ENGLISH GRADUALLY REPLACES RUSSIAN

KarabakhOpen
12-12-2007 11:08:18

In Karabakh they respect the Russian language, and there are a lot
of Russian speakers, both refugees from Azerbaijan and local people
who got Russian education in the Soviet Union. However, in 1996
Karabakh passed the law on language, and the Russian schools were
closed down. Now there is only one private Russian school Erudite
and one Russian class at School 8 of Stepanakert for the children of
mixed marriages. In 1996 all paperwork was translated into Armenian
which was declared an official language.

During a recent meeting the NKR minister of education Vladik
Khachatryan said there is a proposal to join the Russian classes into
one school.

"The profit of Erudite School from tuition fees is 4 million 200
thousand drams. This year the government will provide 11-13 million
drams for the school," said Vladik Khachatryan.

The issue of the Russian language still interests many people. Some
people think the choice of the language of instruction should be up
to the parents.

Others say an independent country should have national schools and
an official language.

"I am glad I finished a Russian school and my knowledge of Russian
allows me to get in touch with the rich culture and literature,
understand all the subtleties of this language. We need Russian
but I think the ethnic minorities should get education not in the
official language, and those who are reluctant to go to an Armenian
school can go to a private school and pay for their education,"
Tigran Galoyan says.

"The Russian speakers I think are much more erudite than the others.

Perhaps because there has always been more literature in Russian,
and people wanted to read it. But if I were to choose a school for my
child, I would choose an Armenian school because he will get higher
education in Armenian, and he will need also Armenian for work,"
said our interlocutor.

Russian was the official language of the USSR. It continues to be
the only thread tying the countries of the CIS. Presently Russian is
an international language in the post-Soviet space. Now, however,
we are facing the West more, and English is gradually replacing
Russian. Today it is more useful to speak English than Russian. One
may expect a well-paid job if he or she speaks English. Some people
even say English should be declared the second language in Karabakh.