Language and Religion in Retaining Ethnic Identity (on the Example of Turkic Peoples)
50th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Kazan 2007
There are many Turkic nationalities living on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Quite a number of them are living on the territory of the present-day Russian Federation (Tatars, Chuvashes, Bashkirs, etc). The similarities of their languages have very deep historical roots. The Tatar nation is said to have its roots in Kipchaks, who in their turn, come from Altai. Although many Turki do not remember their roots, their history lives in their legends and songs, and they have carried their identity to this day.
Generally, identity is a realisation of selfness developing in a child as he grows and certifying him as an independent personality. In our case identity is a realisation by people their belonging to a certain ethnic group.
With the change of civilisations and nations through the ages, languages have also changed, as well as the appearance of the people. According to Murad Adji, Turki in the ancient times had European appearance [Adji, 2005: 13]. The Mongoloid features in some of the Turki appeared later on, due to the Mongol and Chinese proximity. The author bases his opinion on the picture on an ancient carpet and the evidence given by ancient Chinese, describing ancient Turki as being fair-haired and blue-eyed. However, this question is rather disputable, for only the nose of the person depicted on the carpet is of European type. On the whole, the type of face in its basic features (the shape of the eyes) is Mongoloid.
Khirgises are the people, who keep the ancient wisdom of the Kipchaks, like Altai inhabitants and Khakases. Their forefathers were inspired by the mountains and in them they were searching for the secret of the uni verse, for Altai is an ancient Turkic Motherland.
According to some literary sources, field observations and research works [Валеев, 1980: 25], an important place in the formation of Siberian Tartars belongs to the tribes of Sayany and Altai highland.
An ethnic group is characterised by the language it speaks. Turkic nations keep their ancient language, existing in our days in different variants (Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kazakh, etc.). Turkic people have lived on the Earth for at least 2.5 thousand years. Although it is often a religion that helps a language to survive, Turkic languages have been spoken since the time when Islam was not known. And still, religion exercises a great influence on the world’s languages, and it is a very important factor in the survival of the language. And not only that. At one time Christianity played a great role in the consolidation of the Russian nation, and it is due to Christianity that Russians became aware of themselves as Russians. There had been a number of Slavonic tribes that were often at war with one another, and it was Christianity that helped them unite.
Tatar Moslems are sunnites. They are more pragmatic and more tolerant to other religions. At the time of the Golden Horde (13th century) Tatars kept their religion and continued to call themselves Bulgarians or Moslems. Thus, the religion of Islam helped them to preserve their national identity and carry it to this day. At the present time many Tatars refer to themselves as Moslems, although not many of them attend services in the mosque.
It is in the family that a person begins to identify himself as belonging to a definite ethnic group. He or she chooses the language of his family as his native language, through which he becomes part of society. Through the native language and cultural environment he acquires his mentality and learns the ways of behaviour. Still, even when a person considers to a language to be his native one, it does not always mean that he uses it for communication. “The micro-census of 1994 proved that 97% of Tatars considered Tatar their native language, but only 81.6% used it at home. So, for the majority of the Tatar people the native language is nothing more than an ethnic symbol and is the main factor of self-identification of the Tatar people.” (Yagfar Garipov and Marina Solnyshkina, 2006, 132).
So, the main factor in preserving the identity of an ethnos is the language it speaks. Very close to the language is the religion, which also helps the language to survive, or enriches its vocabulary.
References
- Adji, M.: Asia’s Europa. Moscow, 2006.
- Валеев, Ф. Т.: Западно-сибирские татары во II половине XIX — начале XX вв. (историко-этнографические очерки). Казань: Таткнигоиздат, 1980.
- Words and Worlds. World languages review. Elista, Kalmyk State University, 2006.
- Garipov, Y. and Solnyshkina, M.: Language Reforms in Tatarstan’s Education System and the Ethnolinguistic Orientation of Young People // Voces Diversae: Lesser-Used Language Education in Europe. Belfast, 2006.