Georgia

This article in the Times discusses the sociolinguistic issues at hand in the Caucuses, as it relates to the present situation in Georgia. Apparently Georgians will choose not to learn or even pretend they do not understand Russian as a form of cultural defiance. 

Some interesting commentary: "A language is the prime indication of the existence of a people," said George Hewitt, a University of London scholar of Abkhaz, the language spoken in Abkhazia, another separatist region of Georgia. "If a language dies, the culture dies as well. The people will become assimilated."

This is obviously a case where linguistics is directly tied into the politics of a region in the world. I'll be learning about this in my "Languages of the World" survey course that I just started today (!); I'll post more if I learn anything new.

-Alison