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American Morning

United States Invades Russia -- With Words

Aired June 27, 2001 - 11:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: American words are making their way into the Russian language, and that is causing something of a crisis in the Kremlin.

CNN's Steve Harrigan has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hot dogs might be in trouble in Russia if the state Duma passes a law to ban foreign words in official business. The bill follows a government push to purge Russian of foreign slangs. It may require television news anchors and politicians to pass a spelling test.

LYDMILA PUTIN, RUSSIAN FIRST LADY KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Russian used to be the general language across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The problem is how to preserve it.

HARRIGAN: Competitions like Russian Language Olympics, now under way in Moscow, are geared to help. But many linguists say passing laws to preserve Russian's purity won't do any good.

PROF. VITALY KOSTOMAROV, LINGUIST (through translator): It's impossible to reform a language. It is tied to national character, religion, geography. It obeys its own internal changes which are happening all the time.

HARRIGAN: In the class of 2001, English words are already part of ordinary Russian speech. It's a way, they say, to be cool or...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Questionable.

HARRIGAN: But are they undermining the state? Not to worry, says Professor Kostomarov.

KOSTOMAROV (through translator): The same thing happened in the 18th century with French, and in the 19th century with German. Some words will fall away, Russian will absorb the rest, the words it needs to survive.

HARRIGAN: Like computer, fax, Xerox, and mobile telephone.

Steve Harrigan, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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