Bilingualism and Multilingualism Development in Republic of Bashkortostan

Abstract

The article is devoted to the emergence and development of bilingualism and multilingualism in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The questions of appearance and settlement of representatives of Slavic, Finno-Ugric, Turkic and other ethnic groups with their own languages and culture in the territory of modern Bashkortostan are considered. Special attention is paid to the three most numerous groups of the population of the Republic: Russians, Bashkirs and Tatars. The story of the appearance of Mari, Udmurts, Mordvins and representatives of other peoples in the Bashkir territories is told. The author also focuses on the current language situation and on the legislative protection of the rights of national minorities and their languages in Bashkortostan. The relevance of the article is determined by the attention of the Russian and world community to the situation of national languages and the problem of their preservation. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that the emergence of bilingualism and multilingualism in Bashkortostan is associated with the moment of Bashkir lands settlement the by the non-Bashkir population. It is indicated that, settling compactly or dispersed, it was adjacent to representatives of foreign-speaking ethnic groups, which led to interethnic communication. These circumstances explain the emergence of different types of bilingualism - national-Russian, national-national and (less often) Russian-national, and some types of trilingualism in Bashkortostan.

Keywords

• bashkortostan
• bashkirs
• tartars
• russians
• language situation
• russian language
• finno-ugric peoples
• bilingualism
• language act