ON LANGUAGE NAMING IN THE MOUNTAINOUS BADAKHSHAN AUTONOMOUS REGION
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2022-3-20-30
This article discusses the history and development of the names of languages spoken in the Mountainous Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan as they appear in Russian and Tajik texts. The focus is on the nomenclature of minority Iranian languages known as Pamir languages, including the various names of individual local languages, the reasons for the displacement of some language names by others, and the presence of variants and their coexistence. The article also covers the linguistic and historical background of this nomenclature in Russia/USSR, Tajikistan, and elsewhere, and discusses how changes in the interpretation and application of this terminology, which have acquired the character of trends, are manifested in socio-political discourse. The analysis is based on statutory documents, official statements, scholarly discourse, and social media data related to language policy in Tajik and Russian. The article also examines the use of ethnonyms and glotonyms formed in the Soviet period during the national demarcation of borders and the impact on Iranian and Turkic peoples in Central Asia. The article utilizes sociolinguistic methods to monitor modern trends in language nomenclature and identify retrospective tendencies, revealing the causal relationships underlying changes in language designation in relation to extra-linguistic factors and identifying key ethno-political moments that trigger differentiation of individual terms.
Keywords: Iranian languages, Pamir languages, linguistic minority, language policy, Tajikistan, Mountainous Badakhshan Autonomous Region, Pamir
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Issue: 3, 2022
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: LINGUISTICS
Pages: 20 — 30
Downloads: 940