Margarita Rusetskaya:
the Wording of the question submitted for a nationwide vote, causing many complaints. Some even say that the question is not written in Russian. Here just want to ask, how, then, did you get it, if it’s not written in Russian. Let’s look at the situation strictly linguistically, without politics and emotion. In the sentence “do You approve the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation?” all written in Russian, but used a shortened design. A full design would look like this: “do You approve of the changes made in the Constitution of the Russian Federation?”. That is missing one word that is easily restored by sense.
In natural speech we often use such structures with gaps, fits this understanding accelerates the exchange of information. The question is whether we are ready to formulate the question submitted to popular vote, this spoken language. Here the competence of the linguist ends, the decision for the company. Some will say that this is unacceptable in such a situation is possible only the full wording involved with trafficking. Others will say that the purpose of the popular vote – to know the opinion of each, including those for whom Russian language is not native (as we are a multiethnic country, not forget about it). Fatal whether this is a simplification of the issue? From the point of view of linguistics – it is not fatal. Question in full and in abbreviated wording has the same meaning, no ambiguity, the wording does not matter. The rest is the business of sociologists, culture experts and public taste.
In connection with this I remembered what the issue was put to a vote in 1991: “do you Consider necessary the preservation of the USSR as a renewed Federation of equal sovereign republics, which will be fully provided with the rights and freedoms of any nationality?” Many of us even today certainly not decipher the meaning of each word and the issue in General: the word “Federation”, “sovereign”, the construction with a subordinate sentence. How meaningful was the response of the majority of voters? Although stylistically claims to question no.
So I suggest not to commit today to the stylistic battles, and to care primarily about the meaning. If it is transparent, and nothing to worry about. Back to the style when you decide what should be our future.
