The Law of the Republic of Armenia on Language was adopted in 1993, under which the state language of the Republic of Armenia is Armenian and the official language is literary Armenian. The second language is Russian, which the majority of the population still speak, though the number of people having a good command of Russian has significantly decreased. Among the new generation, the number of people with knowledge of other foreign languages, particularly English, French and German, is gradually increasing. The Language State Inspectorate, attached to the Ministry of Science and Education, manages the language policy, decides the criteria and controls the execution of the Language Law. Compared with the Soviet period, the usage of the Russian language has noticeably declined, although Russian is still taught in secondary and higher education institutions, the Russian press and literature is published, Russian radio programmes are broadcast, and some private TV channels broadcast Russian-speaking films without Armenian subtitles. In Armenia, which is described as being a language homogenous country, many foreign language papers and magazines have been published, such as the Russian “Golos Armenii”, “Novoye Vremya”, “Literaturnaya Armenia”, “Yerevan”, “Afisha”, “Armyanka” magazines, Yazidi “Lalesh”, “Ezdikhana” (“The voice of Yazidis” in Armenian), Ukrainian “Dnipro-Slavutich”, and “Magen David” (“The star of David” in Russian) of the Jewish community. Currently, there are no major issues in Armenia relating to foreign languages and other cultures. Since the Soviet times, the Russian language has been considered the main language of interethnic communication among the nations of the previous USSR. Since 1990’s, English is strengthening its positions as the main language of international communication. Besides the English language, a number of other foreign languages are taught in the institutes of higher education and there are centres that teach French, Spanish, German and Italian, and cultural unions operate. Armenia is a member of the Francophone countries Association and the festival of Francophonie was held in Armenia in 2021. The existing legislation does not prohibit the language usage of minorities; the state language supremacy is in harmony with the language preservation of national minorities, the international right of mutual respect towards all cultures and the language-political norms of the European Union. In general, each non-Armenian resident of Armenia freely enjoys the entire international and national rights provided for national minorities, but the state offers additional financial support only to the national minorities that meet certain guidelines. These guidelines are developed on the basis of the main principle that if a national minority in any settlement is 15% or more of the population and, if in any small settlement with a population of 2 000 people, the national minority is represented by at least 300 people, then this minority will receive financial support from the state budget to realise their educational, identity protection and other programmes. In Armenia, the Russian, Yazidi and Assyrian ethnic communities meet these guidelines.
Jul
25
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