a clear tendency to translate official papers into Kyrgyz even when they were first written in Russian (this fact influences the quality of written Kyrgyz, especially if it was studied as a second language by the translator). Many documents written first in Kyrgyz serve as models for other people because being mostly socialized in oral variety of their mother tongue, they cannot produce such official texts themselves (Ashirbaev & Ahmatov, 2001). Only 16% of administration workers are fluently bilingual in Kyrgyz and Russian (Andreeva & Khruslov, 2004: 27). This is why, despite the wishful idea of shifting to Kyrgyz, it cannot yet be introduced as a language of administration and there is no examination in the national Kyrgyz language for representatives of the administration. There is also no examination for

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those who wish to obtain Kyrgyz citizenship, although some steps have been made in this direction, and the first versions are forthcoming. On the other hand, local scientific
including linguistic
work is mostly produced in Russian, a situation that is distinct from current linguistic research traditions in Ukraine and in the Baltic countries where work on national languages is published in these languages. In fact, most active linguists still have difficulties writing scientific articles in Kyrgyz, only Kyrgyz-specialists use Kyrgyz in academic research and publications. Even specialists in Turkic philology prefer to write in Russian or in English, in order to communicate with colleagues worldwide. Another factor in favor of Russian in academic life is a long scientific tradition, whereas there is almost no tradition of participating in the English-dominated scholarship and a lack of English-language competence among academics. In a study of communication and access to information in science, Djenchuraev (2004) found that scientific institutions are worse financed and maintained than during the Soviet times, scientific production is commonly based on paper technologies; scholars, including members of the younger generation, cannot use English, and 22
24% are not properly acquainted with computers and the Internet; as a result, access to local or worldwide scientific literature is difficult. What is proposed is the development of a national scientific and technical information system and virtual laboratories. Despite the predominance of Russian in academic life, ethnic diversity of the speakers of Russian and the influences of their mother tongues upon the Russian they speak work as pidginization factors, a situation that concerns local linguists. Recently, several international conferences dedicated to the linguistic situation in Kyrgyzstan and the future of the Russian language were held in Kyrgyzstan. The Congress on the problems of the Russian language in the CIS-countries (Bishkek, 4
6 March, 2004) was dedicated to the strengthening of the position of the Russian language in Central Asia and the strengthening of the relations with Russia (Orusbaev et al., 2005). A Forum on the functioning of the Russian language in the Central Asian region of the member states of the CIS (Bishkek, 7
9 December, 2006) was sponsored through the Russian non-commercial educational-training expert foundation within the framework of the Federal program ‘Russian language’. This forum emphasized the need to review the teaching of the Russian language and its use in the mass media with the goal of enhancing its role in the cultural, humanitarian, and educational spheres of collaboration (Arzygulova, 2007; Marchenko, 2007).

Current Education Policies and Practices The distribution of languages in Kyrgyz education begins with preschool institutions. According to the Ministry of Education of Kyrgyzstan, in the year 2005
2006, 448 preschool institutions operated in Kyrgyzstan, and 50,365 children were attending these institutions. Of these, 120 operated in Kyrgyz, 235 in Russian, 76 used both languages of instruction, and 17 preschools, run by a Swiss organization CIMERA, were multilingual. In the capital Bishkek, the number of children attending day-care centers was 517,561. There were 73

Multilingualism in Kyrgyzstan

215

preschool institutions in Bishkek, out of which 63 served all children and 10 children with special needs. Out of the 63 mainstream preschools, 40 were Russian-medium, 6 Kyrgyz-medium, 6 Kyrgyz-Russian bilingual, and 11 multilingual. In terms of secondary schools, in the school year 2005
2006, according to the Ministry of Education, there were 2,0911 public schools in Kyrgyzstan (359 in towns and 1,732 in the countryside). Of these, 20 schools were designated for children with special needs. Table 2 reflects the distribution of languages in the remaining 2,071 schools. Children of Russian parents mainly study in Russian-medium schools, and many non-Russian parents send their children to Russian-medium schools as well, even at the expense of potential fluency in the native language. In all of the minority schools that teach in Uzbek, Tajik, Turkish, German, and other languages, the Kyrgyz and Russian languages are taught as compulsory subjects. According to the Ministry of Education curriculum standards, the hours dedicated to the Kyrgyz language and literature are distributed as follows:





in Russian-medium schools the Kyrgyz language is taught in the 1st grade for 3 hours/week
100 hours/year; in the 2nd-4th grades, 4 hours/week or 140 hours/year, in the 5th-7th grades, 3 hours/week or 100 hours/year, in the 8th-11th grades, 2 hours/week or 70 hours/year. Kyrgyz literature is taught in the 5th-11th grades for 1 hour/week, or 35 hours/year. in Uzbek and Tajik schools the Kyrgyz language is taught in the 1st-11th grades for 2 hours/week, or 70 hours/year, and Kyrgyz literature is taught in the 5th-11th grades for 1 hour/week, or 35 hours/year.

As seen in Table 2, 509 schools offer Russian-medium instruction, 148 of these are fully Russian-medium and 361 are mixed. Due to the diminished status of the Russian language, levels of Russian-language knowledge have also decreased, and there are increasing numbers of students without preexisting Russian language skills in Russian-medium schools. Among firstgraders in general only about 5% can speak Russian. The demand for Russian language teachers is high, and not all vacancies are filled. Due to general poverty, schools are facing a shortage of appropriate textbooks and other materials, and insufficient in-service training for educators (Chepurnyh, 2005: 128
131). The new generation of Russian textbooks is created in reciprocal collaboration with colleagues from Moscow, where the Kyrgyz language is taught at the Linguistic University. Overall, the educational system varies by region and nowadays it may be considered old-fashioned, incomplete, and deficient in methods and materials. Teachers have low salaries, schools lack instructional materials, and educational structures are permeated with corruption. The choice of language for teaching is often situation-oriented and depends on the mother tongue of the teacher and students. Teachers may also lack competence in the language(s) of instruction. It can happen that a teacher, especially in the countryside, does not have good command of the Russian language in which s/he teaches (or vice

54 2 40 2 16 1

Kyrg-Taj

Uzb-Rus

Uzb-Taj

Kyrg-Uzb-Rus

Uzb-Taj-Rus

3

Tajik

Kyrg-Uzb

129

Uzbek

322

142

Russian

Kyrg-Rus

1,360

Kyrgyz

437

1,634

Single-language instruction

Instruction in 2 or 3 languages

2,071

All schools

3

14

1

19

13

50

61

5

395

461

511

Osh region

8

11

23

44

86

35

8

321

364

450

Jalal-Abad

1

2

2

3

1

11

9

29

3

21

3

164

191

220

Batken

20

20

4

90

94

114

1

110

111

74

121

195

306

Talas Chui

Table 2 Distribution of secondary schools according to language(s) of instruction

59

59

8

126

134

193

Issyk-Kul

10

10

5

126

131

141

Naryn

3

11

1

8

23

12

6

13

31

54

Osh-city

49

49

29

4

33

82

Bishkek City

216

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Multilingualism in Kyrgyzstan

217

versa in the big cities). It may occur that a teacher at a Kyrgyz school teaches mathematics in Russian. Overall, language teaching is old-fashioned and lacks motivational stimuli (Korth, 2005). Not all of the regular schools have teachers of foreign languages. According to the Ministry of Education, in the school year 2005
2006, 1,909 of the 2,071 schools offered foreign language instruction: English was taught at 1,769 schools to 947,928 students, French was taught at 44 schools to 8,128 students, and German was taught at 266 schools to 64,933 students. A Swiss organization CIMERA (www.cimera.org), operating through four non-governmental organizations, Interethnic Integration for Promoting Multilingualism in Bishkek (IMEMB), Multilingual Education in Southern Kyrgyzstan (MOJUK), Multilingual Education in the Naryn Region (MONR) and Multilingual Education in the Chui Region (MOChR), later merged into the association ‘Til-Dil’, is promoting multilingual education. From the year 2000 on, 14 schools and 17 preschools located in Chui, Naryn, Jalal-Abad, Batken and Osh provinces offered such multilingual instruction. In higher education, there are more than 50 universities in Kyrgyzstan, including more than 30 in Bishkek alone. Among these universities are the Kyrgyz National University, Bishkek Humanities University, International University of Kyrgyzstan, International Ataturk-Alatoo University, KyrgyzTurkish MANAS University, the American University of Central Asia, the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, the Kyrgyz-Russian Academy of Education, and five branches of Russian institutions of higher education. In the South, there are the State University of Osh, State University of Jalal-Abad, State University of Batken, the Kyrgyz-Uzbek University in Osh, the Osh Technological University, the private Uzbek Batyrov Jalal-Abad University, the Kyrgyz-Russian Pedagogical Institute of the Humanities in Osh, and the University of Peoples’ Friendship in Jalal-Abad. In the North, besides Bishkek, there are influential State Universities in Issyk-Kul and Naryn. As seen in the sponsorship, some of these universities represent different forces fighting for influence in the republic: Turkey, the USA, the EU, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The image of Turkey, according to our informants from different layers of society, is considered by most of the population as a desirable model for managing national progress. Turkish study is supported through regular grants for Kyrgyz students to study in Turkey (several thousand young Kyrgyz attend institutions of higher education there). The International Education Institute SEBAT and several lyceums and colleges are offering Turkish studies in Kyrgyzstan itself. Instruction in higher education is offered in several languages, oftentimes within the same university, e.g. in the Kyrgyz-Turkish MANAS University instruction is offered in Turkish, English, and Kyrgyz. Overall, in the humanities, the main languages are Kyrgyz and Russian, some instruction is also offered in Uzbek, English and Arabic. In socioeconomics, Russian is used everywhere, one may also encounter some Kyrgyz, Uzbek and English. In natural sciences and technology, Russian also dominates, and Kyrgyz and Uzbek are employed at some universities. The distribution varies geographically. At the universities in the South, first-year and, partly, second-year

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students study in their mother tongue, Kyrgyz or Uzbek, and then switch to Russian. In the North, disciplines of general value are predominantly taught in Russian. Faculties and departments of Kyrgyz philology operate in Kyrgyz, while computer science, communication, and military science are taught in Russian. English is used at the American University of Central Asia, as well as in various firms, companies, non-governmental organizations and foundations. Arabic is gaining a foothold through the Islam University of Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz-Kuwait University and many other religious educational institutions. In addition to Arabic and Turkish, young people enjoy the opportunity to frequent cultural centers of the foreign countries, and to attend courses in English, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Ever since Russian has lost its position as the main language of instruction, the battle for influence is fought on the linguistic field as well. Nevertheless, young Kyrgyz still have good reasons to be fluent in Russian. To be well educated means to be acquainted with Russian literature and to speak Russian, with Moscow universities ranking high among the young people, and employment in Russia being considered great opportunity (Marat, 2006b). Hundreds of Kyrgyz youngsters receive free university education in Russia every year. Some 900,000 ethnic Kyrgyz are currently working in Russia, and most of these are of the reproductive age. These Kyrgyz send about $300
500 million in remittances back home every year, an amount comparable to the annual budget of Kyrgyzstan (Tiazhlov, 2006). The program ‘Russian language in Kyrgyzstan’, to be implemented in 2006
2010, is aimed to prepare new emigrants to work and live in Russia (Rudov, 2007b). Immigrants from Pakistan, India, China, and Turkey who come to Kyrgyzstan also commonly study Russian in order to be able to move to Russia where they may have better employment opportunities. To support the teaching of Russian, the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth Policy of the Kyrgyz Republic publishes the journal Russkij iazyk i literatura v shkolah Kyrgyzstana (Russian language and literature in Kyrgyzstan schools). This journal offers teachers of Russian an opportunity to discuss their research, personal experiences, interesting linguistic facts, methods of language teaching, information about professional education, conferences and books. The new tendency in Kyrgyzstan is to introduce the following elements into the teaching of Russian: (a) ethnocultural elements of traditional Russian life as foreign to Kyrgyz people; (b) discussion of the history and present day of the Russian-speaking community in Kyrgyzstan; (c) reflections on the Kyrgyz way of life in Russian language and culture. The Russian ethnoculture is taught through word-formation, poetic styles, and key characters of the Russian literature. Russian-speakers are also offered opportunities to learn Kyrgyz. There are courses for adult learners of Kyrgyz. There are also several types of textbooks, phrase-books and manuals of Kyrgyz for adults, manuals of spoken Kyrgyz for Russian language teachers, and texts for agronomists and other specialists (e.g. Isaev & Shneidman, 1988; Kasymova, Toktonaliev, & Karybaev, 1991). Even old manuals are updated, as the one proposed in 1935 by Polivanov (Batmanov & Aktanov, 2007). Some manuals are created specifically for

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secondary school and higher education students (e.g. Turgambaeva & Usekova, 2004; Zhusaev et al., 2001).

Preliminary INTAS Survey Results The international INTAS project ‘New language identity in transforming societies: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan’ (INTAS Ref. N 04
79
7292) was carried out in 2005
2007 by six national teams (four from the countries studied in the project and two from Israel and Finland serving as coordinators) (see also Smagulova, this issue). The study had three main goals. The first was to examine the relationship between ethnic distinctiveness and the emerging state or national identity and to redefine the links between national, ethnic and linguistic belonging in Kyrgyzstan as a Central Asian state and society in transition. The second goal was to find out what kind of individual and social circumstances and attitudes affect language identity change, if such a change takes place, at ethnic, national, and individual levels. The third goal was to articulate the relations between titular, Russian, and other ethnic groups. Ethnicization in the countries is growing, and the attitudes towards languages and language policies are reflected in the language preferences. The level of ethnic language distinctiveness of minority groups in Central Asia was evaluated on the basis of questionnaires distributed among 1,000 Kyrgyz, 1,000 Russians, and 1,000 representatives of other ethnic minorities in a nationwide design, in different regions of the country, aiming at people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and at two age groups: (1) 16
17 year old students in their last year of high-school; they grew up in independent Kyrgyzstan and represent the new generation relatively free of the past Soviet ideology; responses from this group could provide insights into the future of the national, ethnic, and individual identity; (2) 55
65 year old retirees whose ideology and everyday practices were formed under the Soviet regime, and who are gradually losing their societal influence; these people still play an important role in the country, especially because elder people are highly respected, yet they had to adjust to both political changes and technical progress. The questions were subdivided into the following: (1) examination of the respondents’ beliefs on whether nationalization, assimilation, cultural diversity, or bilingualism would better describe their sociolinguistic reality, past and present; (2) individuals’ perception of and attitudes towards the changing ethnic composition of the new nations, including the size of different groups, levels of migration, and prognosis for the future; (3) consideration of language choices and in/out-group ethnic versus interethnic contacts in various compositions and constellations, the contexts including family and friendship circles, school, and the workplace; (4) language proficiency in national/state and native/minority languages as self-assessed at present and in retrospective (to be compared to existing findings from the previous years). The respondents were asked about their intentions in the matter of language behavior, actual language use, experience with other languages

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and attitudes towards the role of different languages. Special focus was on Russians who have lost their previous heavyweight status and must adjust to new realities of the transforming societies, on the self-identification of different groups, and on intermarriages and children’s linguistic upbringing (Suleimenova et al., 2005). The questionnaires were distributed in six languages (four state languages, Russian and English), while representatives of the ‘small’ minorities agreed to fill them out in Russian. The study showed that the ethnic composition of Kyrgyzstan varies between the towns and villages. It is also reflected in multilingual constellations: the urban population prefers to converse in Russian in cities with a significant proportion of administrative and highly educated workforce and in Kyrgyz in cities with numerous factories and plants. In the countryside, Kyrgyz is often in use together with Uzbek or Tajik languages, and some villages are even trilingual. The Kyrgyz prefer in-group marriages; Russians mostly constitute part of multinational communities and are more exogamic. The results of preliminary data analysis show a certain dynamic towards stabilization of the linguistic status quo.2 Some 52% of the Kyrgyz reported that they prefer to bring their children up as Kyrgyz monolinguals, 46% favored bilingualism, and others had no opinion. Among the speakers of Russian, about 44% opted for monolingualism in Russian, 45% for multilingualism in different languages, and 11% had no opinion. Among other nationalities, 48% inclined towards one-language-use, 42% wanted more languages at home, and 10% were not sure. To know one’s own language is considered crucial by 85% of the Kyrgyz, 88% of Russians, and 82% of other minority language speakers. With regard to the definition of nationality, living on the same territory was less important for all of the groups, but the connection to the mother tongue was emphasized above all other factors by 70% of the Kyrgyz, 61% of Russians, and by most of the minority respondents. National consciousness and identification came in the second place, and religion occupied the third position among all respondents. Formulating their attitudes towards people of the same nationality not knowing their ethnic language, 46% of the Kyrgyz, 36% of Russians, and 41% of other ethnic minorities were tolerant; 19, 36, and 32%, respectively, were rather negative; and 30, 12, and 8%, respectively, distinctly negative; the remainder had no opinion. The concept of ethnicity (natsionalnost’) was considered important, whereas the concept of citizenship was often seen as not deep enough. Should those who speak Russian be Russian? Should Koreans living in Kyrgyzstan who do not speak Korean be proclaimed Koreans, Russians or Kyrgyz? Reflecting on the possibility of ascribing particular ethnicity to those who do not speak their ‘own’ language, 44% of the Kyrgyz were positive and 33% negative; among Russians, 36% were positive and 12% negative; among representatives of other ethnic groups, 32% were positive and 8% negative. Self-acceptance as a representative of one’s own ethnicity was high: 93% among the Kyrgyz, 88% among Russians, and 67% among other minorities. 87% of the Kyrgyz, 80% of Russians, and 67% of other minorities were ready to protect their mother tongues. When asked whether Russian can be the mother tongue for

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representatives of other ethnicities, 34% of the Kyrgyz, 79% of Russians, and 71% of members of other ethnic minorities replied positively; 50% of the Kyrgyz, 11% of Russians, and 17% of others rejected such possibility. Only 43% of the Kyrgyz, 22% of Russians, and 22% of other minorities felt secure about the future of their native tongues in Kyrgyzstan; the proportion of those who were very worried was 6% of the Kyrgyz, 15% of Russians, and 26% of other minorities. When representatives of other ethnicities speak the language of the respondent’s ethnicity, 86% of the Kyrgyz, 95% of Russians, and 86% of other minorities positively accept them. Some 42% of the Kyrgyz do not want Russians to leave the country (16% take the contrary view) and 66% of the Kyrgyz are worried about the fact that ethnic Kyrgyz are leaving the country. In terms of age differences, the younger generation appears to take a positive attitude towards multiple identities, multilingualism, and cosmopolitanism, whereas the older generations have come to accept the status quo. These results demonstrate that to be Kyrgyz and to speak Kyrgyz is becoming increasingly important for Kyrgyz people; Russian remains useful, but most Russians want their children to speak many languages. Those who have already lost their mother tongue, or have not learned it at all, are more skeptical about the future of the Kyrgyz language as covering all needs of Kyrgyzstani people. Still, the survey lacks the real histories of the people: some had no opportunity to experience balanced successful bilingualism and think that it is not possible.

Conclusions The Kyrgyz survey has demonstrated that the issues of language, ethnicity, and identity affect the ethnic revival while mobilizations of ethnicity and nationalism involved a renewed emphasis on language. Operating mostly inside the borders inherited from the Soviet era, the New Independent States were forced to redefine themselves in many aspects. Until now, regular life could not be organized without at least some recourse to Russian. Local intelligentsia leaned upon the established values, the ideals of the great literature and Russian democratic tendencies of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but with time they became more and more isolated from developments in Russian culture and the sciences. This adherence to tradition is seen in the fact that Kyrgyz scholars, writers and artists are still aspiring to a better future, equality for all, and accessibility of good education for the talented youth, while Russian intelligentsia in Russia focuses on achieving financial success and elite status. Russian administration is increasingly investing in the study of Russian outside Russia, study in Russia, and migration to Russia. As a result, the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University can pay better salaries to its personnel than its rivals, offer more modern textbooks and technical facilities, and employ the best teachers. To sum up, it appears that those who remain in Kyrgyzstan will face Kyrgyzification of most of the country, Uzbekization of the South, KyrgyzRussian bilingualism in the cities, and Kyrgyz-Russian-English-Turkish multilingualism of the elite. Russian remains important as a means of official, interethnic and worldwide communication, and the government is discussing

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measures for the maintenance of high-quality Russian in the mass media and other public uses (i.e. keeping up with the standard norms, avoiding corroded or low-status varieties, etc.). In order to reach these goals, the Kyrgyz Republic needs, among other things, high-quality Russian language teaching, good libraries and textbooks, comparative linguistic research and linguistic descriptions of real language use, and access to massive scientific and cultural sources in Russian. At the same time, the new Russian influence is in competition with western and Islamic influences, although so far Western scholars have not been as influential inside Kyrgyzstan as they aspired to be. In addition, despite great interest in foreign languages, especially English, Turkish and Arabic, only a small percent of those who would like to study them properly has access to up-to-date facilities and resources. The need to understand languages of the neighboring countries also suggests that Chinese should be added to the array of foreign languages taught in Kyrgyzstan (Orusbaev, 2003a). Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Abdykadyr Orusbaev, KyrgyzRussian Slavic University ([email protected]) or to Ekaterina Protassova, University of Helsinki ([email protected]) Notes 1. 2.

The number of schools continues to grow, and in the year 2007
2008 more than a hundred new schools were opened in Kyrgyzstan (Erkintoo, 23 November, 2007). More precise data will be provided in later publications, the final published data may be slightly different from the numbers reported here.

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Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan Mehrinisso Nagzibekova Tajik State National University The paper provides an overview of the language and education policies currently functioning in the Republic of Tajikistan, the demographic and sociolinguistic situation in the country, and language use in education and the media. Particular attention is paid to the decrease in Russian-language competence and the measures undertaken to address this issue.

Keywords: Tajikistan, Tajik-Russian bilingualism, Russian, language laws

Map Tajikistan (Source: https//www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/bo.html)

Language Laws and Policies Any newly formed state must address the issue of the state language or languages. In polyethnic states, this problem is commonly resolved by introducing the language of the predominant ethnos into all spheres of life (Suleimenova et al., 2005: 166) and by the determination of the legal status of minority languages (Pogorelaya, 2003: 67). In Tajikistan, the currently functioning Language Law was passed on 22 July 1989, when the republic was still part of the USSR. Its main regulations regarding the status of the Russian language had remained intact when the sovereign state of Tajikistan adopted the new Constitution in 1994 and the Education Law in 2004.

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In his discussion of lingua-etatisme (from the Latin lingua ‘language’ and the French e´tat ‘state’) as a new political, social, national-cultural, and nationallinguistic phenomenon in the countries of the CIS and in the Baltics, Neroznak (2004) states that ‘the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan turned out to be the only one among the constitutions of the CIS and Baltic countries that kept the definition of the status of Russian as the language of interethnic communication which was wide-spread in the USSR until 1990, when the law regarding the languages of the people of the USSR was passed, stipulating its status as the official language’ (p. 70). According to Article 1 of the Tajik Language Law, the state language of the country is Tajik. Russian functions freely in the territory of Tajikistan as the language of interethnic communication (Article 2). Issues related to the status of Pamir languages and their functions are handled independently by the Gorno-Badakhchansky Autonomous Region (Article 3). The Gorno-Badakhshansky Autonomous Region occupies 45% of the territory of Tajikistan and is inhabited by more than 270,000 people. This population, referred to as the Pamir people, represents a constellation of ethnic groups whose members speak 14 languages and dialects, commonly referred to as Pamir languages. The Tajik language is used exclusively in the sphere of office work, in the government and administration of Tajikistan, and in public organizations (Article 7). Acts of supreme authority in Tajikistan are passed in Tajik and published in Tajik, Russian, and Uzbek. Article 5 of the Language Law declares that the republic of Tajikistan guarantees every citizen the right to choose the language of communication with the government and administration as well as with enterprises, establishments, and organizations, including official organizations. Every citizen may receive information and documents in the state language Tajik, Russian, or any other language used in Tajikistan. This brief overview of the Tajik Language Law shows that the articles reinforce the position of the Tajik language in the main spheres of public life and contribute to the development of the literary form of Tajik. At the same time, the state politics of Tajikistan in the language sphere are based on the principles of equality offered to all languages, regardless of the number and location of their speakers.

Demographic and Sociolinguistic Situation in Tajikistan Tajikistan is a multiethnic society where members of more than 120 ethnic groups live side by side. Consideration of the legislative basis of cofunctioning of the state, Russian, and minority languages in Tajikistan is impossible without discussing Tajikistan’s demographic situation and, in particular, the major demographic changes that have taken place since 1991. These changes have significantly affected the sociolinguistic situation in Tajikistan and in particular the status of Russian (Suleimenova et al., 2005). As seen in Table 1, in 1989 the majority of Tajikistan’s population was Tajik (62.3%), followed by Uzbeks (23.5%), and Russians (7.6%). By 2000, the picture had significantly changed. According to the Tajik Census, in 2000, Tajiks constituted 80% of the country’s population, while the proportion of Uzbeks fell to 15.3% and Russians to 1.2%. The decrease in the numbers of Uzbeks,

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Table 1 Demographic changes in Tajikistan between 1989 and 2000 (based on Census data) Major ethnic USSR Census, 1989 Tajik Census, 2000 (in Changes (in thousands groups (in thousands and %) thousands and %) and %) Population total

5,092,6 (100%)

6,127,5 (100%)

 1,034,9 ( 20.3%)

Tajiks

3,172,4 (62.3%)

4,898,4 (79.9%)

 1,726,0 ( 54.4%)

Uzbeks

1,197,8 (23.5%)

936,7 (15.3%)


261,1 (
21.8%)

388,0 (7.6%)

68,2 (1.1%)


320,3 (
82.4%)

Tatars

72,2 (1.4%)

18,9 (0.3%)


53,3 (
73.8%)

Kyrgyzs

63,8 (1.3%)

65,5 (1.1%)

 1,7 ( 2.7%)

Ukrainians

41,4 (0.8%)

3,8 (0.06%)


37,6 (
90.8%)

Germans

32,7 (0.7%)

1,1 (0.02%)


31,6 (
96.6%)

Russians

Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, and Tatars is mostly due to migration, which was caused by the civil war and the difficult political and economic situation in the country. In the seven years since the 2000 Census, these numbers have decreased further, and according to the Migration Service of the Republic of Tajikistan, the overall population of Tajikistan is currently 7,100,000, with Russians constituting 0.3% of the population (Digest Press, 30, July 28, 2006). Urban population constitutes 25.6% of the overall population and 74.4% of the population lives in rural areas.

Languages in Education Article 21 of the Tajik Language Law guarantees citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan freedom of choice in the language of education and ensures secondary school education in Tajik, Russian, and Uzbek languages. In regions with high concentrations of citizens of other ethnicities, secondary education can be received in their native languages, such as Kyrgyz or Turkmen. According to Article 22, Tajikistan provides language instruction in Tajik and Russian in secondary schools, in institutions of higher education, and in other types of educational establishments. Altogether, secondary education (grades 1
11) in Tajikistan is offered in five languages: Tajik, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Russian. Education in minority languages is most frequently offered through special minority language classes or streams rather than specialized schools. Most Russian schools were closed due to the drastic migration of Russian-speakers. Table 2 illustrates the distribution of students across minority language classes in 1999
2003. In the school year 2004
2005, there were 3,775 secondary schools in Tajikistan with an overall number of 1,673,745 students (Shambezoda et al., 2006). Among these students, 73.7% studied in Tajik, 25.5% in Uzbek, 2.2% in

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230

Table 2 Minority-language classes in Tajik secondary schools in 1999
2003 1999 2000




2000 2001




2001 2002




2002 2003

17,543

18,047

18,609

18,897

Russian

1,240

1,282

1,424

1,478

Kyrgyz

810

913

902

899

Turkmen

153

156

155

137

Languages Uzbek




Russian, 0.8% in Kyrgyz, and 0.2% in Turmen. Russian instruction in 2004
2005 was offered through 1,570 classes (in approximately 50 schools) to 36,726 students. This number includes the three Russian schools still functioning in Tajikistan, two in the country capital, Dushanbe, and one in the city of Kuliab. Furthermore, and this is a new tendency in Tajik education, 0.04% students studied in English. At present, the English-language education is paid for and is quite expensive. That the proportion of Russian-language classes is higher than that of Russians in the overall population is easily explained by the fact that members of other ethnic groups, and in particular of minority groups, willingly send their children to Russian-language schools, either because they believe that the children will get a better education or because they want to work in Russia (Vecherniy Dushanbe, 30, July 27, 2006). In 2004, President Rakhmonov made the teaching of Russian as a second language obligatory from the 2nd to 11th grade in all Tajik and Uzbek schools in Tajikistan. At the same time, Russian instruction depends on the availability of Russian teachers, and in this area there is a major shortage even in urban schools. Another key issue in Tajik education these days is the shortage of appropriate textbooks. The Russian Federation provides textbooks for Russian-language schools, while Kyrgyz-language texts are being sent from the Kyrgyz Republic. Unfortunately, textbooks from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are inappropriate for Tajik minority language schools and streams because these texts use the Latin alphabet while in Tajikistan Cyrillic is preserved in Uzbek and Turkmen. At present, efforts are being made to create Tajik textbooks for secondary schools in all five languages, including Russianlanguage textbooks for schools where Tajik is the main language. Vocational and higher education in Tajikistan is available in Tajik, Uzbek and Russian. Table 3 illustrates the distribution of classes between Uzbek and Russian. Russian-language college education is available at the Russian-Tajik Slavic University (opened in 1996) and at Tajik campuses of Tiumen University and Moscow Contemporary University.

Mass Media Mass media in Tajikistan function in Tajik, Uzbek, and Russian, as well as in a variety of other minority languages. At present, 42 newspapers and

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Table 3 Minority-language classes in Tajik vocational schools and colleges in 2001
2003 School years 2001
2002

2002
2003

Language

Vocational schools

Colleges

Russian

6,825

23,560

Uzbek

2,089

2,695

Russian

5,530

7,634

Uzbek

2,554

3,348

24 journals are published in minority languages. More than 50 periodicals are published either in Russian or in Russian and Tajik. These include newspapers Narodnaya Gazeta, Vecherniy Dushanbe, and Asia-plus, and magazines Pamir, Izvestiya AN RT, and Russkiy yazyk i literatura v shkolah Tajikistana. Twelve state periodicals have Russian-language websites. The state radio station Sadoi Dushanbe (Voice of Dushanbe) offers Russianlanguage programming for two hours every day. Once a week the station translates the program ‘Russia-Tajikistan: the friendship bridge’. In 2003, two Russian-language radio stations began functioning, Radio Tajikistana and Russkoe radio
Orieno. On TV, viewers have access to two Russian-language channels transmitted from the Russian Federation and a private channel Somoniyon, which functions mainly in Russian. Two channels of Tajik TV include Russian- and Uzbek-language news, films, and programming. Since 1994, computer users in Tajikistan have access to the Internet and thus to information in a variety of languages. Currently, in Tajikistan there are ten registered information agencies, including Hovar, Asia-plus, Varorud, and Avesta. Materials published by these agencies are partially published in Russian or translated into Russian. There also exist performance groups and theaters that function in minority languages. These include four Russian-language theaters, two drama theaters (one in Dushanbe and one in Chkalovsk), a musical theater (in Naus region), and a puppet theater (in Chkalovsk).

The Status and Knowledge of Russian As noted by Alpatov (2000), in the USSR Russian was not merely a language of interethnic communication. It was also the language of prestige
proficiency in Russian offered access to higher education and to enormous opportunities for social and career advancement, and personal enrichment (Alpatov, 2000; Pogorelaya, 2003). The adoption of Tajik as the state language and the dramatic migration of Russian-speakers led to decreases in Russianlanguage competence among non-native speakers of Russian. At present, knowledge of Russian among Tajik speakers is governed by their level of education, occupation, and social status, with Tajik-Russian bilingualism prevalent among the intelligentsia and, to a certain degree, among the urban white and blue collar workers who work in multiethnic work places, where Russian functions as a lingua franca (Shambezoda et al., 2006).

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Recently, the interest in and the need for Russian have increased once again, as Tajikistan and Russia have begun developing new forms of economic, cultural, and academic collaboration. The governments have agreed on the single academic space, which means that all Tajik scholars have to have their doctoral and professorial degrees approved by the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK) of the Russian Federation. Before 2005, the dissertations themselves could be written in Tajik and the summaries in Russian; at present both have to be written in Russian. Importantly, the need for Russian is not limited to academia, it is also experienced in other strata of the Tajik society. Every year, more than 200,000 temporary migrants leave Tajikistan to work elsewhere. Some 93% of these migrants work in the Russian Federation where they need to demonstrate at least basic proficiency in Russian (Dubovitsky, 2007). To increase Russian-language competence in the republic, the President of Tajikistan passed a law on the improvement of the teaching of Russian in educational establishments. In December 2003, the government adopted The State Program of the improvement of teaching and learning of Russian and English in the Republic of Tajikistan in the years 2004
2014. The program underscores the need for the in-depth knowledge of both Russian and English in view of increasing economic cooperation between Tajikistan and other countries. The ten main goals of the program are as follows: (1) development of the Russian language as the language of interethnic communication in Tajikistan and of communication with CIS and the Baltic countries; (2) implementation of continuous Russian education at all stages of the education process, starting with preschool; (3) improvement of the methods and content in Russian language teaching, according to the National conception of education in the Republic of Tajikistan; (4) goal-oriented preparation of the national Russian-language teaching cadre; (5) focus on high quality and practical Russian education that would enable students to use the Russian language in their professional activities; (6) creation of the appropriate material and technological base for Russianlanguage instruction; (7) creation of a Russian-language teaching program for all strata of society; (8) development of steady motivation for Russian-language learning; (9) creation of the legal basis for Russian-language instruction in the private sector; (10) development of ways to popularize Russian via the mass media. This initiative resonated widely and positively with the public. Notably, in Tajikistan there was never any explicit anti-Russian feeling except for a brief period of civil opposition when the country accused Russia of interfering in its domestic business. Many people were against the decision to close Russian-language schools because Tajik-Russian bilingualism in the republic

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was considered a national treasure from which the country should not be deprived. At present, the functioning of the Russian language in the regulatory and political sense finds state support in Tajikistan. Governmental authorities and society itself are positive with regard to the development of the Russian language in the republic (Orifshoev, 2005). The knowledge of both Tajik and Russian will allow the people of Tajikistan to share in the achievements of science, technology, and culture of the Iranian and Slavic people, to expand their world view, to enhance the knowledge of surrounding nations, and to have more potential opportunities to develop their skills and intellect, and to advance their levels of education. Furthermore, in the era of globalization, the citizens of the republic need to know not only Russian but also English and other foreign languages. This multilingual competence will facilitate the integration of Tajikistan and its labor migrants into the world economic arena (Usmanov, 2005). Correspondence Correspondence should be directed to Mehrinisso Nagzibekova, Tajik State National University ([email protected]). References (2000) 150 1917
2000: CCCP [150 Languages and Policy 1917
2000: Sociolinguistic Problems of the USSR and the Post-Soviet Area].MockBA: Constitution of the Tajik Republic [ ( ) ] (2003) 2003, 86 c. Dubovitsky, V. [ ] (2007) [Migrants from Tajikistan join the Russian cultural space long before their arrival in Russia]. 13 February 2007. On WWW at http//:www.ferghana.ru. Accessed 3.16.07. Language Law of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic [ CCP ] . 1989, No. 15, p. 102. (1989) PCC Neroznak, V. (2004) Linguaetatizm as the State National-linguistic Politics of the CIS and Baltic Countries. Popylog. Orifshoev, I. (2005) Legislative conditions of functioning of the Russian language in the republic of Tajikistan. In Problems of Teaching and the Status of the Russian Language in the States
Members of EuroAsian Economic Community (pp. 73
77). St. Petersburg: ‘Petropolis’ House. Pogorelaya, E. (2003) The Russian Language: Contexts and Subtexts of a Language Reform of the Last Decade of the 20th Century. Tiraspol: RIO PSU. Suleimenova, E., Shaimerdenova, N. and Smagulova, J. [ , H. & ] (2005) : [New Language Identity in a Transforming Society: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Research Methodology]. Almaty: Qazaq Universiteti. Usmanov, M. (2005) Problems of learning Russian and Russian culture in the environment of working immigrants of the republic of Tajikistan. In Problems of Alpatov,

V.M.

[

B.M.]

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Teaching and the Status of the Russian Language in the States
Members of EuroAsian Economic Community (pp. 105
109). St. Petersburg: ‘Petropolis’ House. Shambezoda, Kh., Dubovitskaya, I. & Salimov, R. (2006) [ , X., ., . ] [Problems in the functioning of the Russian language in the Republic of Tajikistan]. Article translated from Russian by Julia Mikhailova, University of Toronto, and Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University.