Russian senators block foreign word ban

The law could have caused problems for Putin

The upper house of the Russian parliament has rejected overwhelmingly a law that would have banned politicians from swearing or needlessly using foreign words.

You cannot imagine the Russian language without earthy expressions and foreign words

Valery Sudarenkov
Culture committee chairman

Senators in the Federation Council voted 126 to seven to throw out the bill, which was approved by the lower house, the State Duma, last week.

They said linguistic purity should not be taken to extremes - the Russian language could not be imagined without imports and earthy expressions.

The law would have applied to government bodies and official correspondence, as well as to the media and advertising.

It will now be sent to a joint commission of both chambers to be rewritten.

'Unworkable'

The council's speaker, Sergey Mironov, said that the law was ill-thought out and would even have banned the words "Federation" and "Constitution".

Zhirinovsky commonly uses expletives

"The Duma rushed into adopting this law," he said. "It is unrealistic and unworkable."

Thirty amendments to the constitution would have been needed to make it conform to the new law, he added.

"You cannot imagine the Russian language without earthy expressions and foreign words," said Valery Sudarenkov, chairman of the Federation Council's culture committee.

Mr Sudarenkov pointed out that in the dictionary there were 900 foreign words under the letter A alone.

Flood of English

The BBC's Stephen Dalziel says the Russian language is so full of foreign words that many Russians take them to be their own.

Many French words came in before the revolution when French was the language of the Russian imperial court.

More recently, the opening up of post-Soviet Russia to the outside world has seen a flood of English words into the everyday conversations of millions of Russians.

The clause in the law which bans obscene words and expressions could cause problems for the President, Vladimir Putin, who once said he would seek out Chechen rebels "even in the toilet".

It could also be used against far-right politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is facing disciplinary action over a videotape during a visit to Baghdad in which he is seen to describe US President George W Bush using expletives.