medea
Nov 15, 2002, 09:41 AM
Russian deputies, in a strong signal to independence-minded ethnic regions, approved legislation on Friday that will make Cyrillic the only legal alphabet across Russia.
The amendments, approved in a third and final reading, directly target autonomous regions such as rebel Chechnya and Tatarstan, which has changed the written form of its local dialect from Cyrillic letters -- as used in Russian -- to Latin.
The package was supported by 336 members to 15 in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
"Alphabets cannot be made universal, there is no precedent for this anywhere," Tatar deputy Fandas Safiullin said.
Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim region on the Volga River, has already voted through its regional parliament to switch to the Latin alphabet for its Turkic Tatar language.
The newly amended country-wide bill, if given the final go-ahead by senators, will make it impossible for regions to scrap Cyrillic letters without a fresh federal law.
Alphabets -- Cyrillic, Latin or Arabic -- have long been a politically charged issue in Russia.
Czarist-era academics adapted Cyrillic to the needs of the dialects of the vast Russian empire, while national reformers backed Arabic or Latin script.
But under Josef Stalin all policies allowing regions autonomy in education and language were scrapped in favor of promoting the only Soviet lingua franca -- Russian.
Backers of the Latin alphabet say it is more easily adapted in the age of the Internet and globalization and allows speakers of Turkic languages to more accurately express their phonetics.
The State Duma led its last campaign to protect the Russian language in June, debating a legislative package which will clampdown on English words gradually creeping into everyday use.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/ns/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-reodd&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20021115%2F085399411.htm&sc=reodd
The amendments, approved in a third and final reading, directly target autonomous regions such as rebel Chechnya and Tatarstan, which has changed the written form of its local dialect from Cyrillic letters -- as used in Russian -- to Latin.
The package was supported by 336 members to 15 in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
"Alphabets cannot be made universal, there is no precedent for this anywhere," Tatar deputy Fandas Safiullin said.
Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim region on the Volga River, has already voted through its regional parliament to switch to the Latin alphabet for its Turkic Tatar language.
The newly amended country-wide bill, if given the final go-ahead by senators, will make it impossible for regions to scrap Cyrillic letters without a fresh federal law.
Alphabets -- Cyrillic, Latin or Arabic -- have long been a politically charged issue in Russia.
Czarist-era academics adapted Cyrillic to the needs of the dialects of the vast Russian empire, while national reformers backed Arabic or Latin script.
But under Josef Stalin all policies allowing regions autonomy in education and language were scrapped in favor of promoting the only Soviet lingua franca -- Russian.
Backers of the Latin alphabet say it is more easily adapted in the age of the Internet and globalization and allows speakers of Turkic languages to more accurately express their phonetics.
The State Duma led its last campaign to protect the Russian language in June, debating a legislative package which will clampdown on English words gradually creeping into everyday use.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/ns/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-reodd&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20021115%2F085399411.htm&sc=reodd
