Cultural and Language Effects of Migration: The Case of Migrants and Chuvash People in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia)

Abstract

According to the World Migration Report there are 11.6 million migrants in Russian Federation, the majority of which (43%) have come from countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The study aims to evaluate the impact of migration on both migrant and host cultures to establish the changes in native languages and cultures of migrant ethnic groups in the Russian Federation under the influence of a single state language. For the study, the authors used statistical data of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, findings of the 1920-2010 censuses, and mathematical modeling of cultural changes based on differential equation. The case of Chuvash people living in the Republic of Bashkortostan was explored by the mathematical modeling method to identify the alien cultural influence on the recipient country, with a particular emphasis on changes in the local language. The direct correlation has been found between the extent to which the migrant community preserve their homeland traditions at a new place and the probability of shifts in the host country’s culture. The preservation of migrants’ native language in everyday living demonstrates a high probability of replacing the host language by the migrant one in their environment (the probability is 5-10% higher than the expected level for 7 districts and 11 to 50% - in 8 districts out of 26 studied). The results may have practical use in evaluating the probability of major cultural shifts across the world as the international mass migration increases in volume and scope.