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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Fears have often been expressed outside the Soviet Union that the influx of Russian words into the non-Russian languages is part of an attempt to russianize them with a view to make them ultimately superfluous. These fears now seem to be greatly exaggerated, as there is little evidence to show that these languages are losing their vitality or are doomed to extinction. While the total lexicon of any given language, in this case Uzbek, the third language numerically (after Russian and Ukrainian) and the largest non-Slavic language, may have a significant number of Russian loanwords, it does not necessarily follow that all these words are in fact an essential segment of the language. The life and viability of a language depend not upon the percentage of so-called foreign words in its vocabulary, but upon its daily use in ordinary situations and in creative writing. The major problem in this area has been the apparently large number of Russian borrowings seen in the non-Russian languages, especially those in non-Slavic ones using Cyrillic. Words are often taken in their Russian orthographic shape without regard for the internal rules of the various languages. Even a cursory glance at any newspaper is enough to show the casual observer that these languages have been russianized to a certain extent. Soviet sources have always emphasized that there has been a “sovietization” of non-Russian languages, while admitting that Russian is the main source for new vocabulary. However it is pointed out that most of these borrowings are “international” words taken into the several languages via Russian. Counter arguments have emphasized that the “common-spelling” principle, by which all words from Russian, be they “international” or not, are borrowed in their exact Russian spelling, proves that russianization, not sovietization, is taking place.
* The author would like to thank the Canada Council for its generous support enabling him to carry out research in Baku and Moscow.Google Scholar
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13. Ibid., pp. 16, 20.Google Scholar
14. Ibld., p. 17.Google Scholar
15. Ibid.Google Scholar
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21. An attempt has been made to re-transliterate the authors' personal Cyrillic system into a more comprehensible form.Google Scholar
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26. This symbol denotes a bilabial unvoiced sound in which the lips do not close completely, that is, similar to /v/ between vowels in Spanish, e.g. Havana.Google Scholar
27. Sjoberg, , op. cit., p. 17.Google Scholar
28. A.K. Borovkov, “Kratkii ocherk grammatiki uzbekskogo iazyka,” in Uzbeksko-russkii slovar', p. 681.Google Scholar
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31. Uzbekskii iazyk…, p. 9.Google Scholar
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34. See this author's “Russian loan words in the proposed reform of Soviet Turkic alphabets,” General linguistics, Vol. XIII (1973), No. 1 (Spring), pp. 16-25.Google Scholar