Vladikavkaz: Conversation Club draws attention to problem of preserving Ossetian language

Lana Sokhieva, a young philologist from Vladikavkaz, has created a linguistic conversation club of the Ossetian language. The first session was attended by 13 people, but many residents of the republic are interested in the club, the creator has noted.

"The idea of launching the Ossetian language club came to me thanks to my colleague who regularly organized English clubs. Sitting at a meeting of the English club, I thought why not create the same club in Ossetian," Ms Sokhieva told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Many people are interested in the Ossetian club, but, as a rule, these are people who are over 18 years old – they've consciously come to learn their mother tongue. There were 13 people present at the first session of the speaking club, which I think is a good result," she has explained.

Tamerlan Kambolov, the head of the UNESCO Division at the North-Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute, has noted the existence of the problem of preserving the Ossetian language.

According to his story, the emergence of language clubs is a positive trend; however, he pins his hopes for the revival of his mother tongue on the multilingual education. "Such clubs appear periodically. There are even private courses where people acquire knowledge of the Ossetian language for money. But I still pin my hopes on another age group – schoolchildren and kindergarteners. Everyone who goes to kindergartens and multilingual schools, in which the education and training process is run in the Ossetian language," said Professor Kambolov.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 29, 2021 at 04:55 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.