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- What our word will be called back: the State Duma has taken up the defense of the Russian language
What our word will be called back: the State Duma has taken up the defense of the Russian language
The State Duma may consider a draft law devoted to protecting the Russian language from a glut of foreign words the other day. The specialized committee on culture has recommended that the document be adopted in the first reading. The new provisions will limit the use of foreign words in trade, media and other public spheres, as well as protect consumers from distortion of information in the translation of advertising of goods and services. Details - in the material "Izvestia".
"In the days of doubt."
On the instructions of President Vladimir Putin, the State Duma will consider in a special order an important bill. It was developed back in 2023, but its consideration in the State Duma all the time postponed for a variety of reasons. In January, the President himself was forced to pay attention to this delay. In the near future, the State Duma plans to consider this bill.
The purpose of the legislative initiative is to form a nationally oriented environment in Russia, to ensure the protection of the Russian language and to limit the use of foreign (borrowed) words in public space, as emphasized in the explanations to the bill.
As the authors of the bill told Izvestia, it is aimed at protecting the Russian language as the state language, reducing the use of foreign words in public space and ensuring compliance with the norms of the modern literary language. It is proposed that signboards, advertisements and signposts should be designed in Russian. Translation into other languages is allowed, provided that the content and design are equal. Information about goods and promotions should be provided in Russian. In addition, the names of residential complexes, settlements and neighborhoods should also be in Russian.
Thus, it should become impossible to use on signs and shop windows such inscriptions as, for example, coffee, fresh, sale, shop, open, said the authors of the bill. However, this requirement will not affect trademarks and company names.
In addition, as follows from the explanatory note, the proposed amendments to the law "On Mass Media" and other acts "are aimed at ensuring compliance with the norms of the modern Russian literary language (recorded in normative dictionaries, reference books and grammars) in the broadcasting of news programs on Russian mandatory publicly accessible TV channels and radio channels and, as a result, the exclusion of speech and lexical errors of presenters (announcers) when they transmit messages in such information (news) programs".
The Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture did not comment on the bill in its current form to Izvestia.
"I don't like Russian speech without a grammatical error."
Limiting the excessive use of anglicisms would be a good idea, especially in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the streets need to be freed from a motley of signs written in Latin. After all, the historical centers of our ancient cities suffer especially from this. This is what can be called cultural dissonance, according to the V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Scientists who study the Russian language, "it is shocking when domestic companies and manufacturers, being unable to overcome the feeling of inferiority, write the Russian-language names of their brands and stores in Latin, and developers call the settlements on our land 'beautifully' [allegedly foreign words]". [allegedly with foreign words]."
- However, it is unknown whether it will be better if we resort to mass transliteration of brand names and names of trading houses," argues Olga Ivanova, a leading researcher at the Russian speech culture department of the V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Olga Ivanova of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language. - This also looks wild and will only add barbarisms to the public written space, even though it is written in Russian. Besides, the use of the original name of a trademark is protected by law, so it is not uncommon to have two inscriptions instead of one?
RAS specialists are interested in how the mechanism of regulating "excessive use of foreign words in the name of objects" will be organized. After all, many brands, stores and settlements already exist. And to change the signboard may be inexpensive, but to change the documents of title (charters, lease agreements, cadastre records, etc.) will cost money. The RAS asks a question: what bodies, on the basis of what legal norms and within what timeframe will monitor the implementation of this law?
Facade of the five-star Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya hotel in Moscow
Overkill and extremes are bad everywhere, including in the use of anglicisms or any other foreign words. When it is misleading or when the degree of clarity and comprehensibility of the text for the average speaker of the Russian language is deliberately reduced - for example, instead of "construction" they say "development". Here we can discuss, there is a field for reasoning. But in this bill it is a question of excluding the foreign language component from the urban discourse of outdoor advertising and external communication - this is the other extreme, which is also harmful, because the modern city can not be monolingual, believe the Pushkin State Institute of Russian Language.
According to Svetlana Kamysheva, head of the Center for Language Policy and International Education at the State Institute of the Russian Language, "Forcible change of commodity names, international as a rule, which function in conditions of cross-border trade, when the same name is used in different countries, is hardly possible - everything is logical and understandable here. It is unlikely that "Hilton" will be called "Matryoshka" in Russia. A forced attempt at Russification, in the manner of "mokrostupov", will lead to confusion and misunderstanding, which we want to avoid.
- Prohibitions are useless when it comes to people's free decision," Kamysheva said. - Of course, people may not like the names of housing estates with English words. But if you talk to the marketers of these LCDs, they will tell you that apartments in complexes with such names sell better, that is, this is a reaction to stereotypes and preferences of consumers, who associate such names with something international, high-quality, good, real.
The answer is to offer public hearings on such names, the researcher suggests.
- If an organization wants to approve a project, there are hearings on environmental safety, on the preservation of cultural heritage, for example," she says. - Let's do the same about the name. If the authors of the projects can explain, motivate, argue why such a name - fine, if not, then at the stage of nomination can be adjusted. Those projects that exist, of course, cannot be touched. They have invested effort, money, they are jobs, after all.
Restriction cannot be prohibited
The new bill on the protection of the Russian language will not just affect the placement of signs and inscriptions. It will be aimed at ensuring national sovereignty and preserving the culture encoded in the language, argues Galina Trofimova, deputy chairman of the Guild of Linguistic Experts in Documentary and Information Disputes, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation. Wherever it is possible to do without foreign-language borrowings, it is necessary to do without them, she believes.
- I hope that the new provisions will not restrict but prohibit the use of anglicisms and foreign words in these spheres," says the expert. - And also legislatively will introduce long overdue linguistic expertise of projects of signs and inscriptions. It is necessary to contact Russian language specialists, and they will help and explain how to avoid various violations and distortions.
Egor Kashkin, a senior researcher at the Institute of the Russian Language, notes that today the Russian language dominates in Russia in all spheres of public life, so there is no need to "strengthen" its position, as it seems to him. But it is necessary to raise the level of literacy and the level of mastery of different styles of speech, the expert believes.
- But this is a matter of improving educational programs, raising the qualifications of public figures (for example, the media should have literate Russian) and popularizing the reading of quality literature," says Kashkin.
- Today, other languages spoken in Russia are in some way endangered," the scientist says. - Young people (and in many regions, unfortunately, older people as well) consider them less prestigious for various reasons and are increasingly switching to Russian. To avoid their complete disappearance, it is necessary to take measures to support their status in society. This status is made up of many components, including the use of language on signs and in advertisements.
As for the desire to protect the Russian language from foreign-language words, it is still unclear who and how will regulate the implementation of such a law, evaluating each word, Kashkin reasonably points out. Any language borrows words from other languages, because peoples are in constant contact. And there are a lot of borrowed words in the English language. Therefore, the scientist thinks that such processes should be self-regulated by the practice of language use, and the skills of competent choice of synonyms should be improved in the sphere of education.
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