DUSHANBE, October 1, 2009, Asia-Plus — The first regular sitting of the sixth session of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) of the third convocation is being held in Dushanbe today. One of major topics of the sitting’s agenda is a draft new law on the state language of Tajikistan.
Muhammadato Sultonov, a spokesman for the Majlisi Namoyandagon, told Asia-Plus that the Majlisi Namoyandagon board (Shuro) considered and endorsed the state language bill at its September 14 meeting.
Some local analysts consider that the new draft law on the state language strengthens the role of the Tajik language in office work and communication. The new draft law reduces the status of the Russian language, abolishing it as a language of “interethnic communication.”
Under current legislation, all government documents must be in either or both Tajik and Russian, while under the new draft law, all government functions would be performed exclusively in Tajik.
The current law “O the State Language of the Republic of Tajikistan” was adopted twenty years ago and Russian enjoyed the status of a language of interethnic communication. In the meantime, according to the source at the Institute of [Tajik] Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, under the new draft law, Tajik will be a language of the interethnic communication.
We will recall that Mr. Ghaffor Jourayev, head of the government commission on implementation of the state language law, and one of the authors of the draft law, said in an interview with Asia-Plus that the law was needed to promote Tajikistan’s sovereignty. “All citizens of Tajikistan must know the state language — at least out of respect to the country where they live,” he said, in comments to Asia Plus. He added that talk of a fresh exodus caused by any new, potential changes was “absurd.”
The Communist leader Shodi Shabdolov is among those Tajiks who oppose tinkering with language legislation. “The exclusion of Russian language as the language of interethnic communication from the new draft law would be a serious mistake,” he told Asia Plus. “The status of Russian language in the draft law is underestimated — in political, educational and scientific respects. Russian is acknowledged as the language of international communication in CIS countries. Moreover, Russian is one of the official UN languages.”
In the meantime, the next session of the Majlisi Milli (Tajikistan’s upper chamber of parliament) will be held on October 3 and the new law on the state language has already been tabled to the session’s agenda.
