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Untitled Document
Mintimer Shaimiyev, President of Tatarstan, an autonomy within
the Russian Federation, does not think that the Federal Constitutional Court's
Nov. 16 decision as to the script of the Tartar language will make it impossible
for his republic to go ahead with the switchover from the Cyrillic to the Latin
alphabet if it decides to do so.
"I'd say that yesterday's decision by the Constitutional
Court does not strip Federation member states, in this case the Republic of
Tatartstan, of the right to examine this problem further. The issue can be solved
through the adoption of a federal law," Shaimiyev said.
The Constitutional Court has concluded that the use of the
Cyrillic alphabet by the Tartar language does not contradict the Supreme Law
of the Russian Federation. Neither has it found any contradiction in the Russian
and the Tartar languages being equally prominent on the school curriculum in
Tatarstan.
According to Shaimiyev, opinions in Tatarstan are divided over
the appropriateness of transferring the Tartar language to the Latin alphabet
at this point in time. Opponents argue that the switchover may adversely affect
Tartars living outside the republic. If Tatarstan decides to adopt the Latin
alphabet, the 500,000-strong Tartar population of the neighboring Bashkortostan,
for example, will find itself linguistically isolated from the fellow Tartars
back home.
"As a matter of fact, the decision [to switch over to
the Latin alphabet] was adopted at the 1st Congress of Tartars precisely under
the influence of [Tartars] in the Diaspora," Shaimiyev said. However, according
to him, "most of the Tartars still use the Cyrillic alphabet."
"We'll carry on with the experiment,'' the President of
Tatarstan said. "We shall take our time to fully comprehend the problem
as the fate of the 7 mln-strong nation is at stake."
Shaimiyev also pointed out that the alphabet issue had eclipsed
the Constitutional Court's conclusion concerning the legitimacy of teaching
both Russian and Tartar at schools of Tatarstan. "The Constitutional Court
fully supported our actions, recognizing them as legitimate," he noted,
adding that if the court had ruled otherwise, this may well have polarized society
in the republic. He also remarked that one-third of Tatarstan's married couples
were ethnically mixed, so their children's proficiency in both Tartar and Russian
was a "matter of linguistic comfort."
Source: Novostoi
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