The Sociolinguistic Situation: Past, Present and Future in Bashkortostan

1452 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Industrialization in russia

The Sociolinguistic Situation: Past, Present and Future in Bashkortostan

________________________________________

Introduction

In the region between the Volga and the Urals, the Federal Republic of Bashkortostan is placed. Its natural gas and oil resources have maintained this region always as a prominent region within the Russian Federation. Looking back to its history, Bashkortostan with a surface of 143,000 sq km and more than four million population, has been a significant region regarding its ethnic and linguistic diversities (Gorenburg, 1999; Grimes, 2000).

According to Gorenburg (2003), Bashkortostan was the first autonomous republic which the Communist government created to prevent the dominancy of a Tatar-Turkic republic. Thereafter, Bashkir and many other ethnic groups and Turkic languages have been under the influence of Russian for over a century. This Russification process has ceased after the Soviet Union dissolution on the whole. But, accordingly, in some regions resolute tendency of ethnic language revitalization has become prevailing in the present Russian Federation Republics.

In this essay, the sociolinguistic situation of the past, present and the future of Bashkortostan will be discussed as a case study.

________________________________________

Historic Overview

From 13th to 15th century, Bashkirs were living under the rule of Mongol Khanate. When Tsar Ivan IV conquered the Kazan Khanate, Bashkortostan then became a Russian colony and Ufa was founded as the capital city of Bashkortostan. Consequently, many Russians settled in the region along with their colonization and centralization policies. Regarding the region was so wealthy in natural resources (gas and oil), an industrialization era starte...

... middle of paper ...

...wissenschaftliche und internationale Studien 16. Köln: BIOst.

Grävingholt, J. (1999b). Regionale Autonomie und postsowjetischer Autoritarismus: Die Republik Baschkortostan. Teil II: Herrschaftspraxis und föderale Beziehungen. Berichte des Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien 17. Köln: BIOst.

Grimes, B. F. (2000). Ethnologue: The Languages of the World. 14th edition. (Internet edition: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/).

Hagendoorn, L., Drogendijk, R., Tumanov, S., & Hraba, J. (1998). Inter-ethnicpreferences and ethnic hierarchies in the former Soviet Union. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 483-503.

Yagmur, K. , & Kroon, S. (2003). Ethnolinguistic Vitality Perceptions and Language Revitalisation in Bashkortostan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 24 (2003): 319-336.

Show More
Related

  • Assess the impact of World War I on the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.

    Read More

  • The Legacy of Russia and the Soviet Union - Authoritarian and Repressive Traditions that Refuse to

    1785 Words  | 4 Pages

    Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...

    Read More

  • Cultural Globalization Of Hmong In The United States

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though the dominance of a language can allow for the loss of a culture, it can also bring awareness. In schools, local community centers and other various places, foreign languages are taught, not only do non-native speakers take on these languages but native speakers do as well to keep their culture. By doing so it “revitalizes cultures and cultural artifacts through foreign influences, technologies, and markets.” (Gerdes

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Movie Doctor Zhivago

    1498 Words  | 3 Pages

    7) Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia: Fourth Edition, Completely Revised. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954.

    Read More

  • The Return to Laughter, by Elenore Smith Bowen

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    As anthropologists seek to understand the culture that they are studying they must overcome the language barrier. Similar to the concept of culture, “people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their understanding of the world and themselves, and engage with on...

    Read More

  • Bilingual Education in Richard Rodriguez' Aria

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...

    Read More

  • Islam in Central Asia and the House of Culture

    1591 Words  | 4 Pages

    İğmen A. (2012). Speaking Soviet with an Accent: Culture and Power in Kyrgyzstan. “Central Asia in Context Series,” Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press

    Read More

  • Transnistria Case Study

    981 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 2012, the total population of Luhansk comprised approximately 426,000 people. The majority of city´s industrial companies have established connections with the Donbas coal and steel complex (Gentile, 2015). Generally, almost everyone in Ukraine is able to fluently speak and understand Russian, however, a vast number of people are not able to speak Ukrainian. They have an even problem to understand the language (Himka, 2015). In addition, the eastern part of Ukraine is largely urbanized and for this reason, the region more easily assimilated to use of Russian language (Himka, 2015). From the past, it is known that in the 1990s, approximately one-third of the population of Donetsk proclaimed not to support the addition of the Donbas to Ukraine (Shulman, 1998 as quoted in Gentile, 2015). Especially the Russian minority, people from the east, the retired and the poorest tend to be more pro-Russian oriented. They are even willing to follow stronger bonds with Russia (Kubicek, 2000 as quoted in Gentile, 2015). In one of his speeches, Putin mentioned the gone areas of “Novorossiya” including areas of Donbas and Luhansk, that were ceded to the Ukrainian SSR by the Soviet administration in the 1920s (Allison, 2014). This political situation resulted

    Read More

  • When Cultures Collide: The Challenges of Raising African Children in a Foreign Country

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another difficulty cultures deal with is language and the way people speak. In some cases, people struggle to belong by making changes in the way they speak the English language just to be assimilated. They attempt to use words and letters, as well as body language that fit in the norm; all in an attempt to denounce their original intonation and style of pronunciation. One ...

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue by Amy Tan

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue." 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 4th Edition. Ed. Samuel Cohen. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 417-23. Print.

    Read More

  • The First-generation Immigrant in America

    2126 Words  | 5 Pages

    Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. 603-07.

    Read More

  • Joseph’s Dialect in Wuthering Heights

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    —. Language: Readings in Language and Culture. 6th ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print.

    Read More

  • The Power of Language in American Culture

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Across Cultures. Eds. Sheena Gillespie and Robert Singleton. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 26-31.

    Read More

  • The Conflict Between the Ukraine and Russia

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).

    Read More

  • An Inquiry into the Dilemma of the Turkish Language

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    Debates about the Turkish language are not a current topic. Westernization of language has been just a part of the Turkish Republic’s modernization movement. Both men of letters, scholars and governors of state worked on this issue. The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu) was founded by Atatürk’s directive in 1932. The Turkish Language Associat...

    Read More

More about The Sociolinguistic Situation: Past, Present and Future in Bashkortostan

Open Document