Which subjects have the right to establish their own official languages? Language in Russia. About the state language of the Russian Federation

Russia is a multinational country, and therefore multilingual. Linguistic scientists count 150 languages - here both a language such as Russian, which is spoken by 97.72% of the population in Russia, and the language of the Negidals - a small people (only 622 people!) Living on the Amur River - are taken into account on equal terms.

Some languages are very similar: people can each speak their own language and at the same time understand each other perfectly, for example, Russian - Belarusian, Tatar - Bashkir, Kalmyk - Buryat. In other languages, although they also have a lot in common - sounds, some words, grammar - it will still not be possible to come to an agreement: a Mari with a Mordovian, a Lezgin with an Avar. And finally, there are languages - scientists call them isolated - unlike any other. These are the languages of the Kets, Nivkhs and Yukaghirs.

Most of the languages of Russia belong to one of four language families :

Indo-European;
Altai;
Ural;
North Caucasian.

Every family has a common ancestor language - proto-language. Ancient tribes who spoke such a proto-language moved, mixed with other peoples, and the once single language split into several. This is how many languages arose on Earth.

Let's say Russian belongs to Indo-European family . In the same family - English and German, Hindi and Farsi, Ossetian and Spanish (and many, many others). Part of the family group Slavic languages. Here, Czech and Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, etc. coexist with Russian. And together with closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian, it is included in the subgroup East Slavic languages . Indo-European languages are spoken in Russia by more than 87% of the population, but only 2% of them are not Slavic. These are Germanic languages: German and Yiddish; Armenian (one makes up a group); Iranian languages: Ossetian, Tat, Kurdish and Tajik; Romance: Moldavian; and even modern Indian languages spoken by gypsies in Russia.

Altai family in Russia it is represented by three groups: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu. There are only two peoples who speak Mongolian languages - Kalmyks and Buryats, but just the enumeration of Turkic languages may surprise you. These are Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Karachay-Balkar, Nogai, Kumyk, Altai, Khakass, Shor, Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Dolgan, Azerbaijani, etc. Most of these peoples live in Russia. Turkic peoples such as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, and Uzbeks also live in our country. The Tungus-Manchu languages include Evenki, Even, Negidal, Nanai, Oroch, Orok, Udege and Ulch.

Sometimes the question arises: where is a separate language, and where are only dialects of the same language? For example, many linguists in Kazan believe that Bashkir is a dialect of Tatar, and the same number of specialists in Ufa are convinced that these are two completely independent languages. Such disputes occur not only regarding Tatar and Bashkir.

To the Ural language family relate Finno-Ugric and Samolian groups . The concept of "Finnish" is conditional - in in this case it does not designate the official language of Finland. It’s just that the languages included in this group have related grammars and similar sounds, especially if you don’t parse the words and listen only to the melody. Finnish languages are spoken by Karelians, Vepsians, Izhorians, Vods, Komi, Maris, Mordovians, Udmurts, and Sami. There are two Ugric languages in Russia: Khanty and Mansi (and the third Ugric is spoken by Hungarians). The Samoyed languages are spoken by the Nenets, Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups. The Yukaghir language is genetically close to Uralic. These peoples are very small in number, and their languages cannot be heard outside the north of Russia.

North Caucasian family - the concept is quite arbitrary. Unless specialist linguists understand the ancient kinship of the languages of the Caucasus. These languages have very complex grammar and extremely difficult phonetics. They contain sounds that are completely inaccessible to people who speak other dialects.

Experts divide North Caucasian languages into Akh-Lagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe groups . On Nakh The Vainakhs speak mutually understandable languages - this is the common name for the Chechens and Ingush. (The group received its name from the self-name of the Chechens - nakhchi.)

Representatives of approximately 30 nations live in Dagestan. “Approximately” - because not all the languages of these peoples have been studied, and very often people determine their nationality precisely by language.

To the Dagestan languages include Avar, Andi, Iez, Ginukh, Gunzib, Bezhta, Khvarshin, Lak, Dargin, Lezgin, Tabasaran, Agul, Rutul... We named the largest Dagestan languages, but did not list even half. It’s not for nothing that this republic was called the “mountain of languages.” And a “paradise for linguists”: the field of activity for them here is vast.

Abkhaz-Adyghe languages are spoken by related peoples. In Adyghe - Kabardians, Adygeans, Circassians, Shapsugs; in Abkhazian - Abkhazians and Abazins. But not everything is so simple in this classification. Kabardians, Adyghe, Circassians and Shapsugs consider themselves a single people - Adyghe - with one language, Adyghe, and official sources call four Adyghe peoples.

In Russia there are languages that are not included in any of the four families. These are primarily the languages of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East. All of them are few in number. In the Chukchi-Kamchatka languages Chukchi, Koryak and Itelmen speak; on Eskimo-Aleutian - Eskimos and Aleuts. The languages of the Kets on the Yenisei and the Nivkhs on Sakhalin and Amur are not included in any language family.

There are many languages, and in order for people to agree, they need a common one. In Russia, it became Russian, because Russians are the most numerous people in the country and they live in all its corners. It is the language of great literature, science and international communication.

Languages, of course, are equal, but even the richest country cannot publish, for example, books on all issues in the language of several hundred people. Or even several tens of thousands. In a language that is spoken by millions, this is feasible.

Many peoples of Russia have lost or are losing their languages, especially representatives of small nations. Thus, they have practically forgotten the native language of the Chu-lymys - a small Turkic-speaking people in Siberia. The list, unfortunately, is long. In Russian cities, Russian is becoming the common language for the multinational population. And most often the only one. However, in Lately National cultural and educational societies took care of their own languages in large centers. They usually organize Sunday schools for children.

Most languages of Russia before the 20s. XX century had no writing. Georgians, Armenians, and Jews had their own alphabet. Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns wrote in the Latin alphabet (Latin alphabet). Some languages are still unwritten.

The first attempts to create a written language for the peoples of Russia were made even before the revolution, but they began to take this seriously in the 20s: they reformed the Arabic script, adapting it to the phonetics of the Turkic languages. It did not apply to the languages of the Caucasian peoples. They developed a Latin alphabet, but there were not enough letters to accurately designate sounds in the languages of small nations. From 1936 to 1941, the languages of the peoples of Russia (and the USSR) were transferred to the Slavic alphabet (except for those that had their own, which was also ancient), superscripts were added, tall straight sticks to indicate guttural sounds, and combinations of letters that were strange to the Russian eye like "ь" and "ь" after vowels. It was believed that a single alphabet helped to better master the Russian language. Recently, some languages have begun to use the Latin alphabet again.

What is the state Russian language - two aspects of one concept

The modern literary Russian language is one of the most universal languages in the world. With its help, absolutely any thought and concept can be expressed in several ways and fixed in the mind of the listener with varying degrees of accuracy and detail. In grammars and reference books, the structure and lexical composition of the Russian language are described to a degree of completeness that corresponds to the modern level of linguistic knowledge.

The Russian language has a developed conceptual and semantic structure, the presence of a comprehensive corpus original texts in all functional varieties and social functions. This ensures the functioning of the Russian language as one of the world languages. Ideas about the Russian language as state language Russian Federation require special interpretation, since they can be interpreted in two equal and complementary aspects.

Firstly, the Russian language, understood as an integral sign-communicative system, in the status of the state language is legally distinguished from the languages of other indigenous peoples of Russia. Understanding the special role of the Russian language in the life of our country corresponds to the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” (No. 53-FZ of June 1, 2005), which states that “ in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the state language of the Russian Federation throughout its territory is Russian" The Russian language is recognized as a language widespread in all regions of Russia and uniting the entire territory of our multilingual country. This is the most universal language of Russia - all the most important knowledge about the world and society is expressed and recorded in an extensive corpus of texts (original and translated).

Secondly, the state status of the language, understood as practical, social function, highlights that part of Russian literary language, which is used by organs state power and governance as not only the language of laws and regulations, but, equally important, as the language of official communication. This understanding of the state status of the Russian language corresponds to the content of Article 3 of the Federal Law on Language, which describes its functional properties. Thus, paragraph 1 of this article states that the state language of the Russian Federation is subject to mandatory use “ in the activities of federal government bodies, government bodies of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, other government bodies, local government bodies, organizations of all forms of ownership, including in office work activities", and paragraph 4 obliges the use of the Russian language " in constitutional, civil, criminal, administrative proceedings, legal proceedings in arbitration courts, office work in federal courts, legal proceedings and office work before justices of the peace and in other courts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation" and so on.

Functions of the state language

Circle theoretical issues discussed in connection with the problems of the functioning of the Russian language as a state language, is usually exhausted by direct consequences from the statement that the grammatical and lexical repertoire of linguistic means used to solve state problems and realize state interests should be understandable to any literate native speaker of the Russian language and, therefore , must comply with the norms of general literary language. This interpretation of state status does not require a special description of the norms, procedures and rules for using language in this capacity, because the normative and stylistic characteristics of linguistic means are developed in detail in dictionaries and grammars of the Russian language. However, the idea of the mandatory normativity of the use of linguistic means used in the socio-political, national-cultural, official business, and legal spheres speech activity, cannot be limited only to the general requirements of compliance with spelling, spelling, punctuation or stylistic norms of the language. The distinctive properties of linguistic means functioning in thematically, compositionally and stylistically stable types of text, united by the official business style of speech, are the features of the communicative tasks implemented with their help, and the specificity of the pragmatic orientation of rhetorical constructions.

To describe the functions of the state language in this understanding means to give a functional description of the linguistic means of the state language. This means the need to describe the rules and norms of linguistic interpretation of the text as a structural and conceptual whole, connecting the authorities and the people, society and the individual through communicative-pragmatic relations social group, enterprise owners and workers, officials and civil society. Without detailed description functions of linguistic means used in the state language, legally significant situations of information or documentary dispute will continue to arise, when normative, logical interpretations of the text turn out to be officially indistinguishable from arbitrary interpretations that generate random semantic results.

Genre features of speech activity in areas of use
state language of the Russian Federation

The functional properties of the state Russian language are fully manifested in texts written in an official business style. This style of literary language is formed in those areas of speech activity in which it is preferable to use a predetermined set of linguistic means, standard ways of developing thoughts about a certain range of topics of discussion. In the official business style, a uniform speech etiquette is supported and mandatory adherence to such rhetorical patterns of speech construction that are best able to ensure semantic clarity, intelligibility, and neutrality of the act of communication. For this reason, colloquial and dialect words and expressions are excluded from official texts, and metaphorical meanings are not used.

The official business style is traditionally implemented in the texts of diplomatic, legal documents, instructions, orders and other official papers from modern document flow. This style is gradually spreading to the sphere of business communication itself - trainings, negotiations, presentations, etc. The rapid growth in the volume of speech activity in this genre leads to the need to develop modern norms and rules that contribute to the development and improvement of this style of literary language.

The content of documents in official business style is subject to requirements that are designed to eliminate any kind of ambiguity and discrepancies. Speech, built according to the patterns and rules of the official business style, is the result of a consistent assembly of the meanings of words and phrases into statements that are devoid of individuality, but have a predictable, uniformly derived meaning. Consequently distinctive features Texts of this genre are characterized by clarity, accuracy, specificity, precision of formulation, as well as laconism of presentation and special forms of arrangement of material. Sometimes the advantages of a style turn into its disadvantages. For example, a rule that allows the sequential subordination of similar forms in the attributive meaning of the genitive case has no formal restrictions, and therefore allows you to create constructions like: “ Department for working with citizens' appeals and organizing reception of the population of the Department of Administration of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation" And the rules that allow the construction of abbreviations from the names of enterprises allow the formation of names like: Volgovyatelectromashsnabsbyt company. Considering the rules in other language styles, such names seem impossible. However, for a business style this name, although it can be assessed as somewhat long, is quite understandable and has an important advantage - it is unique and therefore easily recognizable. Moreover, it is quite convenient to use it in writing, because it changes according to cases and numbers in a standard way (cf.: demand from Volgovyatelectromashsnabsbyt, transfer to Volgovyatelectromashsnabsbyt).

Tasks of examination of texts in the state language

Texts generated in the socio-political, legal, socio-economic spheres of human activity usually operate with information presented in the form of facts, therefore official business texts should be devoid of signs of an individual author’s style and be understood unambiguously. To do this, they must be created according to a certain pattern, using words that have clear connections with the concepts motivating them. All this inevitably gives rise to the need to develop practical language rules that ensure not only the unification of the data structure, but also allow significant savings in time both when preparing texts and when reading them. The public need for rules intended for texts for official business purposes is realized through the development of special state standards.

The first such generally binding set of rules, adopted to eliminate discrepancies and inconsistencies in the spelling of words, their transfer and the rules for highlighting syntactic units, were the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation,” officially approved only in 1956. Since then, the country has adopted several standards applicable to official business texts (in information, librarianship and publishing). Today in the Russian Federation many written, printed works and publications (laws and by-laws, administrative documents, educational, reference literature, abstracts, theses, essays, etc.) are prepared and formatted according to certain established rules. Standards for the preparation of documents in the field of office work in various areas of professional activity have been adopted or are being developed (for example, GOST 7.32-2001, which determines the structure and rules for preparing reports on research work), many departments are independently developing internal standards for conventional abbreviations of words, abbreviations, numeric designations of quantitative indicators, accounting documentation, etc.

At the same time, many official documents that are structurally and thematically similar are prepared without relying on model texts, without taking into account the opinion of language experts. The time has come to move from formal unification to the development of language standards that would take into account the specifics of word order, the features of rhetorical constructions related to the communicative tasks of the text and its target orientation. However, it is impossible to carry out this work without the participation of specialists in the field of official business Russian. As studies show, the applied patterns and rules of linear construction of speech, intended, it would seem, to ensure the most reliable communication, sometimes contradict each other. Convincing examples of this can be found even in the texts of Federal laws. Usually, if there is a need for their additional interpretation, it is customary to rely on the results of grammatical and syntactic analysis of the text. The importance of the linguistic formulation of a norm for its understanding and application has been repeatedly confirmed by practice. Verbal inaccuracy, missing comma, incorrect case, wrong type of verb can significantly distort the meaning normative act, lead to the fact that the act will be understood and applied in a completely different way than the law-making body expected.

Of course, if the text violates the rules of spelling or punctuation, then you need to understand the text as if this error did not exist. However, in some cases it can be difficult to decide whether this is an error or whether the text contains the meaning that follows when read literally. In this case, research into a broader context is required, which can only be done by examining the text.

In turn, linguistic examination of the text can be carried out only if there are, firstly, authoritative reference books containing detailed normative characteristics of the entire arsenal of linguistic means used in all spheres of speech activity of the modern Russian literary language, and, secondly, based on proven techniques linguistic characteristics of the text, the use of which would provide reasonable and evidential data about its content.

Such techniques should contribute to the fulfillment of the main task of a linguist, which is to isolate the available textual information and characterize it according to the rules of linguistic analysis. For this original text must undergo expert processing - its content must be interpreted, abbreviated and converted into analytical and reference information containing linguistic knowledge about the text and knowledge about real world reflected in the text.

State tasks of language construction in Russia

The Russian language, as a state language, needs targeted strengthening and development. After all, it acquired state status in legislative form only with the adoption of the Law of the Russian Federation of October 25, 1991 No. 1807-I “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.” It was then that the Russian language was officially recognized as the state language. Later legislative norms, approving the state status of the Russian language in the Russian Federation, were enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 and in the Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” dated June 1, 2005 No. 53-FZ.

The adopted legislative norms make it possible to determine the procedure for the formation, development and regulation of linguistic means of the modern Russian literary language used in state functions. To do this, it is necessary to carry out research work to clarify the declarative norms and procedural rules for the use of that part of the linguistic means that is used in the function of the state language, as well as to explore and describe the cognitive properties of the language apparatus, conduct a complete inventory and create a reliable description of the linguistic means used in this function.

A separate problem that requires special regulation is the problem of legal control, maintaining and strengthening the status of that part of the Russian literary language that is used as the state language of the Russian Federation. Russian state, whose citizens speak one of the world languages, should be interested in the development and improvement of those language tools that are used in speech activities that promote national humanitarian values. From this point of view it can be argued that government function Russian language is to consolidate and develop knowledge about moral principles public life in Russia, traditional moral values and social norms. Any state must cultivate the speech reflection of society on issues related to individual freedom, the possibilities of moral choice of the individual, and the development of the country’s sociocultural heritage; encouraging respect for the faith, language, traditions and customs of ancestors; with a discussion of problems of social justice, goodness, kindness, humanity, tolerance for a different point of view, respect for the rights of religious faiths, etc. Any language or speech restrictions in this area are fraught with stagnation of the national language, delays and lags in its development relative to other world languages.

In order to maintain national sovereignty in the field of international information exchange, the state must actively develop the practice of public speech activity in Russian. Until recently, the Russian language acted as a convenient and full-fledged channel of communication with foreign language partners. However, now that information technologies use the Latin alphabet and English vocabulary, English is used as the working language of scientific conferences, international negotiations are often conducted on both sides without a translator in English language, the prestige of other officially recognized world languages is falling. Accordingly, the linguistic and cultural sovereignty of countries speaking other languages is subject to significant restrictions.

The new “regional” status of the former world languages must be interpreted as a clear sign of a reduction in their cultural and scientific significance. In order to prevent a further decline in the status and role of the Russian language in the world, national language construction should be actively developed and improved. To do this, it is necessary to ensure not only that texts containing world achievements of scientific thought in the humanities, socio-political, economic research, the best works of art, etc., are presented in Russian, but also that authors and readers texts had a clear understanding of the semantic-grammatical rules and norms of speech use of linguistic means.

Throughout the Russian Federation, the official language is Russian. This norm of the Constitution (Part 1 of Article 68) is very important in a state in which people of more than 100 nationalities live. And this is not an artificial imposition, since 85% of the population are Russians and the vast majority are people of other nationalities. 74% of Chechens, 80% of Ingush, 79% of Karachais, 69% of Mari consider (according to the 1989 census) Russian as their native language.

Recognition of the Russian language as a state language means that it is studied in educational institutions, official documents are published on it, work is carried out in legislative and executive bodies of state power, and in the courts. At the same time, the Law on the Languages of the Peoples of the RSFSR of October 25, 1991 (as amended on July 24, 1998) provides that citizens who do not speak Russian can use their native language in government bodies, organizations and institutions, and in certain cases (for example, in court), they are provided with appropriate translation.

The establishment of Russian as the state language does not exclude the right of certain subjects of the Federation to establish their own state languages. This right is granted (Part 2 of Article 68 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation) to the republics. In government bodies, local government bodies, and government institutions of the republics, these languages are used along with the state language of the Russian Federation 6.

However, there are only twenty-one republics that make up the Russian Federation, and there are many more peoples inhabiting the country. Their languages are recognized in Russia as the national heritage of the state, and the Constitution of the Russian Federation has secured for all peoples the right to preserve their native language and create conditions for its study and development. Citizens of Russia have the right to receive basic general education in their native language, they have the right to create national clubs, studios and art groups, organize libraries, clubs and studios for studying the national language, all-Russian, republican and other associations. In places where national groups live densely, their language may be used in local official business. State programs provide for financial and other measures aimed at preserving and developing the languages of the peoples of Russia.

1.4. Customs, monetary and tax systems

From an economic point of view, the Russian Federation is a single market. The establishment of customs borders, duties, fees and any other obstacles to the free movement of goods, services and financial resources is not allowed on its territory. Regulation of relations related to customs common to the Russian Federation is carried out by the Customs Code of the Russian Federation, the Law on Customs Tariffs, a number of decrees of the President and decrees of the Government of Russia. Consequently, the creation of customs borders between different subjects of the Federation is unacceptable in the Russian Federation.

But certain circumstances may necessitate restricting the movement of goods and services. The Constitution of Russia provides for such circumstances, but establishes the possibility of restrictions only through the adoption of a federal law and only for certain purposes: ensuring security, protecting the life and health of people, protecting nature and cultural values. This puts a barrier to all kinds of local and bureaucratic “creativity” that can arbitrarily interfere with the “unity of the economic space” and the “free movement of goods, services and financial resources,” which constitute one of the foundations of the constitutional system (Article 8 of the Constitution). Some of the grounds for restricting the freedom of movement of goods and services are provided for in the federal laws on states of emergency, on weapons, and on sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population.

In the Russian Federation there is a unified monetary system, and the ruble is recognized as the monetary unit. Consequently, the subjects of the Federation do not have the right to introduce and issue their own money. Money issuance is carried out exclusively by the Central Bank of Russia, which protects and backs the ruble. The Central Bank operates independently of other government bodies 7 .

In the Russian Federation, both the Federation itself and its constituent entities have the right to impose taxes. At the federal level, only the law can establish the system of taxes levied on the federal budget. Federal law The general principles of taxation and fees should also be determined. Consequently, the subjects of the Federation, having the right to impose taxes, are obliged to do so in accordance with the general principles established for the entire country.

The Federation has the right to issue government loans, but only in the manner determined by federal law. This limits the ability of the executive branch to issue loans at its own discretion, which could create a serious threat to the country's financial system. Loans must be placed on a voluntary basis, i.e., not have a compulsory nature for citizens and organizations.

The official language of the Russian Federation is Russian. The Russian Federation is a multinational state, therefore the Constitution of the Russian Federation enshrines the right of the peoples of Russia on its territory to use and study in educational institutions, in addition to Russian, a national language, to draw up documents, in addition to Russian, and in the language of the corresponding people of Russia.

This right is enshrined in the Law of the Russian Federation of October 25, 1991 No. 1807-I “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation”. The legal status of the state language in Russia, the scope of its use, protection and support are established by Federal Law No. 53-FZ of June 1, 2005 “On the State Language of the Russian Federation”, but the adoption of this Law did not sufficiently alleviate the gaps in the constitutional legislation of Russia.

Republics within the Russian Federation can establish their own state languages in order to preserve their historical traditions. The Russian Federation protects the right of the peoples of the Russian Federation to use and preserve their languages, therefore the following are unacceptable in the Russian Federation:

propaganda of hostility and disdain for any language;
creating obstacles, restrictions and privileges in the use of languages;
other violations of the legislation of the Russian Federation concerning the languages of the peoples of Russia.

The Russian Federation has a number of principles for preserving the languages of the peoples of Russia:

the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation are the national heritage of the Russian Federation;
the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation are under state protection;
The state throughout the Russian Federation promotes the development of national languages, bilingualism and multilingualism.

Main constitutional principle preserving the languages of the peoples of Russia is their equality, i.e. all the peoples of the Russian Federation have the right to equally ensure the preservation and use of their native language. This principle ensures equal rights of all peoples and their individual representatives to the preservation and comprehensive development of their native language, freedom of choice and use of the language of communication. The right to preserve the national language and its comprehensive development, freedom of choice and use of the language of communication belongs to all peoples of the Russian Federation, regardless of number, and to their individual representatives, regardless of origin, social and property status, race and nationality, gender, education, attitude to religion, place accommodation. Subjects of the Russian Federation have the right to adopt laws and other regulatory legal acts on the protection of the rights of citizens to freely choose the language of communication, education, training and creativity.

Guarantees for the protection of the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation:

1. The languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation enjoy state protection, that is, the legislative, executive and judicial authorities of the Russian Federation are called upon to guarantee and ensure the social, economic and legal protection of all languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

2. Social protection of languages is ensured by the implementation of a scientifically based language policy aimed at the preservation, development and study of all languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation throughout Russia.

3. Economic protection of languages includes targeted budgetary and other financial support for state and scientific programs for the preservation and development of the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation, as well as the implementation of preferential tax policies for these purposes.

4. Legal protection of languages is ensuring the responsibility of legal and individuals for violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the languages of the peoples of Russia.

The Russian Federation guarantees citizens of the Russian Federation, regardless of knowledge of the national language, the exercise of basic political, economic, social and cultural rights, i.e., restrictions cannot be established on the territory of individual subjects depending on knowledge or ignorance of the language, and violation of the linguistic rights of peoples and individuals entails constitute liability under the law.

Oddly enough, not only Russians live on the territory of the Russian Federation. Our country is full of diverse peoples. Accordingly, there are also plenty of dialects they speak. What are the languages of Russia?

What is a language family

Any dialect existing in the world belongs to one or another language family. The languages represent fourteen different families. Before we talk about them in more detail, we should understand what a language family is.

So, a language family is a group of languages that have something in common. They all once originated from one thing in common. A language family is the largest unit. One such family may have several language groups. For example, there is a Slavic group, which includes Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and other languages related to ours.

Language families on the territory of the Russian Federation

As mentioned above, as many as 14 language families coexist in our country. Only four of them are most numerously represented: Indo-European (the state language in the Russian Federation, by the way, also belongs to this family - Russian), Altai, Caucasian and Uralic. The Indo-European language family includes 89 percent of the languages of Russia, the remaining eleven are almost evenly divided between the three remaining families.

Languages of the Russian Federation

So, what languages are spoken in Russia? It is important to understand that many adverbs that are part of a particular language family no longer exist by now. Their disappearance occurs due to the lack of carriers - as a rule, small indigenous peoples who are gradually dying out.

So, what languages are spoken in Russia? To answer this question more thoroughly, it is necessary to touch upon at least four main families in our country in more detail.

Living adverbs

It is worth noting the living languages of the peoples of Russia. There are forty living languages in the Indo-European family, which are represented on the territory of the Russian Federation. Of these, the largest number are Russian speakers - almost one hundred and thirty-seven million people. There are significantly fewer speakers of Ukrainian (approximately one million one hundred thousand), Belarusian (one hundred seventy-four thousand) and Polish (sixty-seven thousand people). All these dialects belong, by the way, to the Slavic group of the Indo-European language family.

The national composition of the population of the Russian Federation is so diverse that dialects of other groups of the Indo-European language family are also widely represented on its territory. True, there are not so many native speakers of them anymore, so they cannot be compared with the Russian language and its brothers.

For example, the Armenian branch is represented by Eastern and Western Armenian languages, the Baltic branch by Latvian and Lithuanian. From the Germanic group, Swedish, German, Low German and Yiddish are spoken in Russia. Among the Iranian languages in Russia there are Ossetian, Pashto, Tajik, Rushani, Kurdish and others. Romanian, French, Italian are also common in our country and belong to the Romance group of the Indo-European language family.

When answering the question about what languages are spoken in Russia, we must not forget about the Caucasian family. It includes fifty living languages. These include Kabardino-Circassian (half a million speakers), Adyghe (one hundred and seventeen thousand people speak it), Urakhin (about seventy-three thousand), Ingush (three hundred and five thousand), Georgian (almost one hundred and seventy-one thousand people).

There are twenty-three living dialects represented, such as Estonian (fifteen and a half thousand speakers), Finnish (almost thirty-nine thousand), Komi-Zyryan (one hundred fifty-six thousand people), Udmurt (three hundred twenty-four thousand), Nenets ( twenty two thousand people).

The Altai language family on the territory of Russia is represented by forty-one dialects. These are Evenki (four thousand eight hundred speakers), Chuvash (just over a million speakers), Khakass (forty-two thousand people), Turkmen (thirty thousand), Kazakh (four hundred and one thousand people). Of course, in fact, in each of these families there are many more languages that live side by side on the territory of one of our countries (let’s not forget about ten more language families that are not so widely represented), but to list them all within one a small article is not possible.

Dead adverbs

There are also Russia. In the four language families mentioned above, there are also adverbs whose speakers no longer exist. There are not many of them. In the Caucasian family these are the Ubykh language and Sadz dialect, in the Ural family - Meryan, Yuratsky, Kamasinsky, Babinsky, Sami and Mator-Taigian-Karagas languages. The Indo-European and Altaic families do not have dead languages.

Moreover, similar dialects exist in other language families. There are four extinct languages in the Yenisei language family, two in the Yukaghir-Chuvan language family, three in the Chukchi-Kamchatka family, two in the Eskimo-Aleutian language family, and two in the Ainu language family.

The most common languages in Russia

If you believe fifteen years ago, the inhabitants of our country speak more than one hundred and fifty languages. The most common of them, as already mentioned, is of course Russian. The top ten most popular languages also include Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir, Ukrainian, Armenian, Kabardino-Circassian and some others.

But the most uncommon languages of Russia are, for example, Yugish (only one person speaks it, and it is not known for certain whether he is alive - the latest information about him is dated last year), Bakwe, Sesotho, Hiri-Motu (also one person each ), Monegacan, Nuba, Rushan (two speakers each) and so on.

Languages of Siberia and the Far East

It is in these regions that many people live interesting story, traditions, customs and, of course, with their own languages. For example, the Yugi (or rather, their last living representative) are precisely the Siberian people. And there are a lot of such tribes here. It is not even possible to find out reliably about the life and existence of many of them at the moment.

Among the Indo-European languages, Siberians and Far Easterners speak Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, German and Low German. From the Ural - in Mansi, Khanty, Enets, Nganasan, Nenets, Selkup. From Altai - in Even, Evenki, Nanai, Buryat, Mongolian, Khakass, Shor and others (this language family is most fully represented in Siberia and the Far East).

The question of what languages are spoken in Russia cannot be answered specifically - there are too many of them. Russia is a multinational country, and there are just as many different dialects and dialects in it. The number of disappeared languages directly indicates that previously there were even more peoples in our country. And this is already separate and very interesting topic for studying.