Valeriya Minakova

This study examines understandings of language and language maintenance practices of the Circassians (Adyghes) in Adyghea, Russia. The Circassians are a minority in their North Caucasus homeland and are undergoing a language shift to Russian. Through a ten-month ethnographic case study, this project explores teaching and family language practices of the Circassians in urban and rural areas to illuminate how linguistic minorities in Russia deal with language maintenance under the pressure of the nation-state and globalization. This study of a lesser-known indigenous group adds a missing dimension to the poststructuralist turn in linguistics that questions the nexus between language, identity, and land by studying language practices in metropolitan areas while overlooking linguistic minorities in their homelands.