Language Planning in Polyethnic Countries

The deliberate influence of the society onto the language is the key factor to the functional development of languages. This influence manifests itself in the domains of organized communication which presume the possibility of language planning through the realization of certain principles in the language policy. In a multinational state, the language policy implies the impact of the state onto the language, social, and ethnic factors. This policy is aimed at adjustment of multi-ethnic relations in the regions and promotes the mutual understanding, tolerance in society. The article analyzes the interrelationship between the language policy and language situation. In order to avoid language conflicts in a multinational state, it is necessary to take into account the cultural and language demands of different language communities. Another important part of the language policy is the language unity in a multinational state. These two objectives call forth to take into count both the language diversity and the language unity of the state. However, these two trends come to an opposition to each other which leads to national language conflicts, e.g. in Moldova, Ukraine, and Baltic states. In order to achieve the language agreement, it is necessary to strive for the strict compliance of the language policy with the language factors and the language situation. Following the reasons mentioned above, the legislation on languages is adopted by the state where the languages gain their status. In the Russian Federation, the model of the language policy is multicomponent: the legislation on languages has been adopted in 22 republics, 34 languages gained official status. Along with the system of laws on languages in the Russian Federation, there have been attempts to ratify and apply the European Charter for Regional Languages which was signed by the President of the country but has not been ratified by the State Duma. In this connection, there have been attempts to plan the domains of language functioning in Russia, taking into consideration the main requirements of the European Charter for Regional Languages. One of the attempts has been analyzed in the article, namely the plans to expand the requirements of the Charter onto more than 100 languages in the Russian Federation. These plans were considered at the meeting of the round table at the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation - European Charter for Regional Languages and Minorities: Main Proble