Minister-Counsellor, Embassy of Russia
Introduction
Some expert say, there are up to 10.000 different languages left in the world; others put the estimate at thousands lower, depending on how many are characterized as dialects of another language. Every two weeks or so the last elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies. At that rate, as many as 2.500 native tongues will disappear forever by 2100.
This is the present day situation in the world. A language is a living creature, and as any living creature it lives and dies. Languages live with a society, serve the society, change and develop with the society and die with or within the society. Languages live as long as they are used by the society and individuals of that society, and die with the society or when they are rejected.
Some, very few, languages have become world-wide accepted as international tools of communication – the languages of international society. Mostly because of historical reasons, due to the expansion of the societies-nations-states that brought their mother tongues to other less developed and more dependent societies-nations-states. In some cases these languages were imposed on them for the benefit of colonial administration, in some cases these languages were gratefully accepted by recipient societies as sort of “humanitarian aid” that spurred their own cultural development. Today we have six languages formally reconfirmed as world languages – the official languages of the United Nations. Russian language is among the six, and as a Russian I am proud of it.
The present day situation with the Russian language
To have a full-size picture of the situation with the Russian language nowadays we must take into consideration three levels or three scales of its presence on the world: inside the boundaries of the Russian Federation, on the territories of the newly independent states, which formerly were the national republics of the Soviet Union (USSR), and in other countries of the world.
Starting with the largest circle and going into the center we will have the following. Sizeable Russian-speaking communities exist in North America (especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami, and Chicago). In the first two of them, Russian-speaking groups total over half a million. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, live in their self-sufficient neighborhoods (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early sixties). It is important to note, however, that only about a quarter of them are ethnic Russians. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union the overwhelming majority were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterwards the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat. According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian was reported as language spoken at home by 1.50% of population, or about 4.2 mln, placing it as #10 language in the United States.
Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (1999 census). The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian. For have a century by now generations of young Africans used the grants provided by the government of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, to get higher education in Russian universities and master Russian language.
Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the twentieth century, each with its own flavour of language. Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Greece have significant Russian-speaking communities totaling 3 million people. Two thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, or Ukrainians who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed or are just looking for temporary employment. But many are well-off Russian families acquiring property and getting education.
Sizable Russian-speaking communities existed even in China, up to now Russian is well-known language in the North-East region of the country. In nineteeen-fifties Russian was widely taught in the chinese schools due to the “socialist bonds” between the two countries. In Mongolia mastership of Russian language was a gate to brighter future and till now every educated citizen of this country speaks perfect Russian. The same was characteristic for the countries of East Europe - the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR, especially in Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system.
As to the countries that used to be part of the USSR and before that – of the csarist Russia. Until 1917, Russian was the sole official language of the Russian Empire. During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian. Following the break-up of 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national intercourse throughout the region has continued. In Latvia, notably, its official recognition and legality in the classroom have been a topic of considerable debate in a country where more than third of the population is Russian-speaking, consisting mostly of post-World War II immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former USSR (Belarus, Ukraine). Similarly, in Estonia, the Soviet-era immigrants and their Russian-speaking descendants constitute about one quarter of the country's current population. A much smaller Russian-speaking minority in Lithuania has largely been assimilated during the decade of independence and currently represent less than 1/10 of the country's overall population. Russian is the official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine) and Transdniestria region of Moldova. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for many of the both native and RSL (Russian as a second language) speakers in many of the former Soviet republics. 75% of the public school students in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan, 24% in Ukraine, 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in Georgia received their education only or mostly in Russian, although the corresponding percentage of ethnic Russians was 10% in Belarus, 27% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in Kyrgyzstan, 10% in Moldova, 1% in Azerbaijan, 1% in Georgia.
Recent estimates of the total number of speakers of Russian:
Source
|
Native speakers
|
Native Rank
|
Total speakers
|
Total rank
|
G. Weber, "Top Languages",
Language Monthly, 3: 12-18, 1997, ISSN 1369-9733 |
160,000,000
|
7
|
285,000,000
|
4
|
SIL Ethnologue
|
167,000,000
|
7
|
277,000,000
|
5
|
And now we shall focus on to Russia itself.
Russian language as state language and other national languages in the Federal Republic of Russia
The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian, and the remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Avars, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Chinese, Evenks, Georgians, Germans, Ingushes, Inuit, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Maris, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Tuvans, Udmurts, Yakuts, and others. There are 21 republics within the federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities.
104 languages are currently spoken on the territory of the Russian Federation. Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian (see the appendix). The origins of Russian language go back to the 6th century. Growing with the history of the society, the nation and the state it developed through the Kievan period (9th-11th centuries), Feudal breakup (12th-14th centuries), the Moscovite period (15th-17th centuries), Empire (18th-19th centuries), Soviet period and beyond (20th-21st centuries). In the mid 1800’s Standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect became the official language. But it should be pointed out that the difference between the language of Kievan Rus' and Modern Russian is not so great as to make impossible comprehension of the 11th-century texts by an educated Russian. This difference is much smaller than, say, the enormous gap between Old English and Modern English. This backbone feature of Russian language contributed greatly to the survival of the language through ages and the acquisition of the position of the dominant language on the vast territory of Russia, the common official language throughout the Russian Federation understood by 99% of its current inhabitants. With the expansion of the Russian state the language served the governors as a powerful tool to administer and unite the numerous ethnic groups and provide access to literary and scientific materials not available in minority languages.
That is why it is not a question of domestic policy to support and promote Russian as a national language on the territory of the Russian Federation – on the contrary, past several decades it was the policy of the Soviet and then the Russian state to protect and support languages of national minorities and ethnic groups (but it has become an issue for the foreign policy of Russian to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who consider Russian as their mother tongue against the suppressive and discriminate actions of authorities in some former Soviet republics). The Russian legal system, first of all the Constitution, declares and provides that every citizen has the right to determine and state his national identity, use his native language and his language of communication, education, training and creative work. Each of the 21 republics has the right to institute its own State Language (see appendix). At present 14 out of 21 national republics have issued Decrees on Language. The Republics of Kalmykia, of Tatarstan, of Chuvashia, Sakha and several republics in the Northern Caucasus have produced their proper programs pertaining to the preservation and development of their national language. The linguistic policy of the central government of the Russian Federation is based on three fundamental principles: the preservation of Russian as the common language of the Federation; the support and development of minority languages; the three-tier system of language treatment – those of the nations of Russia, the national minorities of Russia and the indigenous communities of Russia. The educational system is built up accordingly to this policy. Languages of minorities are taught at primary and secondary schools in all the autonomous republic irrespective of the status of the language. The national languages are taught in the pertaining republics and other regions with dense population of that nationality. Financing the education from both federal and local budgets provides for further development of institutions of all educational levels in reference to the local language particularities. Russian language remains the language of state administration, of judicial procedures (every citizen has the right to be provided with proper translation into his mother language) and of the armed forces, of the scientific communities.
Conclusion
A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2010 concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a “Stamp Out Russlish!!” campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present. This is a very smart picture of the interaction of languages and people. It depicts the major trend of linguistic development of the human race - free from national, political and material prejudices it naturally tends to be what it “au fond”, as the French say, is to be – a most comfortable and enriching tool of communication. In the future, when the status of a nationality will not have to be proved through the status of its language and the sense of a nationality will not have an acute political sense, when the globalisation processes will bring together people from all parts of the world, as Internet communication is doing right now, we will witness, perhaps, the emergence of a new world language, a fusion of present languages, accepted and used by all the people of the globe. But in the meantime the natural way of development is: one language unites people, unites a society, a nation, a state and does not exclude the right for existence and flourishing of other languages present.
