Language Legislation and the Development of Language Relations in Contemporary Russian Federation

He Junfang and Guo Yaxing

Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning ›› 2025, Vol. 10 ›› Issue (1) : 54-61.

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Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning ›› 2025, Vol. 10 ›› Issue (1) : 54-61. DOI: 10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20250105

Language Legislation and the Development of Language Relations in Contemporary Russian Federation

  • He Junfang and Guo Yaxing
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Abstract

Nowadays many countries around the world have enacted language legislation in various forms. Language legislation is an important legal act for the regulation of the status, rights, use, and relationships of languages. This study focuses on language legislation in the Russian Federation. Language legislation of the Russian Federation is typical, with both nation-level special legislation and local-level related legislation, making its language legislation relatively complete and systematic. However, there have long been some prominent issues in Russia’s language relations, such as the question of whether the learning of the national language of republics should adhere to the principle of obligation or voluntariness, and the problems brought about by equating “mother tongue” with ethnic language at the official level of the Russian Federation. The aforementioned issues have been resolved through the revision of the Education Law in the Russian Federation, but some other problems still exist. In conclusion, the development of language legislation and language relations in contemporary Russian Federation enlightens us that in the linguistic construction of multi-ethnic nations, a legal governance approach should be adopted to safeguard the use and development of the national common language and other languages, and to maintain the dominant position of the common language and the appropriate linguistic order.

Key words

language legislation / language relations / the Russian Federation

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He Junfang and Guo Yaxing. Language Legislation and the Development of Language Relations in Contemporary Russian Federation[J]. Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning. 2025, 10(1): 54-61 https://doi.org/10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20250105

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