Bilingual signage at state and municipal institutions: the case of the Central District of Yakutsk

In accordance with Article 35 of the Law on Languages in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), signs with the names of state and municipal institutions must contain information in the state languages of the republic: Russian and Yakut. The analysis of bilingual signs and the development of norms and rules for translating the nominations of the linguistic landscape in the Yakut language are especially relevant for the correct design of the texts of the signs of official authorities. The purpose of this article is to conduct a linguistic analysis of the texts of signs of state institutions of the Central District of Yakutsk. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were completed: 1) collection and processing of the material; 2) linguistic analysis of the texts of signs in the Yakut language to identify grammatical errors; 3) classification of errors into groups: a) graphic and spelling errors; b) lexical errors; c) syntactic errors and b) stylistic errors;  4) development of recommendations for correcting the texts of signs in the Yakut language. Research methods: data processing and analysis, comparison and description. The study showed that in the linguistic landscape of the Central District of Yakutsk, the main requirements of Article 35 of the Law on Languages of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) regarding the signs of official institutions are observed. Thus, most municipal educational institutions, government institutions, cultural, sports institutions, etc. of this district of Yakutsk have bilingual signs. The main reason for the mistakes made in the translation of official signs into the Yakut language is that the compilers of the Yakut texts do not observe the literary and usal norms of the modern Yakut language. The use of several variants of the names of institutions when translating the official signs of the Central District of Yakutsk shows the lack of a unified terminology in the Yakut language, which today is a problem of Yakut linguistics. The proposed correct translation can be used in the design or correction of bilingual signs of other institutions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

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