RT.COM: The Russian language needs legal protection from the “conquering march” of foreign words, sponsors of a bill before the State Duma believe. It seeks to ban all words borrowed from other languages and fine those who dare to use them in public.
The bill submitted by members of the Liberal Democrat party goes even further, administering punishment for any “violation of the norms of the contemporary Russian language.”
According to the justification for the proposed legislation submitted by the lawmakers, their vocabulary condemnation targets words that came into Russian from English after the late 1980s and the collapse of the Soviet Union. They specifically mention the Russian words that ended up as ‘dealer’, ‘boutique’, ‘manager’, ‘single’, ‘OK’ and ‘wow’. The legislators suggest Russians use – sometimes archaic – substitutions or face a penalty. Ordinary linguistic offenders would have to pay up to an $80 fine, while organizations would have to fork out as much as $1,650. The latter are even threatened with “confiscation of the object of the administrative violation,” whatever that means.
The document apparently aims to snap freeze Russian. As with any other tongue, it undergoes natural evolution, with some words becoming archaic and phasing out of use and others being born and gaining popularity. » | Thursday, February 21, 2013
