Russian Lawmaker Raises Alarm Over Elf Identification
Newsweek.
The popularity of Elvish, the language of elves made famous by the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, is posing a growing threat to Russia, according to a lawmaker on President Vladimir Putin's council for interethnic relations.
Tolkien created languages for his elves that were central to the mythology of the Middle-Earth. This was the setting for his works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which were made into blockbuster films that were hugely popular in Russia. The Elvish languages Quenya (High-elven) has the phonology and grammar of Finnish, while Sindarin, or Grey-elven is influenced by Welsh.
However, Andrei Khudoleev said that the last census in 2021 "a little more than 12 thousand people identified themselves as elves." He added that this was a concern given that, under the country's constitution, nationality is determined by what a person term themselves.
"I wouldn't raise this topic but, in every city, I find teachers who tell me that they have children studying the Elvish language," he told a youth forum in the city of Kurgan in Russia's Urals federal district, according to local news outlet URA.RU. "I consider it a serious threat," said Khudoleev, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations.
Khudoleev added that Yandex Translator, a Russian alternative to Google Translate, gives users the opportunity to interpret from Elvish but not from many of the other languages of Russia; there are 26 regional tongues officially recognized and around 100 minority languages.
While Elvish may be an invented tongue, Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma, Russia's parliament, described English as a dead language for which its "time has passed."
Volodin told a council meeting in Minsk, Belarus, in May that Russians should learn Chinese, the language of Russia's main ally and major economic trading partner.
Also that month, State Duma Deputy Chairman Pyotr Tolstoy, a great-great-grandson of the writer Leo Tolstoy, also took aim against English, calling for an end to "stupid borrowings and anglicisms." He said young people no longer know Russian synonyms, and "warped English" is replacing Russian speech.
Kremlin science and technology adviser Andrei Fursenko said in August the government intends to promote Chinese at Russian universities because it is one of the main world languages in science, RIA Novosti reported.
However, prominent Russian astrophysicist Sergei Popov backed students of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology who disapproved of the plan.
"For basic sciences, there is only one valid language, English," Popov said, "and this will not change in the foreseeable future."
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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