Abstract
This paper analyses the presence and absence of local languages in the visual sphere of Chersky, a small settlement located in the Nizhnekolymsk Rayon (Lower Kolyma County) in the far northeast of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation. The linguistic landscape—the elements of language present in public space—can be seen as a reflection of the sustainability of a language and indeed the cultural identity of a group. An assessment of Chersky’s linguistic landscape reveals that despite the region being home to Russian, Sakha, Eveny, Chukchi, and Yukaghir speakers, not all of these languages have a presence within the landscape. We analyze the ways in which the indigenous Eveny, Chukchi and Yukaghir languages are excluded from the linguistic landscape in favour of Russian, Sakha, and even English; these local languages are subsumed within a discourse that highlights the region’s belonging not only to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), but to the Russian Federation as a whole.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
According to Vakhtin et al. (2004), the Russian population has always been larger than that of the Sakha in the Lower Kolyma, and so the influence of Sakha culture has been significantly less present there than in the middle Kolyma.
- 2.
In the Soviet historiography that deals with the colonial conquest of Siberia , the trope of the voluntary “entry” into the Russian state and friendship between peoples dominated. It was then customary to present colonial conquest as beneficial for the local peoples, who were depicted as less “developed” compared to the Russians (e.g. Bakhrushin and Tokarev 1953). Although there is slightly less explicit paternalism in the current representations, the Soviet language of voluntary entry and mutual benefit are strongly present today as well.
- 3.
See Footnote 2 in Chap. 19 of this volume.
References
Bakhrushin, S. V., & Tokarev, S. A. (Eds.). (1953). Yakutiya v XVII veke [Yakutia in the 17th century]. Yakutsk: Yakutskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo.
Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M. H., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). Linguistic landscape as a symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 52–66.
Forsyth, J. (1992). A history of the peoples of Siberia, Russia’s North Asian colony 1581–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foxall, A. (2015). Ethnic relations in post-Soviet Russia: Russians and Non-Russians in the North Caucasus. Oxford/New York: Routledge.
FSGS (Federalnaya Sluzhba Gosudarstvennoy Statistiki). (2010). Tom 1. Chislennost’ i razmeshcheniie naseleniya. Vserossiiskaya Perepis’ Naselenie 2010g. [Book 1. The number and location of the population. All-Russian Census 2010]. Electronic document. Retrieved 1 July 2015, from http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/croc/perepis_itogi1612.htm
Gorter, D. (Ed.). (2006). Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Grenoble, L. (2003). Language policy in the Soviet Union. Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hult, F. M. (2009). Language ecology and linguistic landscape analysis. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 88–104). New York: Routledge.
Kolesov, M. I. (2003). Ustanovlenie Sovetskoy vlasti i obrazovanie ulusa [The establishment of Soviet power and the development of the county]. In E. P. Antonov (Ed.), Nizhnekolymskiy Ulus: Istoriya, kul’tura, fol’klor (pp. 99–115). Yakutsk: Bichik.
Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49.
Pennycook, A. (2009). Linguistic landscapes and the transgressive semiotics of graffiti. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 302–312). New York: Routledge.
Samoylova, G. V. (1993). Zapolyarnaya tochka Gulaga [A polar point of the Gulag]. Moscow: Vozvrashchenie.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in place: Language and the material world. London: Routledge.
Seitel, P. (2002). Defining the scope of the term Intangible Cultural Heritage. Paper presented at the conference International Meeting of Experts on Intangible Cultural Heritage: Establishment of a Glossary, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France (pp. 1–14). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from www.unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/00270-EN.doc
Shay, A. (2002). Choreographic politics: State folk dance companies, representation and power. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Shishlo [Chichlo], B. (2000). Problem of identification in a polytechnic society: The case of the native people of the Kolyma region (pp. 17–18). Paper presented at the Siberia and the Circumpolar North: Contributions by Anthropologists and NGO conference. Vienna: Institute of Ethnology, Cultural and Social Anthropology.
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. New York: Routledge.
Sloboda, M. (2009). State ideology and linguistic landscape: A comparative analysis of (post)communist Belarus, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 173–188). New York: Routledge.
Vakhtin, N. (1991). The Yukagir language in sociolinguistic perspective (Monograph Series 2). Steszew: International Institute of Ethnolinguistic and Oriental Studies.
Vakhtin, N. (2001). Yazyki narodov Severa v XX veke. Ocherki yazykovogo sdviga [The languages of the peoples of Siberia in the 20th century. Essays on language shift]. St. Petersburg: Dmitriy Bulanin.
Vakhtin, N., Golovko, E., & Schweitzer, P. (2004) Russkie starozhily Sibiri. Sotsial'niye i simvolicheskie askpekty samosoznaniya [The Russian old settlers of Siberia. Social and symbolic aspects of self-identification]. Moscow: Novoe Izdatelstvo.
Yaglovsky, V. N. (2003). Sel’skoe khozyaystvo (1929–1985) [Rural economy (1929–1985)]. In E. P. Antonov (Ed.), Nizhnekolymskiy Ulus: Istoriya, Kul’tura, Fol’klor (pp. 116–124). Yakutsk: Bichik.
Zakon. (1992). Zakon Respublika Sakha (Yakutia) ot 16 oktyabra 1992g. N. 1170-XII “O yazykakh Respublika Sakha (Yakutia)”. [The Law of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) from 16 October 1992. N. 1170-XII. “On the languages of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)”]. Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://www.sakha.gov.ru/node/41515
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sidorova, L., Ferguson, J., Vallikivi, L. (2017). Signs of Non-recognition: Colonized Linguistic Landscapes and Indigenous Peoples in Chersky, Northeastern Siberia. In: Fondahl, G., Wilson, G. (eds) Northern Sustainabilities: Understanding and Addressing Change in the Circumpolar World. Springer Polar Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46150-2_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46150-2_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46148-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46150-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)