Planning for failure: The niche of standard Chukchi

• Published in: Current Issues in Language Planning
• Main Author: Dunn, M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Chukchi
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-001A-1C6E-C; http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-001A-1C84-5

This paper examines the effects of language standardization and orthography design on the Chukchi linguistic ecology. The process of standardisation has not taken into consideration the gender-based sociolects of colloquial Chukchi and is based on a grammaticaldescriptionwhich does not reflectactual Chukchi use; as a result standard Chukchi has not gained a place in the Chukchi language ecology. The Cyrillic orthography developed for Chukchi is also problematic as it is based on features of Russian phonology, rather than on Chukchi itself: this has meant that a knowledge of written Chukchi is dependent on a knowledge of the principles of Russian orthography. The aspects of language planning have had a large impact on the pre-existing Chukchi language ecology which has contributed to the obsolescence of the colloquial language.