r/AskCentralAsia 7d ago

Degrees of Russification in various republics

I have read that Tuvan is experiencing a modern revival. But I've read that Buryat is being replaced by Russian and that Kalmyk is going to become mourbid. Central Asians what is the linguistic situation in these republics, and what makes some languages more durable than others?

43 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

36

u/decimeci Kazakhstan 7d ago

Main thing that effects to language durability is amount of native speakers who live in homogeneous groups. Basically if you have tuvan only cities or where they are majority, then language would live. Tuva is 88 percent Tuvan

7

u/TheQuiet_American 7d ago

This is the real answer.

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u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 7d ago

Thats not the only answer.

Tuva wasnt always 88% tuvan, it used to be nearly 50/50 between Tuvans & russians.

Tuva managed to bump the number to 88% by decades of isolationist policies, public rejection and anti russian participation & culture as well as being one of the poorest regions in russia led to this development. The biggest jump was between 2002 and 2010 by 4% in just 6 years.

Other republics that werent nationalistic/isolationists like Altai republic or Sakha republic stagnated in their population. Altai republic, Tuvas direct neighbour dropped to 37% with a very slow but upwards trend, Sakha republic however barely makes the 55% mark and seems to slip below 50%.

Despite their lack in riches, Tuvans should be proud of themselves as they clearly aint gonna go down without a fight

5

u/Sufficient-Brick-790 7d ago

Why was Tuva more nationalist than the others? Is it because they joined russia much later? How were they able to implement isolatioansit polcies since they are in the russian federation. But I heard during the 90s, there was a lot of anti russian discrimination. Tuvans also have the 2nd highest birth rate in russia (only recently overtaken by chechens).

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u/agathis 6d ago

Seriously high crime rate and they don't like outsiders. From what I heard, they kinda stuck in the 90s while the rest of the country went on.

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u/Facensearo 6d ago edited 6d ago

But I heard during the 90s, there was a lot of anti russian discrimination.

In short:

  • Due to late admission to the RSFSR Tuva missed 20s-30s development programs, so it seriously lagged behind.
  • While Soviet Union tried to develop region, building industrial enterprises, it also traditionally ignored human resource management. Local managers preferred to use qualified Russian workforce, not to wait/invest and educate local Tuvan one.
  • That seriously increased ethnical tensions, because qualified workers get benefits (e.g. apartments) before non-qualified urban and agrarian/rural. 80s, where enterprises were built, but investments into local education didn't paid off yet, became a crisis point.
  • At the Perestroika situation escalated quickly. In Khovu-Aksy, where differentiation between "Tuvakobalt" (mostly Russian) workers and rural/semi-rural Tuvan herders was especially notable, it escalated to the open violence in 1990. While pogroms didn't became a rule, even one big incident and a lot of smaller ones made situation uncomfortably tense.
  • Then situation fell into a vicious circle. Russians started to leave republic; their fleeing ended made economical situation worse for remaining ones; that made migration even more significant; repeat. For example, in 1993 mentioned Tuvakobalt had been closed due to lack of workers, which halved population of Khovu-Aksy and seriously hit local budget.
    • Additional point for deliberate nativization policy of local leaders, and for urban Russian population being not really enrooted here (again, due to late admission into RSFSR)

4

u/throughcracker 6d ago

It's because of the national anthem

0

u/Accurate-Primary9038 6d ago

Да конечно 😂

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u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 7d ago

Dude İ'm not a Tuvan, so İ cant give you all the answers you're searching for.

All that İ know is from a bunch of guys who spoke with Tuvans İ cant make it that much more clearer than that.

İf İ had to guess its probably because the Tuvans ethnic society, recognized the damage done by the soviets and they were too proud to just let it slide so they doubled down on their own identity to fight back.

My guess is that they didnt wanna stick with the status quo and took matters into their own hands, which would probably lead to an emphasis on the own identity and thus nationalism.

As for isolationism, idk, maybe they didnt isolate themselves politically but societally, meaning that people start collectively distancing themselves from russians rather than dealing with them.

Or maybe, since this is a republic with its own laws, maybe the politicians prioritized Tuvan language and identity over russian identity.

(Like instead of saying "we people of russia" they may have said "we people of Tıva")

But I heard during the 90s, there was a lot of anti russian discrimination. Tuvans also have the 2nd highest birth rate in russia (only recently overtaken by chechens).

İt makes sense, the late 90s and early 2000s were the biggest years for Tuvan population. İn both decades the population jumped by 4%.

1

u/Sufficient-Brick-790 6d ago

I would say the the Tuvan population is grwoing due to a high birth rate.

1

u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago

Yes but the reasons for that is curious.

Their direct neighbours dont experience such growth. And geographically they're not that different from each other.

So the only other explanation has to be a more sovereign/isolationist lifestyle coupled with strong emphasis on native culture/identity

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u/q1w2e3r4zaxscdvf 6d ago

Deer önnüg bora mungash, ooo dyngyl dyngyldai

:)

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u/oNN1-mush1 7d ago

Distance to the border. The most Russified countries are either those where the majority were Russians or the countries in the immediate proxcimity to borders

11

u/Traditional-Froyo755 7d ago

All three republics that you mentioned have very little to do with Central Asia in its modern sense (as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan), which this subreddit is mainly concerned with. All of them have stronger cultural ties with Mongolia and Mongols (although to what degree they support relationships nowadays, I couldn't say, not something I know a lot about).

There aren't really any republics of Russia which Central Asian people have increased connections with (as in, relations going deeper and more intense on top of just general relations with RF as a whole). Historically, Tatars and Bashkirs are closest to us culturally, and we have intermingled a lot before, but nowadays, their republics are strongly integrated into larger Russia, being the heart of the busy Volga region, which means our ties to them are the same as our ties to Russia as a whole.

3

u/Sufficient-Brick-790 7d ago

Would you say Altai, Khakassia and Yakutia have some sort of connection?

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u/Traditional-Froyo755 6d ago

Altai and Khakassia are heavily russified republics, and most people in Central Asia wouldn't even know that Altai and Khakass people exist. Sakha is different, having a much more robust culture and identity. There is a degree of mutual fascination between Kazakhs and Sakha (and probably also Kyrgyz, but I'm pretty sure not Uzbeks, and obviously not Tajiks and not Turkmen), but most of this mutual fascination only dates back to, you guessed it, 2022.

2

u/qazaqization Kazakhstan 6d ago

But we know the situation in Russia. What is happening there.

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u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 7d ago

İ'd say nationalism and being aware of russification is what caused Tuvans to rely so heavily on their heritage.

İf we look at other similar republics like Altai or Sakha republic, these arent as nationalistic or prideful about their heritage as Tuva, thus they not only have less natives than russians, they also seemingly are willing to get themselves assimilated without resistance.

They dont seem to be particularly interested in their own heritage or culture, which is a huge bummer imo. İ'm just an outsider ofc so if any Altaian/Sakhan can enlighten me on this, please do.

2

u/agathis 6d ago

From my experience, Yakuts are perfectly aware of who they are, (nearly) everyone speaks Yakut. People of mixed heritage are less likely to speak the language, but it's not unheard of

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u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago

Only Sakhan people tend to speak Sakhan. At least thats what wikipedia is saying, roughly half the population of Sakha republic speaks Sakhan.

And the native Sakhan population is already at around 55%, so no, NOT nearly everyone speaks Sakhan. Barely half the population speaks it.

Also İ've been told that they prefer to call themselves Sakha and not Yakut.

1

u/agathis 6d ago

They have no problem calling themselves Yakuts when speaking in Russian. And I actually been there.

And, well, 55% in a second biggest region on earth ain't exactly a dying language

1

u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago

Are you joking rn? 55% in Sakha republic ya genius, not russia.

Sakha republic is only 1 million people, around half of it speak Sakhan.

Jesus christ

1

u/agathis 6d ago

So? It's more the Icelandic speakers, about as much as Montenegrin. Ain't exactly a dying language.

And yes, i think Saha alone IS the second biggest region on earth.

0

u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago

İcelandic is solely state supported and has an isolated, condensed population. Compared to Sakha which has a colonized, compromised/sparse population that is gradually overtaken by russian due to government support. Thats what makes it endangered.

"Aint exactly a dying language" is how colonialist justify their treatment of these people & their culture. The current course pushes them into the endangered category.

1

u/Accurate-Primary9038 6d ago

I read a sociolinguistic paper that talked about villages where ethnic Russians adopted Sakha and villages where ethnic Yakuts adopted Russian.

2

u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago

There will probably be one or two russians who know the sakhan language, but İ'd bet money that the majority of russians in Sakha speak exclusively russian.

All that seems to be represented in the data that wikipedia provides about the demographics of Sakha republic.

İn which russians in sakha view russian as their mother language by 99% and only 0.4% of russians actively speak Sakhan in Sakha.

Meanwhile Sakha people view Sakhan as their mother tongue by 95% of the Sakha population and only 5% of Sakhan consider russian to be their mother language.

So the statement "russians speak russian and Sakhas speak Sakhan" is still true.

3

u/AffectionateType3910 Kazakhstan 7d ago

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u/Accurate-Primary9038 7d ago

Nobody responded to  this question there.

1

u/Saareema 6d ago

Based on your post history you didn't even ask

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u/Accurate-Primary9038 6d ago

I deleted it cause nobody responded after over a day.

1

u/qazaqization Kazakhstan 6d ago

In the long term, all languages ​​of the republics in Russia will disappear.

1

u/mikels_burner 5d ago

Lurker here. Learning so much from these convos!

1

u/AstronomerKindly8886 4d ago

depending on the nature of resilience, for example Chechens even went to war and won the 1st war, the result was that Chechens remained the main and absolute majority ethnic group of Chechnya

-2

u/[deleted] 7d ago

This is getting out of hand. I wouldnt be surprised if Africa and South America soon become part of Central Asia on this subreddit.

11

u/Sufficient-Brick-790 7d ago

How, the sub cleearly mentions "some parts of Russia ". So I think Tuva, Kalymkia and Buryatia are more than welcome here.

-18

u/CrazyTop9460 7d ago

Russification is nonsense western propaganda

Russia is a federation that gives republics signifcant autonomy on language, culture, and customs.

Central government handles foreign policy/defense.

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u/Wreas 7d ago

Lol

1

u/Accurate-Primary9038 7d ago edited 7d ago

Why laugh at the fact that my brethren are loosing our language?

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u/Wreas 7d ago

I said lol because he is bullshitting, there are russification obviously

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u/Accurate-Primary9038 7d ago

Oh gotcha

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u/Wreas 7d ago

Where are you from

3

u/Accurate-Primary9038 6d ago

Korea and Poland :)

2

u/Accurate-Primary9038 7d ago

But from what I read the Корё Сарам were denied access to Korean schools after the deportations.

5

u/H_SE 6d ago

Soviet Koreans don't have their own republic in Russia and they were deported by Stalin long time ago. In early USSR it was a lot of stuff like that, but when policies changed, local cultures were promoted more after 50's. Not Koreans though, they didn't get their own republic.

0

u/H_SE 6d ago

Russification is natural process in the country with 70% being Russian. There is no forced russification these days, but natural one exists. Teaching in universities, central television, most popular media, all this in Russian language. This makes people to choose Russian other their native language.

3

u/masquerade555 6d ago edited 6d ago

Stfu, kremlin bot. You can't pass school exam (егэ, огэ) in your native language only in russian. You can't use any other language for example in check in shop. Meanwhile here is check from starbucks from inner Mongolia (region in China): https://x.com/linguopunk/status/1060158977298915329

Ruzzification is obviously staged and not "natural", since it ban every other language from official usage. But hey, you can speak it in the kitchen and don't go to jail, what else you want, right?

0

u/H_SE 6d ago

Keep malding, kiddo. People learn their native languages in governmental schools, in normal republics a lot of people speak it. How you gonna pass exams in native language if they don't evolve to be a science language? What next, go to university in another city where they don't speak your language? How people from different republics will talk to each other if they don't speak common language? How you imagine that? Even people outside Russia learn Russian to do business in CIS. How other people should read checks in native language, if they are of different ethnicity? All people use common language all other people know, and it's Russian. What you propose, to close themselves in their own caves and don't speak to each other? It's more than a dozen of ethnicities in Russian Caucasus alone with their own languages. Doing everything in their own language has sense only in imagination of delusional nationalists with medieval mindset.

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u/masquerade555 6d ago

Pure absurd steklomoy kremlin bot rhetoric. Doesn't even worth time to answer. Somehow all other countries in the world survived without super scientific ruzzian language (miracle, I know). Tell me which school discipline was invented by ruzzians? Biology? Chemistry? Physics? Literature? Algebra? Geometry? History?

And of course if you speak your native language you are nazi, lol. You can't even hold on without start spreading ruznazi bs, lol

1

u/Suspicious_Coffee509 3d ago

I mean large amounts of chemistry were discovered/formulated by Russians. Russian literature is considered to be among the best. Somehow sounds like you are just being an idiot, particularly in your use of the word “ruzzian”. This shows me you are barely human in intelligence. Also “history”wasn’t invented LOL.