Table of Contents



Tatar in Russia

Language designations:

Language vitality:

UNESCO Ethnologue Endangered Languages Glottolog
potentially vulnerable Institutional n/a not endangered

Linguistic aspects:

A dispute exists between the Russian federal government and the republic of Tatarstan: the republic wishes to revert to the Latin (Latinista) script, but the Russian government disagrees1)2). In 1999, Tatarstan adopted a Latin script, but this was outlawed by the Russian Duma in 2002, which stated all languages in Russia should be written in the Cyrillic script. In 2004, an appeal from Tatarstan was brought to the Russian Constitutional Court, which ruled against Tatarstan, stating the use of a different script was a “refusal” to the Russian constitution and a restriction to the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens 3) Nonetheless, some books are published with private funds in Latin script, though publishers may risk prosecution for this.4).

Language standardization:

Demographics

Language Area

Tatarstan is a republic of the Russian Federation.

operating instructions

Various functions are available as part of the map.

mouse/touch operation
  • moving by grabbing the map with a mouse-click you can move the map around
  • overview map using the < button in the bottom right of the map you can expand an overview map
  • zooming in and out using the + and - buttons in the top left of the map you can obtain more or less detail in the map
  • switching themes or maps clicking on the ≡ icon on the right-hand side of the map you can view and select available maps and themes
  • retrieving information the map may contain elements that contain more information, by clicking these a popup will show this information
  • fullscreen display using the ⛶ button the map can be maximized to fullscreen display, use the ▢ button to return to page display.
keyboard operation

Keyboard operation becomes available after activating the map using the tab key (the map will show a focus indicator ring).

  • moving using the arrow keys you can move the map
  • overview map using the + button in the bottom right of the map you can expand an overview map
  • zooming in and out using the + and - buttons in the top left of the map or by using the + and - keys you can obtain more or less detail in the map
  • switching themes or maps clicking on the ≡ icon on the right-hand side of the map you can view and select available maps and themes
  • retrieving information the map may contain elements that contain more information, using the i key you can activate a cursor that may be moved using the arrow keys, pressing the enter will execute an information retrieval. press the i or the escape key to return to navigation mode
  • fullscreen display using the ⛶ button the map can be maximized to fullscreen display, use the ▢ button to return to page display.

It's possible that some of the functions or buttons describe above have been disabled by the page author or the administrator

The Property Boundaries

 

Points of Interest
id symbol latitude longitude description
The Property Boundaries

Speaker numbers

Russian Census of 2010, population in Tatarstan according to ethnicity:

Population
Tatars 2,012,571
Total population 3,786,488

Education of the language

History of language education:

Historically, Tatars had a fairly strong education linked to religious institutions; in 1926, literacy rates among Tatars were about 48.2% in comparison to other Turkic groups living in the USSR – Azerbaijan SSR – 25.2%, Uzbek SSR – 10.6% 5)).

In 1926, USSR policy forced the Tatars to change from Arabic script, in use since 920 AD, to Latin script. The late 1930s saw a gradual shift toward Russification of the nation (a process of forced or voluntary assimilation into the Russian culture), including another script change to Cyrillic. This Russification, and state control over publications in Tatar, led to a reduction of programs/schools with Tatar-medium of instruction from 96% in 1930–1931 to 7% in the 1980s. Tatar language gradually fell into the group of minority languages definitely endangered.6)

A major shift occurred after the fall of the USSR: Tatarstan adopted a law on the State Languages of the Tatarstan Republic in 1992, and ratified the official status of Tatar on a par with the Russian language in the new Tatarstan Constitution. These policy changes brought about the growth of Tatar-medium schools, and introduced a compulsory Tatar language class for all students of grades 1–11 in Tatarstan.7)

Despite some positive changes, the ‘trend towards a decrease in Tatar language knowledge and use among ethnic Tatars’ remained 8). Several recent measures have not helped, such as federal educational policies, especially starting from 2001 onwards9), and implementation of the Unified State Examination (USE) or ‘Yediniy Gosudarstvenniy Ekzamen’ administered only in the Russian language, elimination of the ‘national-regional’ component in the school curriculum for teaching history and languages of ethnic minorities in Russia10).

Concerning the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

The Russian Federation has signed (2001), but not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, see: Russia and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Federal legislation

Read more about Russian federal legislation concerning minority languages.

Legislation of the Republic of Tatarstan:

Tatarstan's Law No 1560-XII, “On the State Languages of the Republic of Tatarstan and Other Languages in the Republic of Tatarstan” (1992) ratifies the official status of Tatar on par with the Russian language in the new Tatarstan Constitution. It states that:

The Federal Education law (2007) states that:

In 2007 Moscow and Tatarstan signed a power-sharing treaty, allowing Tatarstan to make decisions jointly with Moscow on the region's economic, cultural, and other policies. However, this treaty expired July 24, 2017. At the end of 2017, there were two announcements that Tatar education would be reduced, though both stated different measurements. The President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that the Tatar language classes would remain mandatory, but reduced from six to two hours weekly, but the Prosecutor-General of Tatarstan, Ildus Nafikov, stated that Tatar would be taught for two hours a week on voluntary basis with written parental consent11). The latter was to be true and Tatar is to be taught as a voluntary, two hour class. In July 2019, a school director in Kazan, Pavel Shmakov , has has filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge this restriction on Tatar language education (in 2018 Shmakov was fined for teaching Tatar as a mandatory subject at the school) 12).

Inspection of compliance with educational legislation:

Education in practice

% of children learning Tatar 1994 2006
Children in tatarstan 12% 51%
In pre-school education 10.6% 65%
In secondary education 100%

source13)

Learning resources and educational institutions

1) , 13)
Ó Riagáin, Dónall, ed., Voces Diversae: Lesser-Used Language Education in Europe, Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, 15 (Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2006
2) , 4)
Faller, H.M. (2011). Creating Soviet People: The Meanings of Alphabets. In Nation, Language, Islam:Tatarstan's Sovereignty Movement. Central European University Press.
3)
Jaffe, A., Androutsopoulos, J., Sebba, M., and Johnson, S. (2012). Reclamation, Revalorization, and re-Tatarization via changing Tatar orthographies. In Orthography as Social Action: Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power (pp 65-102). Walter de Gruyter.
5)
Grenoble, Lenore A, Language Policy in the Soviet Union (Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003
6) , 7)
Gilmetdinova, Alsu, ‘Principals as Gatekeepers of Language Policy Implementation in Kazan, Russia’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2016, 1–18 <https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1231772>
8)
Gorenburg, Dmitry P, Minority Ethnic Mobilization in the Russian Federation (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=529317> [accessed 17 March 2017]
9)
Shnirelman 2006 Shnirelman, V. 2006. Rossiyskaya shkola y natsionalnaya ideya. Interlos “Neprikosnovenniy zapas”, 6. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.intelros.ru/index.php?newsid=293.
10)
Zamyatin 2012 Zamyatin, K. 2012. “From Language Revival to Language Removal? The Teaching of Titular Languages in the National Republics of Post-Soviet Russia.” Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe 11 (2): 75–102.
11)
Bowring, B. (2018). Minority Language Rights in the Russian Federation: The End of a Long Tradition? Palgrave. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication /325625922_Minority_Language_Rights_in_the_Russian_Federation_The_End_of_a_Long_Tradition.
12)
Bashkir, T. (2019, July 15). Kazan Principal Turns To European Court In Fight For Tatar Language. Radio Free Europe: Radio Liberty. Retrieved from https://www.rferl.org/a/kazan-school-director-turns-to-echr-in-fight-for-tatar-language/30056853.html.