Krasnodar Tatars discussed the future of their native language

February  25, 2019

On February 21, in the framework of the celebration of the International Day of the Native Language on the basis of the Krasnodar regional public organization Tatar Community Bulgar-K, a round table discussion was held on the topic Tatar Language in the 21st Century: To Be or Not to Be?

The meeting began with a viewing of a thematic video motivating to learn the native language, regardless of the initial level of proficiency. After all, constraint (“I am a Tatar (Tatar), but I don’t know the language! Well, how can I go to the courses, with what face? Shame on you!”) Is often an obstacle to the knowledge of the language of their ancestors.

During the open discussion, each participant expressed his opinion on the pressing problems of the development of the Tatar language in the Kuban. The moderator of the round table, Natalia Kulish, prepared for the disputants a number of sensitive questions, the answers to which would help develop a program of work on this topic in the near future.

“A closer cooperation with our center, Kazan, comes to the fore,” said Yunus Khairov,  deputy chairman of Bulgar-K, the most important thing for the development of our language in Krasnodar: it should be taught for free.

In turn, the teacher of the Tatar language Railia Yariakhmetova expressed her readiness to work under such conditions, but expressed her own pain: there are not enough students.

“Some come to classes every other time, after two,” shared Railya, “but we need a stable number of students, we need volunteers, who can then be divided into groups by levels of knowledge and train them further.

The indispensable moment of the desire to learn the Tatar one more participant of the round table, Roman Dinislamov, saw, oddly enough, in the genealogy. After all, history in general, and even more so – the history of the people and their families; knowledge of the roots is a strong motivator.

“We should not be proud of the fact that our ancestors spoke Tatar, but of the fact that we and our children speak it,” he concluded. “Can we brag about it now?”

Other problems and their solutions have been discussed as well. The discussion was very lively, each activist opened  something new for himself, looked at familiar issues  for a long time from a new angle, not familiar to him. The conclusions that the participants of the round table learned from the event, as expected, will very soon bear fruit in the work of the KROO “Tatar community“ Bulgar-K ””.

Natalia Kulish