Language Policy in the Soviet Union

1
Language Policy in the Soviet Union

• Chapter 1 Introduction

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Former USSR 1917-1991

• Deliberate use of language policy to further
  political goals
• Two contradictory trends
• National languages were manipulated to create a
  sense of identity among individual groups of
  people
• Strong promotion of Russian as single national
  language

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Dimensions of USSR

• 8,649,490 square miles (1/6 of dry land on Earth)
• 286,000,000 people in 1991 (over 50 Russian, 81
  Russian speakers)
• 130 ethnic groups
• Approximately 200 languages
• 15 Republics, each organized around a major
  nationality

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Language hierarchy created by USSR

• 1st tier Russian, sole official language of
  administrative, educational and legal practice
• 2nd tier titular languages with official status
  within their Republic
• 3rd tier languages with written forms and some
  govt support but no official status
• 4th tier (bottom) languages without official
  support

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1. Organization of the Soviet State

• Republics can be grouped as
• Baltics (Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian)
• Caucasus (Armenian, Azerbaijan, Georgian)
• Central Asia (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik Turkmen,
  Uzbek)
• Slavic Moldova (Russian, Belorussian,
  Ukrainian, Moldovan)
• Russian Far East (Siberia)

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1. Organization of the Soviet State, contd.

• Republics did not follow strict ethno-linguistic
  boundaries, but had political purposes
• Some Republics designed to create new identities
  or destroy old ones
• Central Asia was pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic,
  distinction Uzbek vs. Kyrgyz is new
• Old clan associations of Siberia were suppressed
  in favor of larger nationality

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1. Organization of the Soviet State, contd. 1939
census

• The three largest ethnic groups are all Slavic
  (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian) 78
• Next largest segment of population is Turkic
  languages (Uzbek, Tatar, Kazakh)
• Remaining languages of top ten ethnic groups are
  titular languages of the Caucasus (Azerbaijani,
  Georgian, Armenian)

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1. Organization of the Soviet State, contd.
since 1939

• Birth rates (high for Turkic, esp Uzbek, low for
  Slavic), genocide, WWII -- all these factors
  shifted population
• New top ten list is Russian, Ukrainian,
  Belorusan, Kazakh, Tatar, Azerbaijani, Armenian,
  Tajik, Georgian

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Language families
• Indo-European
• Altaic (Mongolian, Tungusic, Turkic)
• Uralic (Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic)
• Caucasian
• Paleosiberian (families and isolates based on
  location Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Eskimo-Aleut, Ket,
  Nivkh, Yukagir)
• Isolates

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Indo-European
• Over 80 of USSR had an I-E language as native
  language
• Baltic both living Baltic languages in USSR
• Entire East Slavic subfamily, plus Poles and
  other West Slavs in Lithuanian Ukrainian SSRs

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Indo-European
• All four subgroups of Indo-Iranian represented
• North-West Iranian (Kurdi, Talysh, Beludji)
• South-West Iranian (Tajiki, Farsi, Tat)
• North-East Iranian (Osetin, Yagnobi)
• South-East Iranian (Rushani, Bartongi, Oroshor,
  Shugni, Yazgulya, Ishkashimi, Wakhi)
• Largest is Tajiki, with over 4M in 1989 in USSR

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Altaic
• composition of this family is controversial due
  to internal complexities, migrations of speakers,
  lack of clear ethnonyms, language contact
• Altaic languages agglutinating, vowel harmony,
  grammatical number case, but NO gender, SOV
• Three major branches in USSR
• Turkic (Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Tatar)
• Mongolian
• Tungusic

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Turkic
• Most Turkic languages (except Turkish) spoken in
  USSR, over 50M speakers in 1989
• Turkic language continuum from Azerbaijan SSR in
  W to S regions of Tajik SSR, and from S of Tajik
  SSR N to the Chuvash SSR in this area, language
  is mutually comprehensible
• More distinct Turkic languages Chuvash, Yakut,
  Dolgan, Gagauz (Moldavian SSR), Urum (Georgian
  SSR)

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Mongolian
• Only 2 Mongolian languages (Buriat, Kalmyk)
  spoken in USSR
• Classical Mongolian served as literary language
  for most Mongolian languages
• Vowel harmony, vowel length, human vs. non-human
  (in pl)
• Case before possessive affix (opposite order from
  Turkic)

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Tungus (these languages spoken in Siberia and
  China, related to Manchu)
• Evenki (30K), Even, Negidal Orok (only 190),
  Oroch, Nanai, Udihe, Ulch
• all groups are small, traditionally nomads,
  dialectal fragmentation
• Agglutination, vowel harmony, lack of gender,
  contact with Russian Turkic

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Uralic Finno-Ugric Samoyedic
• Vowel harmony, lots of cases, agglutination, lack
  of gender
• Finno-Ugric
• 32 languages (includes Finnish Hungarian), all
  spoken in USSR
• Ugric (Siberia) Khanty/Ostyak, Mansi/Vogul
• Finno-Permic Komi-Permyak, Komi-Zyrian (Komi
  ASSR), Urdmut (NE of Moscow) Old Permic recorded
  by Stephen of Perm 14th c

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• More Finno-Ugric
• Finno-Cheremisic
• Cheremisic (2 languages)
• High Mari, Low Mari
• Finno-Mordvinic
• Baltic-Finnic (Estonian), Balto-Finnic (Finnish),
  Lappic (Saami)

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2. Linguistic map of USSR

• Samoyedic (all are indigenous to Siberia)
• Northern Enets, Nenets, Nganasan
• Southern Selkup
• Very small numbers of speakers, ranging from only
  200 up to 35K
• Vowel harmony, agglutination, sg/du/pl

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Caucasian

• North Caucasian vs. South Caucasian (Kartvelian)
  may not be related to each other
• South Caucasian
• Georgian, Svan, Laz, Mingrelian
• North Caucasian
• Northwest (Abkhaz-Adyghe)
• Northeast (Nakh-Daghestanian)
• (see diagram of all the languages)

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Caucasian

• Caucasian languages are famous for
• Long consonant clusters (Georgian)
• Large phonemic inventory (Ubykh)
• Ergativity
• Postpositional
• SOV and SVO

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Paleosiberian

• Languages that are relatively isolated and not
  related to each other
• Tend to be ergative and agglutinating and to
  express grammar with prefixes, and to lack gender
• Eskimo-Aleut covers Siberia, Canada, Greenland,
  Alaska
• Chukchi -- different pronunciations of consonants
  depending on gender of speaker
• Gilyak -- consonant alternations conditioned
  syntactically and 5 degrees of near/farness in
  demonstratives

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3. Ethnic composition of USSR

• No republic was monolingual
• Language was seen by Soviet state as key trait in
  identifying ethnicity, and this fact was
  manipulated both by official policy and by
  individuals reporting census data
• The majority of non-Russians declared their
  heritage language to be their native language,
  only 15 (1989) declared Russian as their native
  language
• Over half of non-Russians speak Russian, total of
  75 of USSR spoke Russian

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4. Analyzing the USSR

• Language policy was careful deliberate, for
  vast numbers of unrelated languages
• Goals were not transparent, sometimes
  contradictory, and always secretive
• Promotion of Russian accelerated over time,
  suppression of other languages, squelching of
  nationalist movements

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4. Analyzing the USSR data

• Soviet census data
• Very politicized 1926, 1937, 1939, 1959, 1970,
  1979, 1989
• Number of nationalities recognized varied
• Native language interpreted as language of
  childhood
• 2nd Language ability self-reported
• From the time of the first All-Union Census,
  ethnic identity was constructed by the Soviets,
  not by the people.
• Soviet laws legislation
• Soviet statistics

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4. Analyzing the USSR names, ethnonyms, and
spelling

• The naming of languages and ethnic groups in USSR
  was politicized
• Before formation of USSR, many minority languages
  and ethnic groups did not have names, and ethnic
  groups were created by Soviet policy, along with
  Russified names
• Lots of confusion

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4. Analyzing the USSR conclusion

• Complex interactions of many ethnic groups and
  local vs. state-level politics meant that
  policies were not very uniformly implemented
• For example, all languages (few exceptions) were
  required to use Cyrillic by late 1930s, but this
  was variously implemented