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The new century and millennium are seeing the formation of an integral sociocultural
system that could serve as the basis for dialogue and interaction between
cultures and faiths. This system is expected to shape a worldview for the
generations to come and to determine their sustainable development patterns.
The international conference on cultural and linguistic diversity in
cyberspace that took place in the Republic of Sakha’s capital, Yakutsk, on
July 2-4, 2008, adopted, for its turn, a final document that became known as
the Lena Resolution. The Resolution urges to foster linguistic and cultural
diversity on the Web in every possible way and to continue efforts to record,
preserve and advance various languages, especially smaller ones, with the
help of modern ICT.
A recent survey of the content available on the Internet about the indigenous
communities of Russia’s Siberia and circumpolar North has shown that the
existing sites are disparate and not informative enough while fully systematized,
comprehensive resources aren’t there yet.
Quite an exhaustive analysis of related content has been carried out by A.
Burykin in his essay “Internet Resources on the Languages of Small Indigenous
Peoples of Russia’s North, Siberia and Far East: Content Overview and User
Enquiries” [1]. The problem of supporting multilingualism in specific Russian
regions as well as nationwide has been the focus of numerous publications
by the Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for All Programme
(IFAP) and the Interregional Library Cooperation Centre [2, 3]. In practice,
though, little progress has been made. Hence the idea to build a Portal on
North-Eastern Russia’s indigenous communities. Such a project should
seek to ensure the linguistic and cultural diversity of those communities
is adequately represented on the Internet, as well as to create an online
environment where they could communicate in their native languages.
This prospective Web site will provide wide-ranging information on the
languages and cultures of all indigenous communities populating Russia’s
North-Eastern regions. The choice of that particular geographic area arises
from its being under the jurisdiction of the Amosov North-Eastern Federal
University, the driving force behind the project.
Not all the indigenous language scripts are yet part of computer operating
systems. Efforts will therefore be made to bring all missing scripts
onboard, introducing them first as part of a universal keyboard layout. In a
longer term, though, language-specific layouts are to be created. The online
launch of scripts for all indigenous languages spoken in the designated area
is expected to raise their profile on the global information scene while also
offering possibilities for communicating in native languages online. This will
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