Status
Both Georgian and Abkhaz law enshrines an official status of the Abkhaz language in Abkhazia.
The 1992 law of Georgia, reiterated in the 1995 Constitution, grants Abkhaz the status of second official language on the territory of Abkhazia, along with Georgian.
In November 2007, the de facto authorities of Abkhazia adopted a new law "on the state language of the Republic of Abkhazia" which mandates Abkhaz as the language of official communication. According to the law, all meetings held by the president, parliament or government must be conducted in Abkhaz (instead of Russian which is currently a de facto administrative language) from 2010 and all state officials will be obliged to use Abkhaz as their language of every-day business from 2015. Some, however, have considered the implementation of this law unrealistic and concerns have been made that it will drive people away from Abkhazia and hurt the independent press due to a significant share of non-Abkhaz speakers among ethnic minorities as well as Abkhaz themselves, and a shortage of teachers of Abkhaz. The law is an attempt to amend a situation where up to a third of the ethnic Abkhaz population are no longer capable of speaking their own language, and even more are unable to read or write it; instead, Russian is the language most commonly used in public life at present.
Read more about this topic: Abkhaz Language
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