The Estonian Language Law, passed by the Estonian SSR Supreme Soviet on 18 January 1989, was the first of its kind in the Soviet Union. It helped launch a wave of similar legislation in other union republics and symbolized a new level of assertion of republican rights against Moscow and the tradition of centralized control. It is no coincidence that the Language Law was drafted and became available for public discussion at virtually the same time as Estonia's declaration on sovereignty (16 November 1988), also a first in Gorbachev's USSR. Indeed in late 1988 and early 1989 Estonia was leading the way in the movement for decentralization in the Soviet empire as the major political goal began to shift from autonomy to independence. This article will assess the origins and nature of the law itself as well as its implementation and impact over a nearly five-year period to late 1993.

Minority language rights in Georgia, which are inseparable from economic, social and educational inequalities among the different ethnic groups, run along two axes: Georgian's relation to Russian and Georgian's relation with its own minority languages. Since the late 1980s, Moscow's diminishing power and the republic's internal fragmentation have shifted the emphasis from the first to the second. Newly independent Georgia, which is 70% Georgian, now confronts a problem familiar to many post-colonial states: what status should the multiplicity of languages in the republic have? Should Georgian be the only official language, and if so, in what contexts can non-Georgians use their native language? Such issues are part of larger questions about domination, entitlement and ethnic status, issues which have bedeviled the successive Georgian governments' attempts at state-building. In the last two years, language conflicts in Georgia have been overwhelmed by violent secessionist struggles, and the state language program which was perceived as vital to Georgia's future when it was adopted in August 1989, has become secondary today. But if the ethnically based wars are to end, language relations must be settled. As it stands, the language program is unlikely to help.

Nineteen eighty-nine appeared to be an annus mirabilis in Soviet language policy; during that year, nine of fifteen Soviet republics adopted laws that championed the language of the titular nationality. Among these was Kyrgyzstan, a small Central Asian republic where Russian had increasingly marginalized the language of the Kyrgyz.

In October 1989, Uzbekistan's Supreme Soviet adopted the law “On the State Language of the Uzbek SSR.” At that time, Uzbekistan was still one of the 15 constituent republics of the USSR. The law was an important symbol of Uzbekistan's changing relation to Russia and the assertion of the preeminence of Uzbek culture in Uzbekistan.

The implementation of language laws in multilingual territories often leads to acrimonious political conflicts, as demonstrated by the recent experiences of Quebec, Estonia, Moldova and Slovakia, to name but a few. The pattern of such conflicts is remarkably similar. First, one group (generally, but not necessarily, the demographic majority) claims ancestry on a territory which it considers its “homeland”; then it succeeds in proclaiming its language (the main marker of group identity) the sole official language in the “public domain” of the given territory. This action triggers organized protest from the other linguistic group (generally the demographic minority), which feels aggrieved over such fundamental issues as group status, equal opportunity for upward mobility, and educational rights.