ROLE OF SURVIVAL OF THE LANGUAGE AS A SYMBOL UPON FORMATION OF IDENTITY

Abstract

One of the specificities of Estonia is that 24,8 % of Estonian population are Russians, and Russian-speaking population is 31,3 % of the local population (in accordance with Estonian Population and Housing Census 2011). The second ethnic minority after Russians are Ukrainians 57 % of whom speak Russian as their everyday language, and the next minority are Byelorussians 70 % of whom are Russian-speaking, and Russian language is dominating as everyday language in case of the rest of minorities ( ibid. ). Based on this data the influence of language shift and social processes on the respondents’ ethnic identity (a big part whereof is language identity, see e. g. Iskanius 2005) should be researched more thoroughly inside the community. The aim of this research is to establish the influence of language environment, social factors and the extent of language shift on the respondents’ ethnic identity. The review covers the areas of language environment with more dense Russian-speaking population than in other areas of Estonia (Kohtla-Järve and Paldiski).