Planning for failure: The niche of standard Chukchi
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.
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