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Bill on right to choose Russian as mother tongue in studies referred to State Duma

Deputies from the United Russia party proposed amendments to the bill “On the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation”

MOSCOW, June 6 (Itar-Tass) - The bill registering the right to choose Russian as the mother tongue in studies was referred to the State Duma on Thursday. Deputies from the United Russia party Gadzhimet Safaraliyev and Grigory Balykhin proposed amendments to the bill “On the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.”

The proposed bill “is aimed to settle matters of principle in the legal situation with the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation, considering their statuses, and thus solving a number of problems arising in the use of languages in the education system and in all the areas of the use of languages of the peoples of Russia subject to legal regulation,” Balykhin, member of the State Duma Education Committee, told reporters.

“By the logic of the Russian Constitution, we mean as the mother tongue any language of the peoples of Russia, including the Russian language,” said the MP. “However, citizens do not exercise the right to chose Russian as the mother tongue, and the Russian language is not considered in the status of the mother tongue for those who regard it as such,” he noted.

Balykhin pointed out that the Russian language functions in the education system only in the status of the state language of the Russian Federation.

“The bill proposes spreading the principle of equality to all languages of the peoples of Russia so that there should be an opportunity to choose the Russian language as the mother tongue,” Balykhin said. He believes the bill “will resolve the situation with the Russian language studies, for instance, in Bashkortostan and Tatarstan.