DUSHANBE, July 21, 2009, Asia-Plus — Removing provisions defining the status of the Russian language as a language of the interethnic communication from the state language bill is a serious mistake, MP also leader of the Communist Party (CPT) Shodi Shabdolov said in an interview with Asia-Plus, commenting on the draft law “On the State language of the Republic of Tajikistan.”
According to him, the state language bill depreciates significance of Russian for politics, education and science. “When Russian is recognized as the language of the interethnic communication within the CIS area, we cannot ignore this in our legislation,” said Shabdolov, “Moreover, we should take into consideration that Russian is one of the six official working languages of the United Nations”
Mr. Shabdolov noted that it was logical that all nationals of Tajikistan should know the state language. “However, it does not mean that we should eliminate the reference to Russian as the language of the interethnic communication,” he said.
“We should respect our state language but only the Tajik language won”t get us very far,” the CPT leader noted.
On July 22, Tajikistan will celebrate State Language Day, the 20th anniversary of the designation of Tajik as the state language. Tajikistan’s Law “On Language” was adopted on July 22, 1989.
We will recall that the new state language bill has been submitted for consideration to relevant ministries and organizations of the country. An appropriate president’s resolution sent to the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) says the new draft law has been worked out with regard to modern requirements of public management and with the purpose of raising national self-consciousness and patriotic feelings of the Tajik people.
The draft law, consisting of seven chapters and 28 articles, defines the state language as an official working language of government bodies, judicial organs, armed forces of the country, law enforcement agencies and other organizations. Under the bill, negotiations and correspondence with diplomatic and consular missions, regional and international organizations active in the country will be conducted in the state language and official working languages of these organizations. In case of necessity, use of other languages for correspondence and negotiations is not restricted. The state language bill obligates all citizens of Tajikistan to know the state language; however, the draft law does not regulate use of languages in personal contacts.
