Abstract:

The paper discusses the educational language policy of the Russian Federation's poly-component region, the Republic of Dagestan. Dagestan is extremely multinationala and complex society. One of the peculiar features of Dagestan culture is its multilingualism. Indeed, in Dagestan, there are 14 official languages, some of them comprising only a few thousand speakers. This fact speaks for the positive attitudes of the regional authorities towards the linguistic diversity of the region and the readiness to support and develop them on the regional level. On the other hand, the official status of a language presupposes its functioning in the educational system and it is a real challenge for Dagestan with 14 languages having official status within the region. Thus, the presence of languages in education – either as a taught subject or as a teaching tool – is extremely important issue for study. Understanding the current trends in education with regards to languages and the prospects of their functional power in the future will allow to strengthen the language policy of the region in terms of support and development of its ethnic and linguistic diversity. In the Republic, the percentage of number of children and young people to the entire population is one of the highest in Russia. The future of Dagestan directly depends on the level of education of this youth. Together with integration into the global society it is important to maintain the ethnic identity of the people and education is the key component of this process. The paper will present the current position of regional languages of Dagestan in education providing also the prognosis of their functional development in the future and underlining the best practices and recommendation for the improving the efficiency of educational language policy of the region.

Keywords:

Educational language policy, Dagestan, Language as a Teaching Tool, Linguistic Diversity.