At the Adyghe State University the organizers of the international action "Total Dictation" have given lectures on the development of the Russian language

Maykop has become the first town in the North Caucasus and the 57th city in Russia, where the organizers of the international action "Total Dictation" have given lectures on the development of the Russian language.

Lectures were held within the framework of the festival "Nauka0+" The lecturers were the project’s manager Olga Rebkovets and the Chairman of the Philological Council of the project and Vladimir Pakhomov, the editor-in-chief of the portal "Literacy.ru ".

The meeting has been organized with the support of the “Total Dictation” team in Adygheya and Indira Neflyasheva, the head of the team.

At the first lecture, Olga Rebkovets told the students participating in project activities about how the "Total Dictation" from a local student event in Novosibirsk had become the largest campaign to promote literacy. In her opening speech, Olga said: “We appreciate such meetings as an opportunity to gain new knowledge, to motivate people to participate in the action and to join the "Total Dictation" team in Adygheya, as well as to push for the project implementation using the example of "Total Dictation". I want to show that nothing is impossible, and the most daring and crazy ideas can be realized if you have the right message and large-scale goals which you believe in”. Part of the lecture has been devoted to the importance of literacy in general. The expert has shown examples how grammatical errors harmed business, the career of officials and revealed the facts of fraud and connivance.

Further, Olga Rebkovets has continued: "With the “Total Dictation” campaign, we want to say that literacy is an important competence. Learning the Russian language does not end at school. The level of literacy must be constantly maintained as well as physical fitness. Some knowledge is lost, but new phenomena and words enter the language. I am still under the impression that the word "video conference room" is written with two hyphens. When I was in school this word was not in use. Only involvement in the Russian language helped me to get this knowledge".

She also told the audience about the project’s start, about its changes and what is inspiring the team now. She spoke about the tradition to invite famous people of different professions to the role of "the dictator" as they jokingly call the dictation announcer. The first time it has been a charismatic history teacher. Now the dictation is read by actors, celebrities and political figures who are recognizable in Russia and the world. All this has a positive effect on the project’s popularity and increases the number of participants.

The capital, where a famous person will read the text, is chosen. Maykop was among the contenders and will fight for this right in the coming years.

Olga Rebkovets has told the audience about the methods of attracting attention to literacy not once a year, but constantly. That is, for example, the publication of popular science books, car rallies with the study of language features in different regions of the country. So, the project manager has promised to jump with a parachute if the number of participants exceeds 200 thousand people. And she has jumped.

The project is growing, despite the fact that it does not have permanent funding. Grants, donations and participation in fundraising projects are used to implement ideas. Now they are raising money for souvenir pens for the next promotion. They need more than 3 million. There are already successes, entrepreneurs and companies are transferring funds for a good cause.

The lecturer said: "Initially, we didn't have a global idea. We had a student event and student enthusiasm. At some point we realized that people really like it, and we like it when people like it. We wanted to do something more. We realized that when we create bright informational reasons for the action, the project is growing. At the heart of all this is an important, global, national-scale task to improve and promote literacy”. And she added: “We had nothing, but we also had nothing to lose. You just have to always achieve the goal and will develop the project".

The Faculty of Philology students and linguists have become the listeners of the second lecture "The mouse is sneaking, or what will be the new spelling rules?”. Vladimir Pakhomov has not chosen that playful title of the lecture by chance. The spelling of the word "mouse" has been changed several times. It could become the norm of the Russian language over the past hundred years. Vladimir has told the audience about the history of the Russian spelling reforms and whether we are waiting for a change in spelling rules.

The reform of the Russian language has been carried out several times. It has been gradually bringing the rules to a single form. But a few decades ago, words could have different spellings in different dictionaries and even mass media editions. Today there is a desire for uniformity. Even the newest words are normalized. Vladimir has shared the Internet resource links with modern scientific dictionary. The best one is "Spelling academic resource "Academos".

The expert also spoke about how the norms of spelling and grammar of new and borrowed words are formed, as well as whether there are regional peculiarities and what scientists take into account. He has given the examples of the language’s life and presented the results of the survey in different cities. Residents of the country have been asked to continue the phrase "greedy beef". That phrase appeared in the dictionary of "Academos" in 2019. It turned out that there were at least three options for continuing the phrase. As in most Russian cities, the popular option in Maykop is "pickled cucumber, lying on the floor, no one eats it." And in other cities it is "empty chocolate".

Vladimir has confessed: "In Moscow it is a "Turkish drum. Whoever plays it is a red cockroach. In my Moscow childhood it was exactly like that. And that "greedy beef" has other sequels, I learned when was 20 at the Faculty of Philology".

There are still disputes about the need to reform the language. According to researchers, there is a significant proportion of people in the country who value the existing norms and are proud of their knowledge in this area. As a result, all proposals to simplify the language in most cases do not find implementation. But scientists continue to study the language and its life in modern Russia.