central asia - LingoDigest

One Nation, One Hundred Languages: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union’s Grand Linguistic Experiment

6 min read

The Soviet Union’s language policy was a dramatic paradox, beginning with the revolutionary promotion of over 100 minority languages through the *korenizatsiya* (indigenization) program. This ambitious project, which created new alphabets and championed local cultures, was later brutally reversed under Stalin’s rule, giving way to aggressive Russification. This story reveals how language was used as a tool for both unprecedented cultural engineering and absolute political control.

Culture History Ancient Languages Sociolinguistics

The Whispering Road: How Sogdian Became the Lingua Franca of the Silk Road

7 min read

Long before English dominated global trade, the language of the Sogdians, an Iranian people from Central Asia, connected the great empires of the East and West. This is the story of how their language and its unique script became the unsung lingua franca of the Silk Road, facilitating centuries of trade in silk, spices, and ideas. Discover the ‘whispering road’ and the merchant people who built it, and learn why their influential language eventually vanished from the world.