“Why is the Buryat language dying?”

Vica Badueva

A Politcafè under the above title took place on February 21st, 2008 in the café “ShabliN” in Ulan Ude. It was organized by the Social Inclusion PMT of SCG, in cooperation with the Regional Union of Young Scholars, the Human Rights movement “Erkhe,” and the “All-Buryat Association for the Development of Culture”, in order to commemorate International Mother Language Day. The event has received substantial coverage by 2 TV channels and several newspapers.
Around 50 people – representatives of various NGOs, students, educators, scholars, journalists and writers came together in order to discuss the critical situation of the Buryat language. Buryat is a second state language of the Republic of Buryatia. By law it has the same rights as Russian, but in fact it is hardly visible in the public sphere. The official policy in favour of Russian language and culture has produced a tremendous reduction in the number of Buryat-speaking people. There are no Buryat TV and radio channels and no education in our native language. The only grammar school in the capital city of Buryatia (Ulan-Ude), with a partial instruction in Buryat, is certainly not enough for the 450 thousand population of the city.
The Politcafè concept initiated by SCG has become a unique phenomenon in the social life of Ulan Ude, being the only informal discussion ground for all interested citizens and, thus contributing to promotion of democratic values and building of civil society. The vivid and work-like atmosphere of the discussion showed that the protection of linguistic and cultural rights is becoming an important issue for local people. Recommendations by all those present concerning the improvement of the miserable situation with Buryat were collected, and a decision was made to create an initiative group which will work out a document to the government of the Republic of Buryatia with the demands to take measures for the salvation of the Buryat language and concrete recommendations concerning implementation of such measures.
The core of the initiative group consists of members of the above stated organizations as well as representatives of other NGOs, such as Youth movement “Khori-Tumat”, Youth Union “Revival” and the Society of Orientalists “Amarsana.”