Language Policy and Support for Minority Rights

The language issue has become increasingly subject to political rhetoric, pre-election promises and flirting with voters. Often it is only a cover for the most pressing problems in the social and economic spheres, but there are countries where the question of a language as a state language "stands by the edge." The language policy of the state, as a set of measures aimed at supporting one language or several languages, always aims to unite the various nationalities that inhabit the country into a single state entity - the nation. It's another matter how the desired is achieved.

We have before our eyes many historical examples, when inefficient language policy led to a completely opposite result - instead of rallying the people, it divided it, heated separatist sentiments and led to internal tension, sometimes ending in civil conflicts. So, in the UK in the middle of the twentieth century, teachers punished schoolchildren who used Welsh, Irish or Scottish words in their speeches. The armed conflict in Northern Ireland was not only religious in nature (Catholics versus Protestants), but also in language (Irish versus English).

In France in 1794 the Republic passed a law that forbade the use of any other languages and dialects on the territory of the country, except literary French (in fact, a dialect of the province of Ile-de-France). This law was repealed only in 1951, but for a century and a half the Occitan, Basque, Provencal, Breton, Italian in Corsica and others - almost completely disappeared. Did this language policy lead to the unity of the people? By no means - and mass demonstrations demanding the revival of the regional languages of the peoples inhabiting France are a vivid example of this.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, language policy was aimed at maneuvering and a kind of self-abasement of conquered territories. Despite the fact that communication between the monopoly and the colonies was in German, the government of Austria-Hungary supported the national languages: it opened Slovak schools, supported creative Ukrainian and Polish collectives, and sponsored talented Italian youth. Therefore, the "Spring of the Peoples", and later - the collapse of Austria-Hungary did not take place on the language issue, but purely on the political one.

Unlike tsarist Russia, where all "non-Russian" was suppressed, since 1917 the ideology of supporting regional languages has been propagated. However, it did not go further than propaganda. In the thirties, the opinion was widely expressed that there were only 15 fraternal peoples in the USSR, and these 15 languages of the Union republics were actively supported. At the same time, without any support from the state, there were, for example, German, Old-Mongolian, Finnish and other languages, whose carriers were compactly or scatteredly living on the territory of the USSR. In addition, the government proclaimed the languages of some republics to be "underdeveloped", requiring "language construction" - for example, Moldovans were forcibly transferred from the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet. In the 1950s and 1960s, the language policy of the USSR was implicit, but radically changed: despite the declaration of support for the languages of the Union republics, it was not Russian to speak "natsmen", it was a sign of backwardness and rural origin. The sad consequences of this policy can be observed on the example of russified Kazakhstan, Belarus, partially Ukraine and Moldova.

Language policy in Russia, unfortunately, inherited much of the tendencies of the late USSR. In addition to the declarations affirming the support of the languages of the national districts, republics and territories, the government of the Russian Federation often forgets about the languages of minorities compactly residing on the territory of the state. Of course, every citizen should know the state language of his country, but this does not mean that he is forbidden to talk and teach his children to speak their native language. If the state does not maintain the languages of the national minorities at the highest level , using the levers of administrative power, the media and the encouragement of writers who write in the languages of national minorities, these languages and dialects will die out after a while, and we will remain dissatisfied, resentful and national strife .