Keeper of intangible cultural heritage: the role of grandmothers in the transmission of ethnic language and culture (a case study of sociolinguistic surveys in the Chuvash and Mari diasporas in the Moscow region)

An essential mechanism for transmitting ethnic language within families involves the transfer from older to younger generations, with grandmothers playing a prominent role in this process. The paper presents the findings of the field research conducted within the Chuvash and Mari internal diasporas of the Moscow region. The study subjects were the first-generation natives of the diaspora urban environment and the second-generation representatives. The findings indicate that intergenerational language transmission is notably weak, mainly because Russian is omnipresent in urban environments and minority languages are marginalized due to prevailing linguistic ideologies. Although being recognized as state languages along with Russian in the relevant administrative-territorial entities, Chuvash and Mari languages do not have this status in the internal diaspora, becoming minority languages. Nevertheless, according to the research results, ethnic language is one of the key markers of ethnic identity necessary for preserving ethnic group boundaries. In the majority of cases, the task of preserving the ethnic language is assigned to grandmothers, the eldest women in the family, who reside in the rural area of their small native land. This model follows the long-existing practice of city dwellers sending their children to the countryside in summer for the latter to learn an ethnic language in the natural environment by communicating with their grandmother. Besides teaching the ethnic language, the grandmother also imparts knowledge about ethnic customs and traditions, such as ethnic cuisine, songs, and elements of folk and religious culture, making her a valuable keeper of intangible cultural heritage.