Towards a new paradigm for linguistic diversity in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Russia is a land of many languages - over 150 of them. All in all, Russia has had a relatively good record on accommodating linguistic diversity although matters deteriorated from the 60s onwards under the more 'liberal' leaders. The Russian Federation signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2001 but has yet to ratify it. Linguistic minorities should press for its ratification and facilitate this by taking a number of practical measures -setting up a web-site to facilitate and exchange of ideas and expertise, establish a network of linguistic minorities, engage in a linguistic community twinning arrangement with small linguistic communities in other countries.