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“Cleaning up” the Russian language

Following in the footsteps of L’Academie francaise, Russian officials have launched a campaign to “clean up” the Russian language.

Russia’s Education and Science Ministry has decided that words borrowed from other languages (loan words) are no longer permissible and Russian words should be used instead. In a project costing around US$150,000, they aim to revise all dictionaries and school teaching material, as well as producing an internet resource on the correct way to speak the language.

Whilst L’Academie francasie has been somewhat successful in replacing loan words for French ones, they’ve really only caught on for official usage. Ordinary people are still shaping their language in the way they want to speak it. I wonder if this project will be successful in Russia, a country with a much larger population than France?