NO NEED TO GIVE A FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPECIAL STATUS IN ARMENIA, SAYS LAVRENTI MIRZOYAN

Tert
Nov 12 2009
Armenia

"The Republic of Armenia legislation, as well as the Law on Language,
clearly stipulates that in the Republic of Armenia, the official
language is literary Armenian. Today, there is no need to give another
language special status," said Chief of State Inspectorate for Language
of the Republic of Armenia, Lavrenti Mirzoyan, responding to Tert.am’s
request for his comments on Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander
Yakovenko’s recent statement, that it is necessary for CIS countries
(the Commonwealth of Independent States) to establish Russian as a
second official language.

Mirzoyan stated that, compared to other foreign languages, the Russian
language holds a privileged position in Armenia and it is taught
as a compulsory subject in all public secondary schools. Besides,
Mirzoyan said the Republic of Armenia does everything to support the
free use of the languages of ethnic minorities in its country. He
cited as an example the fact that some ethnic minorities even have
their own schools.

Therefore, according to Mirzoyan, to implement the Russian deputy
foreign minister’s request, we must change the country’s Constitution,
which is impossible today.