Putin's Advisory Council Deems Elves ‘Serious Threat To Russia’

Officials are concerned that Yandex Translator has an option of translation from/into Elvish.

Russians' interest in learning the Elvish language is a “serious threat”. This was stated by Andrei Khudoleev, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, at the “Multinational Youth of the Trans-Urals” forum in Kurgan, The Moscow Times reports.

According to Khudoleev, during the last population census in Russia, an official “elven nation” was recorded with a population of just over 12 thousand people. Khudoleev emphasized that according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, nationality is determined by how a person identifies themselves.

“I would not raise this topic, but in every city I find teachers who say that they have students who are studying the Elvish language. I haven’t played games since then, I consider it a serious threat,” Khudoleev said. He also noted that Yandex Translator has an option of translation from/into Elvish, while many real languages of Russia are not presented.

The Elvish language was created by philologist and writer J. R. R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings novel series. It became popular among fans of the fantasy epic, including young people in Russia.

Earlier, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called on Russians to massively learn Chinese as a language of interethnic communication in order to speak the same language with their “comrades”, and called English a “dead language.” The State Duma also called for including Chinese in the compulsory school curriculum, while abandoning English.