KOPEČKOVÁ, Lenka. 2012. Language policy in Georgia with focus on non- Georgian minorities. The Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity, Vol. VI./2012

Reviewed journal ALPPI is published by Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. www.alppi.eu

Language policy in Georgia with focus on non-Georgian minorities Lenka Kopečková1

Abstract: The paper reports on the Georgian government’s language policy towards some of Georgia’s ethnic and linguistic minorities of non-Georgian stock with focus on the Kists. It presents the results of the original ethnographic research carried out in Georgia in August 2011. The research primarily aimed to investigate the linguistic situation of the Kists, a linguistic and national minority living in the Pankisi Gorge in north-eastern Georgia, and to identify their language needs, as well as analyze the Kists’ attitude to the governmental language policy. The ethnographic method of expert semi-structured interview was used as well, along with the study of official governmental documents and secondary resources of ethnographers and sociolinguists working in the field.

Keywords: Kists, non-Georgian minorities, Georgia, diglossia, minority rights, native language

Introduction In Georgia, which has been a multiethnic country for centuries, the Russian language is still used as a lingua franca even twenty years after the split-up of the Soviet Union, where its use had eliminated the need to learn the Georgian language. Since declaring independence in 1991 Georgia has been struggling to create a national identity using its language policy as one of the tools. The present paper aims to outline the governmental language policy towards non- Georgian minorities and their current needs with a focus on the Kists.

First, it is necessary to clarify the concepts which are dealt with in the present study. The language policy is the crucial one. In the previous paragraph this term was used more in the sense of language planning, which are activities of certain members of the community that

1 Lenka Kopečková gained her Master’s degree in English philology at Silesian University in Opava in 2003, where she was teaching between 2004 and 2007. In 2009 she received Ph.D. at University of Ostrava after defending the thesis on the topic from the field of functional syntax and nonverbal communication. Her Ph.D. supervisor was Prof. Aleš Svoboda, the follower of the Prague School of Linguistics. Since 2008 she has been teaching phonetics and phonology, pragmalinguistics, sociolinguistics, translation, nonverbal and intercultural communication at the Department of English and American Studies at Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava. She is a member of Vilém Mathesius Society, and is doing research on the rhematic layers in political speeches now. Her teaching interest in sociolinguistics brought her closer to the issue of language policy in Georgia, where she has travelled and carried out research recently. Contact: [email protected]. should alter the language practices (Holmes 2008, 98-112 or Trudgill 2000, 131-144). The term language policy, however, has other meanings as well. According to Spolsky it is “an officially mandated set of rules for language use and form within a nation-state” (2012, 3). Spolsky claims that the field of language policy consists of “the actual language practices of the members of the speech community” (Spolsky 2012, 5), the values that the community members associate with respective varieties (ibid) and the language planning, which was defined above. The last component of the concept will be discussed in the first part of the paper to set context for the presentation of all the three components of the language policy in relation to the Kists.

The present paper aims to investigate the needs of the Kists, one of the non-Georgian minorities, and their relationship to the state language policy. It is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the language situation in Georgia, and the current language planning of the country and its major goals, focusing on the crucial non-Georgian minorities and their current needs. The second part presents the results of research based on informal interviews and mainly two expert semi-structured interviews with the Kists from the village of Duisi.

The research was based on ethnographic methods (see Hendl 2008, 189-190; Tulmets and Střítecký 2008) involving several interviews conducted in Mestia, Akhalkalaki and Duisi by the author of the present article, as well as the study of official governmental documents and secondary resources of ethnographers and sociolinguists working in the field. One informal interview was conducted in Mestia, Svaneti in July 2011. The interviewee was a woman, an archeologist working in the local museum and an accommodation provider, between 45-50 years old. The interview took one hour in English as this was her language preference for the interview. The aim of this interview was to confirm the published results of previous research of the linguistic situation of the Svans (Popjanevski 2006). The other informal interviews, which took three hours, were held in Russian in Akhalkalaki, Samtskhe-Javakheti, in August 2011. The interviewees were two Georgian Armenians, aged between twenty-five and thirty. The aim was to confirm the published results of the research of the current linguistic situation and the interviewees’ attitudes to governmental language policy reforms which are underway in the country (Popjanevski 2006). However, all the above-mentioned informal interviews are not the focus of the present study; their results are occasionally presented to illustrate the situation of other non-Georgian minorities in Georgia, thus providing context for the presentation of a case study of the Kists.

Finally, two expert semi-structured interviews were conducted in Russian and partly in English in Duisi, the region of Akhmeta in Kakheti, with a local Georgian language teacher and organizer of agro-tourism, and a young postgraduate student managing a local Chechen traditional music band and helping to run a family agro-tourism business. The setting of both interviews was the interviewees’ household. The interviews took about three hours, approximately ninety minutes each, and were transcribed by the author of the paper. The aim of the interviews was to investigate the linguistic situation among the Kists in Pankisi, their attitudes to the state language policy and their personal and local community language needs. The interviewees had been asked about their language preference for the interview. The teacher-interviewee decided to speak Russian, as her knowledge of English was basic. The student-interviewee also decided to speak in Russian most of the time, including some English passages, which seemed to have the function of expressing solidarity with the interviewer. Several informal interviews were also held with local residents of the village of Duisi, such as the leader of the Marshua Kavkaz NGO (aged over sixty, the interview took two hours), her son (aged over forty, it took one hour) and other villagers, all of them in Russian, in people’s households or in the village. All the interviewees will remain anonymous in the present article.

The situation of the linguistic minorities in Georgia and the state language policy The Georgians form the largest ethnic group in Georgia (84%); whose total population is more than 4,300,000 inhabitants (“Main Statistics” 2011). The population that is Georgian by nationality includes Megrelians (or Mingrelians), making up between 10 and 18% of the total population (“Mingrelian” 2011), Svans and Laz (below 1%), living in Western Georgia, who speak languages belonging, like Georgian, to the Kartvelian languages of the South Caucasus, thus forming linguistic minorities. Megrelian and Laz form a subgroup within the Kartvelian languages, or they are sometimes regarded as two dialects of one language called Zan. All the Megrelian, Laz and Svan people seem to consider themselves Georgian by nationality. They use Georgian as a literary language at present, although there could and might have been attempts to change the situation as “During the time of cultural autonomy from 1930 to 1938 Mingrelian was a literary language. Several books, journals and newspapers were published at that time. Nowadays at least a part of the Mingrelian intelligentsia regard their native language as a literary language. This view is supported by an increase of Mingrelian publications in the recent years.” (“Mingrelian” 2011).

In addition to the Georgians, there are the following ethnic groups in Georgia: Azerbaijanis (6.5 %) and Armenians (5.7%), Abkhazians (0.1%), Ossetians (0.9%), Russians (1.5%), Greeks (0.4%), Yezidi Kurds (0.4%), Ukrainians (0.2%) and the others (“Ethnic Groups” 2011). One of the smallest ethnic groups is the Kists. The Kist population stands at over 7,000 people (0.2%, “Ethnic Groups” 2011), most of whom live in the Akhmeta district in Kakheti region. The Abkhazians and Ossetians living in the separatist regions will not be discussed in the present paper.

There seems to be a widespread diglossia (Holmes 2008, 27-35) among the Georgian citizens who speak Megrelian, Svan and Laz. They use their native languages at home and in communication with their neighbours, however, they become educated in Georgian. A similar diglossia also exists among other linguistic minorities who do not identify themselves with the Georgian nationality, e.g. the Kists, who will be the focus of this paper.

Some sources claim that about 13% of the population of Georgia does not speak Georgian as their native language (Bachmann 2006, 7). However, what this claim does not seem to take into consideration is the fact that some Megrelians and Svans, who declare themselves Georgian by nationality (Kurtsikidze and Chikovani 2002, 16), often acquire another language as their first language too, or they are bilingual (Vamling and Tchantouria 1993). Therefore the percentage of the population speaking non-Georgian native language may be much higher, up to 20 or even 30% (Sedlářová 2011, 293). The largest national minorities belonging to such speakers are the Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Unlike the Megrelians, Svans or Kists, these two minorities do not usually speak Georgian at all (“Informal interviews with Georgian Armenians in Akhalkalaki”). Even though there are other non-Georgian linguistic minorities, the following paragraphs focus on the Armenians to illustrate the situation in the country, as they were, in addition to the Kists, another object of the fieldwork carried out in Georgia in 2011. The Azerbaijanis are only mentioned several times to provide the reader with the broader context. The Armenians and Azerbaijanis are mentioned here as they seem to have been the focus of the governmental language policy since the recent past. The reason for this particular interest seems to be linked to the threat of irredentism and the country’s priority of reintegration of the country (Office of the State Minister of Georgia for Reintegration).

The two relatively large national minorities, Azerbaijanis and Armenians, live in the border areas of their kin countries - the Armenians in the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, which is close to Armenia, and the Azerbaijanis in the districts of Marneuli, Bolnisi, Dmanisi and Gardabani in the region of Kvemo-Kartli, neighbouring Azerbaijan to the south. In addition to their substantial number, they are united by the fact that their people often acquire the Armenian and Azerbaijani languages as their first languages in childhood respectively. However, they did not usually attend Georgian schools; therefore the majority of them have not learnt the Georgian language well enough to be able to communicate in it (“Informal interviews with the Georgian Armenians in Akhalkalaki”). In order to illustrate the current problems these linguistic minorities are facing, and their needs, let me outline the situation in the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, the district and the town of Akhalkalaki. This situation has been selected as it is an example of the conflict caused by inconsiderate language planning.

Between 2005 and 2006 demonstrations took place in Samtskhe-Javakheti, where the Georgian Armenians constitute the overwhelming majority of population as a reaction against the governmental reforms, introducing Georgian as the state language for public administration after 2004. The organizers of the unrests also demanded the ratification of legislation on the protection of the rights of national minorities in Georgia, and that the Georgian Parliament recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, the agreement to teach Armenian history classes at Armenian schools in Georgia, and that the Armenian language be recognized as an official language in the regions of Samtskhe-Javakheti and Ninotsminda (Hakobyan 2005). The unrest became the matter of concern about irredentism for the Georgian Government.

Irredentism has been a sensitive issue in Georgia after the Abkhazian and Tskhinvali Regions (South Ossetia) war conflicts broke out, the regions became consequently separated, and the Georgian government lost control over them. As a consequence of these events and the dormant conflicts, the Georgian Government’s goal is the reintegration of the country, for which purpose it gears its language policy towards the Azerbaijanis and Armenians in the Kvemo Kartli and Samtshke-Javakheti regions (“Functions and Responsibilities” 2012).

Until recently the government has run “national schools”, which used to be part of the ‘divide et impera’ (divide and rule) concept of Soviet policy. At present such schools provide the children belonging to linguistic minorities with an opportunity to be educated in their mother tongues. Georgian language teaching at these schools has always been neglected, and more than twenty years since Georgia achieved independence from the Soviet Union, the Soviet policy as well as the Georgian nationalist policy had continued to contribute to the disintegration of the linguistic minorities from the Georgian society. At the same time, the present disintegration of certain ethnic minorities should not be regarded purely as a matter of governmental educational policy. Johanna Popjanevski, who has made lengthy observations in Georgia, claims that “Instead, the general perception is that segregation of national minorities is caused by language barriers, infrastructural weaknesses and economic deficits.” (Popjanevski 2006, 8).

The “Constitution of Georgia” of 2002 stipulates that “The state language of Georgia shall be Georgian, and in Abkhazia - also Abkhazian.” (“The Constitution of Georgia” 1995, Article 8). This means that Russian, the lingua franca often used by the national minorities in the past, is no more officially acceptable for communication with public administration and in other similar situations. After lengthy discussions about the language policies in the multilingual Georgian society, the fundamental aim of the language reforms centred on the integration of the linguistic minorities into Georgian society through a transition towards Georgian language education, and it chiefly seems to address the Armenians and Azeris, for obvious reasons.

The Georgian language policy reforms focus on the above-mentioned regions and are implemented primarily through the body of the Ministry of Education and Science (hereinafter the MES) of Georgia and its programmes. The key role of the MES in the integration process is explicitly confirmed by the Ministry on its website where it states that the educational system is considered the “main instrument for national minorities’ integration into society ... fostering tolerance and developing civil society” (“Civil Integration Programs” 2009). The First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Akaki Seperteladze sums up the importance of the language educational reforms: “Multilingual education is one of the priorities of MES. This will give the schoolchildren an opportunity to thoroughly develop the intellectual possibilities. The privilege of multilingual education is that it will support the development of intercultural duties and tolerance among the schoolchildren. As the result, peaceful society will be developed in multiethnic country” (Kilasonia 2010). Seperteladze speaks about multilingual education, but the reality is different, as proved by evidence provided below.

The state language use in general education is stipulated by law. The “Articles 4” and “7” of the “Law of Georgia on General Education” (2005) provide (Mekhuzla and Roche 2009, 8) that the state or native languages are to be the languages of general education for the Georgian citizens. At the same time this law requires that the state language is used for teaching courses on Georgian language and literature, history and geography. Ensuing from the same legislation, the governmental reform was to be implemented by the school year 2010-2011 (“US English Foundation” 2006). In reality the programmes implementing the proposed reforms have only been initiated recently (Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia).

Several government programmes aim to promote the state language (e.g. the “Multilingual Instruction Support Program”, “the Georgian Language Program”, “Teach for Georgia”). They belong to the “Civil Integration Programs” of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (2009). Their aim is to recruit and send qualified teachers to non-Georgian schools in Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti regions or support Georgian language teaching for adults. A new governmental programme entitled “Georgian Language for Future Success” was launched in September 2011 (Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia). This programme offers job opportunities to the university graduates whose native language is Georgian and who are prepared to spend at least one year teaching Georgian to students at non-Georgian schools in the regions of Kvemo Kartli, Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kakheti. All these programmes have one common aim, according to MES, namely to “improve the acquisition of the state language and the minority languages in general educational institutions;...” (“Civil Integration Programs” 2009). The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia claims on its website that its key objective is to popularize the Georgian language as a state language, as well as to maintain the minorities’ cultural and linguistic identity. It remains a question whether the latter claim is meant sincerely: this will also be the topic for the discussion below.

Prior to discussing the general education programmes, I will briefly comment on the programmes which are particularly aimed at adults, who should be given an opportunity to learn Georgian at the Adult Education Centres (AECs) in Samtskhe-Javakheti (in the Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki) and Kvemo Kartli Regions. The Centres have been established by a consortium of NGOs, dvv Georgia, the Adult Education Asssociation of Georgia and the Union of Democrat Meskhs (“Georgia – Our Projects” 2011). The project for establishing the Centres ended in 2008 and was co-funded by the EU and Germany. In addition to different kinds of professional training, the AECs provide training in the Georgian language, which should enhance the trainees’ chances to find a job.

The situation in higher education is also worth mentioning. Georgian is the language of instruction at institutions of higher education in Georgia and Abkhazian schools in Abkhazia proper. The reduction in the Russian sections at Georgian universities resulted in lack of access to higher education for the national minorities who do not speak the state language. Two of the interviewed Georgian Armenians, who have recently achieved university education, thus went to study to Russian sections of the universities in Yerevan. To prevent such practice, which often makes the educated labour force move to Russia, fresh reforms have been introduced. They are stipulated in the Law on Higher Education from 2009, which allotted 5% of all state seats to Armenian and another 5% to Azerbaijani students, since 2011 seats have been allotted to the Abkhazians and since 2012 also to Ossetians (Tchiaberashvili). The percentage of the allotted seats roughly corresponds to the percentage of the respective minority in the total population. The admitted students then pass an entrance exam in their native language (Armenian, Azerbaijani, Ossetian or Abkhazian), and before starting undergraduate studies they have been enabled to enroll to a one year intensive course of the Georgian language since 2010 (“Law of Georgia on Higher Education”). The other minorities are neglected in this respect.

The general education reforms in the regions were partly implemented in the school year 2010/2011. Multilingual teaching programmes were for the first time taught at 40 non- Georgian (or multilingual) schools. At the same time, there is still a large number of minority schools (12 Russian, 116 Armenian, 89 Azeri schools and 133 schools which are both Georgian and minority language, providing primary and secondary education) (“Georgia: The Javakheti” 2011), which are still waiting for skilled or less skilled Georgian teachers to come. The minority schools (providing education in minority languages) had previously used foreign textbooks based on foreign curricula. At the beginning of the school year 2010/11 it was announced that multilingual textbooks on history and geography had been translated for the non-Georgian schools and published on the basis of the Georgian curricula (Barabadze 2010). The children started learning history and geography using these textbooks while approximately one third of the content was to be taught in the Georgian language (Kilasonia 2010).

The educational reform also concerns the Russian minority (although the Russians are not the only ethnic group attending Russian schools in Georgia), and all Russian schools of Tbilisi are involved in it right from the beginning. The amount of the curriculum taught in Georgian should have been increased to two thirds in this school year (Barabadze 2010). Akaki Seperteladze, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science, has described the process of reforms in general education as follows: first, pupils will be taught in both the Georgian and native languages; gradually, the amount of the curriculum taught in Georgian will increase, and finally, the native language will only be taught as a subject (Kilasonia 2010).

The comparison of the reform aims as presented by the officials of the Ministry of Education has revealed some discrepancy. The transition towards the state language in general education should lead to the integration of linguistic minorities. At the same time, if the native language is only taught as a subject, the education is not multilingual anymore. Therefore multilingual education ceases to be “one of the priorities of MES” (Kilasonia 2010) and loses the proposed advantages. It is multilingual only on the surface, while in reality it should lead to the assimilation of the linguistic minorities and strengthening the integrity of the Georgian state.

The Kists The Kists together with the Chechens and Ingush belong to the Vainakh people. They started moving from the North Caucasus to the Pankisi Gorge in Eastern Georgia about 200 years ago. They are descendents of the Chechens and Ingush who had been invited by local dukes to protect the frontier against recurrent attacks from the North Caucasus (“Informal interviews with the Kist villagers in Pankisi”). However, they might have moved to Georgia’s territory also for economic and religious reasons (Kurtsikidze and Chikovani 2008, 235–236).

The population of the Kists was more than 7,000 people in 2002. Most of them live in an agglomeration of six villages in the Pankisi Gorge, which actually looks like a long valley. Most of the Kists are Sunni Muslims belonging to two Sufi brethren, Naqshbandiya and Qadiriya. There are also Christians among them, particularly in the village of Birkiani and among the Kists living outside the Pankisi Gorge, e.g. in the town of Telavi. The two Sufi brethren organizations were established in the region as late as in the first half of the 20th century. The customary highlander customary law (adat) is present in Pankisi and seems to be dominant over the Islamic law of Sharia (Sanikidze 2007, 273).

In my research I aimed to investigate into the local language policy – the local language practices (Spolsky 2012, 5), i.e. the use of particular languages in specific social domains, the local people’s attitude to the governmental language planning, and to identify the Kists’ language needs. The research methods were ethnographic ones, observations and expert-like semi-structured interviews as well as informal interviews, which are described in detail in the introduction to the present paper. They were held in the Russian and English languages in the village of Duisi in August 2011. The anonymous interviewees of the expert interviews were two female members of the local Kist community involved in the agro-tourism project, the former was a Georgian language teacher at a local school, and the latter was a representative of the young generation and a postgraduate university student.

The language situation in the Kist community in the Pankisi Gorge is one of broad diglossia, i.e. they use two genetically unrelated languages. One of them serves the function of a high variety and the other a low variety in communication. The Kists speak one of the Kist dialects of the Chechen language as a low variety. They call it either “Kistinski” or “Chechenski” in Russian. They learn the Kist dialect as their native language in their families. The Kist dialect of the Chechen language can be classified as one of the Nakh languages of the Caucasian language family (Čermák 2009, 67).

The interviewees described the Kist dialect (Holmes 2008, 127-137) as a language with a number of words loaned from the Georgian language, which in the Chechen dialects spoken in the North Caucasus often have counterparts adopted from Russian. There seem to be regional sub-dialects of the Kist dialect in the Pankisi Gorge. One of the interviewees described the difference between particular sub-dialects as a matter of speech intonation. Their speakers also seem to come from different villages, which form an agglomeration. The borders of the villages are only indicated with traffic signs and a lower density of houses. However, the low migration of the local population seems to have resulted in the origination of these sub-dialects.

Everyday communication among the members of the Kist community seems to be carried out in the Kist dialect of Chechen. The Kists claim that they also communicate in Chechen with their Chechen relatives and friends, who come to Pankisi on frequent visits and holidays, which I was able to witness myself. This is the situation as presented by the interviewees. The interviewees often gave too clear-cut answers to questions where a sociolinguist expects at least a few exceptions. A further investigation, perhaps a structured interview with quantitative goals, will be needed to find out whether Chechen is really a single language used within the community, or there has been a language shift towards the use of the Georgian language.

The Kists watch television in three languages, Chechen (broadcasting from Chechnya), Georgian and Russian. One of the programmes they watch is the Georgian channel PIK (Pervyi Informatsionnyi Kavkazskii), which broadcasts in the Caucasian lingua franca – Russian most of the time. It also broadcasts in national languages, including Chechen. The interviewees were not able to say that one of the languages prevails in the programmes they usually watch at home.

As has been mentioned above, the Kist families speak Chechen in their homes and with their neighbours. Therefore their children do not usually speak the Georgian language before they start going to schools of general education. They receive general education in the Georgian language. They learn to write and read in Georgian first. Then they can also use the language for communication outside their community and they use it as a high variety, i.e. in writing and reading. The Kists usually cannot write or read in the Chechen language. One of the interviewees has learnt the Chechen version of Cyrillic alphabet with special letters for distinct Chechen sounds in an optional university course when studying at the university in Tbilisi, but this is not common practice in the community. With the exception of some members of the older generation, who studied in Chechnya during the Soviet times, the Kists do not commonly possess writing and reading skills in Chechen.

The needs of the local community were also investigated. Recently the Kists have formulated their intention to introduce the Chechen language into the school curriculum within the framework of general education, and sent a letter to the authorities in Tbilisi. At present the Chechen language can be taught as an optional subject at the primary schools in Pankisi. However, the community’s aim is to make it an obligatory part of the basic school curriculum for all the Kist children in the local schools. The teacher-interviewee explained the reason for their decision: “The Chechen language will stop developing in Pankisi if the children do not learn to write and read it.” [Translated from the Russian by Kopečková]. The authorities in Tbilisi did not allow the reform for the Kists, referring to the possibility of teaching Chechen as an optional subject. One of the interviewees commented on the reasons behind the authorities’ decision as follows: “The state does not regard us as a national minority so we cannot learn our native language obligatorily at schools.” [Translated from the Russian by Kopečková]. The interviewees also expressed understanding for the state officials’ attitude, which is influenced by the sensitiveness of the present situation of state integrity.

It has been proved by numerous studies that children getting an education in the mother tongue are more successful learners. Nadine Dutcher defends mother tongue education: “We know that most of the children, who begin their education in their mother tongue, make a better start, demonstrate increased self-confidence, and continue to perform better than those who start school in a new language. The outlook for successful education is brighter when the school builds on the foundation of the mother tongue in teaching a second and third language.” (Dutcher 2004, 1), but she can also take into account its “perils” (Dutcher 2003, 1- 2), particularly an insufficient support for mother-tongue education by parents, teachers and the government.

The issue of mother-tongue education was also mentioned during an interview with a Georgian language teacher of Kist nationality. She confirmed that it is a challenging job to teach the Kist children in the Georgian language. As has been said above, they enter schools speaking the Kist Chechen and start learning the Georgian language first. According to the interviewee they manage to develop thinking in Georgian only in the sixth or seventh grade of school (i.e. at the age of ten or eleven).

The interviewee also mentioned some “perils” (Dutcher 2003, 1-2) of the possibility of educating their children in Chechen. She claimed that the community wanted the Chechen language to be an obligatory subject at schools of general education in Pankisi, but it was not suitable to achieve education in the Chechen language, as the Kists need to know Georgian to be able to study at universities and become employed in Georgia. Moreover they did not have any textbooks. Considering the reasons the interviewee gave for her and the Kist community’s attitude to the state language policy, the pragmatic aspect seemed to prevail.

There are, however, also non-pragmatic, identity reasons underlying their opinions and decisions. The main reason was mentioned a few paragraphs above in a quotation by the interviewee. In spite of the fact that the Kists do not make an attempt at gaining mother tongue education approval at the moment, the arguments in favour of learning their mother tongue at schools obligatorily more or less coincide with Dutcher’s claim that: “...mother tongue education helps speakers appreciate their own language and become committed to its use even as other languages prove more powerful in the society beyond the home village or community.” (Dutcher 2004, 1).

Moreover, the inability to read in Chechen prevents the Kists from reading Chechen literature in the Chechen language. The younger interviewee’s personal motivation to learn to write and read in Chechen is mainly the desire to read literature in that language. In summary, learning the Chechen language seems to have an identity maintenance function for the Kists.

Since the school year of 2010/2011 the English language has been introduced as an obligatory subject from the first grade at all schools in Georgia. This radical step is one of the many pro- Western reforms which have been implemented by Saakashvili since 2004 (Saakashvili 2010). The state programme “Teach and Learn with Georgia” (“Teach and Learn with Georgia” 2010), which has been running since March 2010, recruits English teachers from abroad for co-teaching at public schools in Georgia. Western teachers of English should “pave the way towards world citizenship for our children.” (Saakashvili 2011). Saakashvili’s “world citizenship” seems to refer to “western community citizenship”. The recruitment of Western English teachers also helps the government to cope with the shortage of English teachers in the country.

This recent reform seems to impose a double burden on the Kists’ children, who have already started to learn another foreign language – Georgian – from the first grade, and further encroaches on successful learning. In spite of the hardships, the Kist interviewees seemed to have a very positive attitude towards learning English. The language seems to symbolize a better future for their neglected region with high unemployment (“Georgia’s mental revolution” 2010). Another reason for the positive attitude to English might be the personality of Roddy Scott.

Roddy Scott, who was a British freelance filmmaker and journalist, lived in Pankisi when thousands of Chechen refugees entered the valley, and filmed a documentary about them. He was shot and killed during the fighting between the Russian army and the Chechens after entering the Russian Republic of Ingushetia from Georgia in 2002 (“Killed Reporter’s” 2002) while reporting on “the Chechen fight for Independence” (The Roddy Scott Foundation 2011). The Roddy Scott Foundation was established in his memory by his parents in 2008. In addition to funding training for local Kist teachers of English and organizing courses at six local schools, the foundation has also provided funds for the Roddy Scott Education Centre in Duisi, where the Kist children learn English and computer skills. The Centre offers the children classes of English after compulsory school hours. This is a huge contribution to the education of the local children as native teachers of English had still been expected to come to Pankisi and teach English in summer 2011.

An attempt was made to investigate into the Kists’ opinion on the pros and cons of learning different foreign languages. As has been mentioned above, English seems to be a popular language in Pankisi. Therefore the present Russian classes are being replaced by English classes. The interviewees considered the knowledge of English important for the Kists or any Georgian citizens’ individual plans concerning employment. Nowadays the knowledge of English is an essential requirement for many jobs, while Russian language skills are still an advantage. English enables students to study new texts, and it might become the language of international conferences in Georgia in the future.

In everyday life English is sometimes used in communication with tourists who come to Pankisi as agro-tourists. This branch of industry, which is new to the region, enables local families to increase their family budgets. English is also used for computer work. Last but not least, English is the language of instructions enclosed with imported products.

While English is on its way to become a new lingua franca for the Georgian citizens in the future, it is Russian which still seems to occupy the primary position of lingua franca in the Caucasus region. More Russian-language lessons continue to be taught at Pankisi schools than those of English, which is the result of the slow implementation of new reforms, due also to the relatively marginal position of the region. Russian is an optional subject at some schools in Georgia, but it is obligatory for children in Pankisi at the moment.

The younger interviewee confirmed that a Russian section has opened for foreign students at Tbilisi University, who intend to read Caucasian regional studies. Some local people still consider learning Russian important, and at least the two interviewees could speak it very well.

There is yet another language of importance to the Kists: they use Arabic for religious purposes. However, they only translate its knowledge, limited for this particular domain of communication, through oral tradition and do not possess writing or reading skills in Arabic. Some of them, particularly the younger people, learn to read in Arabic to be able to read the Koran, but it does not seem to be the common practice in Pankisi.

Conclusion The aim of the present paper was to describe the language policy of Georgia towards non- Georgian minorities and the language practices of the Kists, as well as to identify their needs. The Kists seem to have accepted and actually welcomed the government reforms concerning the implementation of the English language into general education as it seems to represent a “better future” including improved job opportunities for them. However, they also find it useful to learn Russian as a foreign language at schools of general education. The reforms concerning the implementation of multilingual education, involving the introduction of the Georgian language and teaching subjects in Georgian in general education, does not concern them directly as they have been achieving education in Georgian for decades, and not surprisingly they feel unaffected. Contrary to the other non-Georgian minorities, who lack the knowledge of the Georgian language, they seem to be fully integrated into the Georgian society in this respect, and they strive for the reinforcement of their own ethnic identity through the introduction of the Chechen language into the general education curriculum. But their needs have not been addressed and have even been resented by the authorities because of the different position of the Kists in Georgia. Unlike the Armenians or Azeris, who threaten the Georgian state with irredentism, the Kists are not regarded as a national minority in Georgia (Zakareishvili, Zedelashvili and Urjumalashvili 1996; “Formal semi-structured expert interviews with two Kist women”) in spite of the fact that their number is relatively high, they live in a compact settlement, and they regard themselves as a national minority “Formal semi- structured expert interviews with two Kist women” (Sedlářová 2011, 298). This governmental attitude leads to a situation when the authorities do not respect the Kists’ desire to establish the Chechen language as an obligatory part of the national curriculum, as was claimed by the interviewee.

Georgia has not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992), which would implement the basic legal tool for securing the linguistic minorities’ rights in the country, even though the politicians have long promised to ratify it. However, reintegration seems to be the country’s priority at the moment, and the government authorities regard the support to minority languages as a threat to the state integration even though they speak about multilingual education in public.

If the linguistic minorities’ rights are to be maintained, it is necessary for the Georgian government to review the definition of national minority and to acknowledge the minorities’ existence (as in the case of the Kists) as well as to change its language policy towards them. The existence of a legal framework for acknowledging their rights would make them feel fully-fledged citizens, something which would subsequently lead to their integration into the civil society. The integration into society should not be as much the matter of assimilation, as it is viewed by the government now, as of maintaining the people’s ethnic and linguistic identity. Therefore the integration by means of the introduction of a state language into education should be balanced with the maintenance of identity, support to the linguistic needs of particular linguistic minorities and the respect for their desires related to maintaining their identities. Only then will the Kists’ needs and desire to provide teaching of the Chechen language to their children as part of general education be met.

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