The place and purpose of the Russian language in the modern world. The position of the Russian language in the modern world Ways to spread the Russian language in the modern world

Russian language in modern world.

Russian language by total number speakers ranks among the top ten world languages, but it is quite difficult to accurately determine this place.

The number of people who consider Russian their native language exceeds 200 million people, 130 million of whom live in Russia. The number of people who speak Russian perfectly and use it as a first or second language in everyday communication is estimated at 300-350 million.

In total, more than half a billion people in the world speak Russian to one degree or another, and according to this indicator, Russian ranks third in the world after Chinese and English.

The question remains controversial today whether the influence of the Russian language in the world has been declining in recent decades or not.

On the one hand, the language situation in the post-Soviet space, where before the collapse of the USSR the Russian language served as a generally recognized language of interethnic communication, is very contradictory, and here a variety of trends can be identified. On the other hand, the Russian-speaking diaspora in non-CIS countries has grown many times over the past twenty years.

Of course, back in the seventies, Vysotsky wrote songs about “the spread of our people across the planet,” but in the nineties and two thousand this spread became much more noticeable.

But we should, of course, begin to consider the situation with the Russian language at the end of the 2000s with the post-Soviet states.

In the post-Soviet space, besides Russia, there are at least three countries where the fate of the Russian language does not cause any concern. These are Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

In Belarus, the majority of the population speaks Russian in everyday life and in general in everyday communication, and in the cities, young people and many middle-aged people practically do not even have the Belarusian accent that was characteristic of the past in their Russian speech.

At the same time, Belarus is the only post-Soviet state where the state status of the Russian language was confirmed in a referendum by an overwhelming majority of votes.

It is obvious that the services of translators from Russian into Belarusian will not be in demand for a long time, and perhaps never - after all, almost all official and business correspondence in Belarus is conducted in Russian.

The language situation in Kazakhstan is more complex. In the nineties, the share of Russians in the population of Kazakhstan decreased noticeably, and Kazakhs became the national majority for the first time since the thirties of the last century. According to the Constitution, the only state language in Kazakhstan is Kazakh. However, since the mid-nineties, there has been a law equating the Russian language in all official spheres to the state language. And in practice, in most government agencies at the city and regional level, as well as in metropolitan government agencies, Russian is used more often than Kazakh.

The reason is simple and quite pragmatic. Representatives of different nationalities work in these institutions - Kazakhs, Russians, Germans, Koreans. At the same time, absolutely all educated Kazakhs speak Russian perfectly, while representatives of other nationalities know Kazakh much less well.

A similar situation is observed in Kyrgyzstan, where there is also a law giving the Russian language official status, and in everyday communication, Russian speech in cities can be heard more often than Kyrgyz.

These three countries are adjacent to Azerbaijan, where the status of the Russian language is not officially regulated in any way, however, in the cities, the majority of residents of the indigenous nationality speak Russian very well, and many prefer to use it in communication. This is again facilitated by the multinational nature of the population of Azerbaijan. For national minorities since Soviet Union The language of interethnic communication is Russian.

Ukraine stands apart in this series. Here the language situation is peculiar, and language policy sometimes takes on extremely strange forms.

The entire population of eastern and southern Ukraine speaks Russian. Moreover, attempts at forced Ukrainization in a number of regions (in Crimea, Odessa, Donbass) lead to the opposite result. The previously neutral attitude towards the Ukrainian language is changing to a negative one.

As a result, even the traditional mixed speech disappears in these territories - Surzhik in the east and the Odessa dialect in Odessa and the surrounding area. The new generation learns the language not from the example of parental speech, but from the example of the speech of Russian television announcers, and begins to speak the correct Russian literary language (with slang features of the 21st century).

An illustrative example: in the Russian speech of Ukrainian youth, the guttural Ukrainian “soft” G (h) is replaced by the “hard” Ґ (g) of the Moscow-St. Petersburg type.

And in western Ukraine, things are not simple either. After all, the population of the Carpathian and Transcarpathian Ukraine speaks dialects, which in neighboring countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia) are considered a separate Rusyn language.

And it turns out that the Ukrainian literary language and dialects close to the literary one are spoken by a minority of the population in the Ukrainian state. However, in recent years, the Ukrainian authorities have been imposing the Ukrainian language using completely ridiculous methods - like the unnecessary, but mandatory translation of all films shown in cinemas into the Ukrainian language.

However, unsurpassed in the desire to ensure that translation from Russian requires services translation agency, the Baltic countries remain - especially Latvia and Estonia.

True, it should be noted that the language policy of the state and the attitude of the population are still two big differences (as they still say in Odessa). Rumors that in order to communicate with the local population, a Russian tourist needs translation from English, are greatly exaggerated.

The demands of life are stronger than the efforts of the state, and in this case this is manifested most clearly. Even young people born in Latvia and Estonia already during the period of independence speak Russian sufficiently to be able to understand each other. And cases when a Latvian or Estonian refuses to speak Russian out of principle are rare. So much so that each of these cases is the subject of heated discussion in the press.

According to the testimony of the majority of Russians who have visited Latvia and Estonia in recent years, they have not encountered any signs of linguistic discrimination. Latvians and Estonians are very hospitable, and the Russian language continues to be the language of interethnic communication in these countries. In Lithuania, the language policy was initially softer.

In Georgia and Armenia, Russian has the status of a language national minority. In Armenia, the share of Russians in the total population is very small, but a significant proportion of Armenians can speak Russian well. In Georgia, the situation is approximately the same, and the Russian language is more common in communication in those places where the proportion of foreign-speaking population is large. However, among young people, knowledge of the Russian language in Georgia is very weak.

In Moldova, the Russian language does not have official status (with the exception of Transnistria and Gagauzia), but de facto can be used in the official sphere.

In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the Russian language is less commonly used than in neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, according to the Constitution, the Russian language is the language of interethnic communication; in Uzbekistan, it has the status of a national minority language; in Turkmenistan, the situation remains unclear.

One way or another, in all three countries he speaks Russian most of urban population. On the other hand, the indigenous people speak to each other in native language, and switch to Russian only in conversation with Russians or representatives of national minorities.

The linguistic and sociocultural situation in Uzbekistan is very clearly illustrated by modern Uzbek films. It is very interesting to observe from them in what situations Uzbek townspeople switch to Russian when talking among themselves.

For example, in some new Uzbek films, reminiscent of Indian melodramas in plot, the characters switch to Russian to express feelings or clarify relationships that do not fit into patriarchal local customs. And a kind of language barrier emerges. In the rather Europeanized Uzbek society, any topic can be discussed - but not every topic can be discussed in the Uzbek language. For some, Russian is better.

One way or another, the Russian language still remains the language of interethnic communication throughout the post-Soviet space. Moreover main role What plays here is not the position of the state, but the attitude of the population.

But in non-CIS countries the situation with the Russian language is the opposite. Russian, alas, is one of the languages ​​that are lost within two generations.

First generation Russian emigrants prefer to speak Russian, and many of them master the language new country not fully and speak with a strong accent. But their children already speak the local language with practically no accent (a girl known to the author from her birth and who left with her mother for Sweden at the age of 11, by the age of sixteen the Swedes accepted her as a local, speaking a village dialect) and prefer the local language in communication.

They speak Russian only with their parents, and recently also on the Internet. And, by the way, the Internet plays an extremely important role in preserving the Russian language in the diaspora.

But on the other hand, in the third or fourth generation, the interest in the roots of the descendants of emigrants is revived, and they begin to specifically learn the language of their ancestors. Including Russian language.

In the seventies and eighties, with the almost complete breakdown of ties with the USSR, the Russian language gave way to English or Hebrew much faster than now, when any emigrant can maintain contact with family friends and acquaintances on the Internet.

In the seventies and eighties in Israel, emigrants from Russia learned Hebrew at an accelerated pace. And in the nineties, Israeli officials began to learn Russian at an accelerated pace, so as not to burden them with unnecessary work. translation agencies.

Today at Last year, belonging to the “zero”, the Russian language not only remains the main language of interethnic communication throughout the post-Soviet space. It is spoken well by the older generation and is well understood by the younger generation in many countries of the former socialist camp.

For example, in the former GDR, schoolchildren were taught Russian, frankly, much better than Soviet schoolchildren were taught German.

And it can hardly be said that the role of the Russian language in the world has fallen over the past twenty years. world. Growing influence Russian language to others languages. Wonderful language peace... speeches as a linguistic discipline // Russian language And modernity: Problems and prospects for the development of Russian studies...

  • Cheat sheet on Russian language (3)

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    The semantic meaning is completely preserved: Modern Dictionary Russian language interprets the word “prodrazverstka” as... . – p.47-55. Kostomarov V.G., Denisov P.N., Veselov P.V. Russian language V modern world. (Report at the International Conference MAPRYAP...

  • Development of intercultural communication in foreign teaching languages

    Thesis >> Foreign language

    Makes up about 5-6% of the living dictionary modern Russian language: in other words, it takes... Kostomarov V.G. Regional studies and teaching Russian language as a foreign language, M., 1971. Vereshchagin E.M. Russian language V modern world- M., 1974. Desherieva Yu.Yu. ...

  • The Russian language in the modern world occupies a leading place in terms of the number of people speaking it among all languages ​​used. But it is very difficult to accurately indicate the serial number of this place.

    More than 200 million consider Russian their native language, of which approximately 130 million live in Russia. And the number of people who speak Russian perfectly, using it in everyday life as a first or second language, is approaching 350 million. In total, half a billion people on the planet speak Russian to a greater or lesser extent, and this figure is third after Chinese and English.

    In the USSR, the Russian language successfully played the role of a language of interethnic communication, but now the linguistic situation that has developed in the post-Soviet space is quite contradictory. The question of the influence of the Russian language in the world is also controversial. Some experts believe that the influence has been gradually declining in recent decades, while others argue with them. Indeed, after the collapse of the USSR, the attitude towards the Russian language in many former republics was extremely negative; on the other hand, the Russian-speaking diaspora in non-CIS countries is steadily growing, contributing to its spread. We can say that compared to the seventies, in the nineties and 2000s, emigration literally increased significantly. And yet, the situation that has developed with the Russian language in the modern world should be considered from its position in the post-Soviet states.

    Here, in only three states - Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - the fate of the Russian language is not yet a cause for concern. In Belarus, the status of the Russian language as the second state language was confirmed by a popular referendum. Here, the majority of the population communicate in everyday life, and the Russian speech of the urban population, especially among young people and middle-aged people, does not even have a characteristic Belarusian accent. Thus, no one will need the services of translators from Belarusian into Russian for a long time, maybe even never. Almost all business correspondence here is conducted in Russian.

    It’s more difficult in Kazakhstan. In the nineties, many Russians left here, and Kazakhs made up the national majority. Kazakh is the only state language here, which is confirmed by the Constitution, but in the nineties a law was passed that equated Russian to the state language for use in official spheres. Practice shows that the Russian language is used by most government institutions much more often than Kazakh. This is explained simply - in addition to Kazakhs, institutions employ people of different nationalities, especially many Russians, Germans, Koreans, and they know Russian much better than Kazakh.

    A similar situation in Kyrgyzstan shows that the Russian language in the modern world still plays one of the main roles in the issue of interethnic communication among the numerous nationalities that inhabited the former USSR. The situation is similar in Azerbaijan, and although Russians do not have official status here, the multinational nature of the population contributes to its development.

    Strange situation in Ukraine. The population of the south and east here speaks Russian, but forced Ukrainization in these regions causes rejection of the Ukrainian language, and the indifferent attitude towards it changes to a sharply negative one. As a result, the traditional surzhik - mixed Russian-Ukrainian speech - is disappearing here, and the younger generation learns the Russian language through television, listening to the correct Russian speech of Russian announcers. As a result, young and middle-aged people here speak completely correct Russian, including slang features of the 21st century.

    In Western Ukraine, the local population speaks dialects that are poorly understood by other Ukrainians; in neighboring countries they are called the Rusyn language. The literary Ukrainian language is thus spoken by a minority of the population of the state of Ukraine, and the Russian language has no official rights. Russian films require Ukrainian dubbing, which simply outrages the Russian-speaking part of the population. We can say that in the modern world the Russian language is drawn into political games by not very clean politicians, and serves as a constant bargaining chip in their games.

    But the Baltic countries are the most unsurpassed in this matter. The policies of these countries will continue to feed the numerous employees of translation agencies for a long time. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that state policy and the real attitude of people in relation to language are two different things, and rumors that in the Baltics without in English cannot be avoided, of course, being greatly exaggerated.

    In Georgia and Armenia there is now very poor knowledge of the Russian language among young people. In Moldova it has no official status, and the Russian language is not particularly respected in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

    And yet, despite everything, the Russian language remained the only language for interethnic communication throughout the entire territory of the former USSR. Attempts to change this situation are clear and transparent. But the positions of state representatives in the modern world cannot radically influence the behavior of the population and its attitude towards languages. In foreign countries, the Russian language is quickly being lost; the children of emigrants speak Russian poorly and with an accent. The Internet comes to the rescue, playing a very important role in preserving the native language in the diaspora. Also, the next generations of emigrants are reviving their interest in their language, and they are learning the language of their ancestors. They also speak Russian quite well in the countries of the former socialist camp.

    So to say that the role of the Russian language in the modern world is declining is premature and groundless; it is not only a language of communication for representatives of hundreds of nationalities, but also one of the officially adopted languages ​​of the UN.

    Report on the topic:

    "Russian language in the modern world."

    Prepared by student of class 11 “B” Ivanova Tatyana

    Teacher:

    Introduction........................................................ ........................................................ ........ 3

    Statistics................................................. ........................................................ .... 4

    The competitiveness of the Russian language is obvious. It successfully acts on the world stage as an intermediary language. Takes on the function of conveying not only the content itself, but also the nationally specific aspects of the generally significant achievements of other peoples and their languages.

    Russian language as a world language.

    Widely published statistics around the world indicate that the most effective factor in the admission of the Russian language to the “club of world languages” turned out to be historical events and achievements of the people who are native speakers of this language.

    One of the signs of a world language should be considered its spread outside the monolithic and ancestral territory, its study in different countries peace. An additional property of the Russian language as a world language is the nature of its assimilation - not only from generation to generation through family, environment, through interethnic marriages, through waves of emigration and migration, but also through conscious, usually “academic”, “business”, “scientific”, "creative" learning. For a world language, it is important not only the number of people who speak it, but the global distribution of native speakers, their coverage of different, maximum in number of countries, as well as the most influential social strata of the population in different states.

    The Russian language is distinguished by its high information content, that is, the ability to store in its system the maximum experience of communication and verbal creativity, proven means and possibilities for expressing and transmitting thoughts.

    Preserving its uniqueness and identity over a vast space and for a long time, the Russian language has absorbed the riches of the languages ​​of the West and East, mastered the Greek-Byzantine, Latin, Eastern and Old Slavonic heritage. He accepted the achievements of the new languages ​​of the Romance and Germanic areas of Europe. However, the main source of its development, processing and polishing was the creative creativity of the Russian people, several generations of Russian figures in science, politics, culture and literature - thanks to them, the Russian language became a highly developed, rich, orderly, stylistically differentiated, historically balanced world language.

    Problems of the modern Russian language.

    On the other hand, it should be noted that there are negative trends in the development and use of the Russian language.

    You can often hear now: the Russian language is in danger, almost mortal; colloquial reduced to a very small set of words, contaminated with foreign words, primarily “Anglicisms”. Like, if this continues, the Russian language will lose its face.

    But what actually happens to the Russian language? What state is it in now?.. Here and there we increasingly hear Americanized jargon and the dominance of foreign terms.

    But does this mean that the Russian language is dying? Or vice versa? In this sense, the Russian language is undoubtedly in less danger than French or German, since thanks to its flexibility, the endless play of suffixes and prefixes, it has always easily absorbed foreign words and quickly Russified them. Moreover, various dialects and related languages ​​are still alive.

    It is well known that the exchange of words between languages ​​is a completely natural and inevitable process. The Russian language “absorbs” all neologisms like a sponge, adapts them to suit itself, and all the new words live their own Russian life, they are already perceived as native. Vocabulary is growing.

    Nevertheless, concern for the Russian language is natural, since suddenly, almost overnight, Russia opened up to Western civilization after many decades of isolation. A lot of new words appeared, and the generous Russian people began to use fashionable expressions, sometimes without thinking about the real meaning of what they said. There are many inconsistencies and errors in speech. The greatest concern is the disappearance of some original Russian words, words with purely Russian roots! The modern Russian language is rapidly losing its diversity. In this regard, we objectively lag behind the West: the number of words in various dictionaries, for example, the English language, is growing, but mainly due to scientific terms, which are becoming more and more numerous every year.

    Conclusion.

    To summarize, we can conclude that, on the one hand, our Great Russian language is gradually reaching the world level and developing, but on the other hand, there are many important issues in the modern Russian language, which hinder its development.
    Bibliography.

    1. Vinogradov language. (Grammatical doctrine of words). M. Higher School, 1996.

    2. Vygotsky. oral speech.. M.: Enlightenment.

    3. Leontiev. , speech, speech activity. M.: Education, 1995.

    4. Modern Russian language. Proceedings - II. M. Moscow State University Publishing House. 1999. 5. Ushakova. T..N., Pavlova. N. D., Zachesova in human communication. M.: Nauka, 2000

    5. Magazine "Russian Century" | No. 6, 2011.

    Language refers to those social phenomena that serve as a means of communication between people. First of all, people of the Russian nation communicate in Russian. Therefore, the main function of the Russian language is to be language of national communication, i.e., national language.

    In accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution Russian Federation Russian is considered the official language throughout its territory. Until 1991, the concept of “state language” was not used, and the Russian language had the status of an interethnic language. He was assigned everything necessary for state language functions. It has been widely used in the field business communication, education, it was the language of science and scientific communication, used in the media, in legal proceedings, etc.

    Since the Russian Federation is a multinational state (in 2001 it included 176 nations and ethnic groups), the Russian language serves as a means of communication between representatives of different nations and nationalities living on its territory.

    The emergence, formation, development, as well as the functioning of any language, including Russian, in interethnic communication is a pro-

    the process is complex and multifaceted, depending on a complex of linguistic and

    social factors.

    Status language of interethnic communication(since 1922), and this is another function of the Russian language - to be a language of interethnic communication, Russian

    received the language for a number of reasons.

    1. Linguistic reasons.

    The Russian language is one of the most developed languages ​​on the territory of the Russian Federation. It has a rich vocabulary and grammar, and a well-functioning system of functional styles. This allows it to be used in all spheres of human life and activity. In Russian you can convey a variety of scientific information, express feelings and emotions, create poetic and prose works fiction. The Russian language has a rich writing system in terms of themes, genres and styles, associated with high culture. All this provides enormous communicative and informational value of the Russian language.

    – The Russian nation is the most numerous on the territory of the Russian Federation;

    – The Russian language is widely spoken beyond its borders;

    – The Russian language enriched other newly written languages; on its basis, writing was created for more than 70 languages;

    – The Russian nation is characterized by a highly developed economy, effective technology in many branches of technology.

    At the same time, the Russian language does not compete with other languages ​​for the right to be an interethnic language - such a role is determined by objective factors and historical conditions.

    The third important function of the Russian language in the modern world is to be language of international communication.

    The Russian language has been accepted into the World Languages ​​Club, along with English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese languages. These languages ​​are considered official languages international organizations such as the UN, UNESCO, IAEA. The largest international conferences and symposiums are held in these languages, official documents, bulletins, special magazines are published, Internet sites are created, and television and radio broadcasts are conducted. Russian as a world language ensures communication during high-level meetings and international conferences. Russian is the language of one of the largest centers of international education. Knowledge of the Russian language contributes to the career growth of specialists different areas knowledge around the world. The Russian language provides access not only to the riches of science and culture of Russia, but also of other countries, acting as a kind of mediator between different peoples. After all, a significant part of scientific and fiction literature published in the world is translated into Russian. Despite some decline in interest in the Russian language during the perestroika and post-perestroika periods, since the late 90s the situation has stabilized: the Russian language is studied abroad in universities and secondary schools. educational institutions as a second or third foreign language.

    Of course, the place of the Russian language in the education system largely determines government policy Russia and other states, relations between countries.

    A number of organizations contribute to the spread of the Russian language abroad: the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (MAPRYAL), the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (OLRS). And the activities of these organizations, in turn, help to form a positive image of Russia in the world through familiarity with the language and culture of the people.

    Literature

    1. Belousov V.N. Russian language in interethnic communication. – M.,

    2. Bogomazov G. M. Modern Russian literary language. Phoneti-

    ka. – M., 2001.

    3. Lapteva O.A. Theory of modern Russian literary language. –

    4. Markosyan A.S. Linguistic diversity Russia as a factor of sustainability

    news Russian society// gas. "Russian language". Application to gas. "Per-

    howl of September." – 2000. – No. 47.

    5. Mechkovskaya N.B. Social linguistics: A manual. – M., 2000.

    6. Modern Russian literary language. Theory. Language analysis

    units / Ed. E.I. Dibrova. – M., 2001.

    7. Modern Russian literary language: Textbook / Ed. V.G.

    Kostomarov and V.I. Maksimova - M., 2003.

    8. Modern Russian language / Ed. V.A. Beloshapkova. – M.,

    Control questions

    1. What tasks do students of the discipline “Modern” face?

    Russian language"?

    2. What is meant by the national Russian language?

    3. What are the functions of the Russian language in the modern world?

    Lecture 3 (1 hour)

    Modern Russian literary language is a standardized form of the national language

    The purpose of the lecture is give an idea of ​​modern Russian literary

    language, consider the signs of literary language and literary norms.

    Plan

    1. The question of the chronological framework of the modern Russian language.

    2. Literary language. Signs of a literary language.

    3. Literary norm. Signs of a literary norm. Types of literary norms.

    4. Written and oral forms of the literary language, their main differences.

    CoolReferat.com

    Russian language in the modern world.

    The Russian language ranks among the top ten world languages ​​in terms of the total number of speakers, but it is quite difficult to accurately determine this place.

    The number of people who consider Russian their native language exceeds 200 million people, 130 million of whom live in Russia. The number of people who speak Russian perfectly and use it as a first or second language in everyday communication is estimated at 300-350 million.

    In total, more than half a billion people in the world speak Russian to one degree or another, and according to this indicator, Russian ranks third in the world after Chinese and English.

    The question remains controversial today whether the influence of the Russian language in the world has been declining in recent decades or not.

    On the one hand, the language situation in the post-Soviet space, where before the collapse of the USSR the Russian language served as a generally recognized language of interethnic communication, is very contradictory, and here a variety of trends can be identified. On the other hand, the Russian-speaking diaspora in non-CIS countries has grown many times over the past twenty years.

    Of course, back in the seventies, Vysotsky wrote songs about “the spread of our people across the planet,” but in the nineties and two thousand this spread became much more noticeable.

    But we should, of course, begin to consider the situation with the Russian language at the end of the 2000s with the post-Soviet states.

    In the post-Soviet space, besides Russia, there are at least three countries where the fate of the Russian language does not cause any concern. These are Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

    In Belarus, the majority of the population speaks Russian in everyday life and in general in everyday communication, and in the cities, young people and many middle-aged people practically do not even have the Belarusian accent that was characteristic of the past in their Russian speech.

    At the same time, Belarus is the only post-Soviet state where the state status of the Russian language was confirmed in a referendum by an overwhelming majority of votes.

    It is obvious that the services of translators from Russian into Belarusian will not be in demand for a long time, and perhaps never - after all, almost all official and business correspondence in Belarus is conducted in Russian.

    The language situation in Kazakhstan is more complex. In the nineties, the share of Russians in the population of Kazakhstan decreased noticeably, and Kazakhs became the national majority for the first time since the thirties of the last century. According to the Constitution, the only state language in Kazakhstan is Kazakh. However, since the mid-nineties, there has been a law equating the Russian language in all official spheres to the state language. And in practice, in most government agencies at the city and regional level, as well as in metropolitan government agencies, Russian is used more often than Kazakh.

    The reason is simple and quite pragmatic. Representatives of different nationalities work in these institutions - Kazakhs, Russians, Germans, Koreans. At the same time, absolutely all educated Kazakhs speak Russian perfectly, while representatives of other nationalities know Kazakh much less well.

    A similar situation is observed in Kyrgyzstan, where there is also a law giving the Russian language official status, and in everyday communication, Russian speech in cities can be heard more often than Kyrgyz.

    These three countries are adjacent to Azerbaijan, where the status of the Russian language is not officially regulated in any way, however, in the cities, the majority of residents of the indigenous nationality speak Russian very well, and many prefer to use it in communication. This is again facilitated by the multinational nature of the population of Azerbaijan. For national minorities since the times of the Soviet Union, the language of interethnic communication has been Russian.

    Ukraine stands apart in this series. Here the language situation is peculiar, and language policy sometimes takes on extremely strange forms.

    The entire population of eastern and southern Ukraine speaks Russian. Moreover, attempts at forced Ukrainization in a number of regions (in Crimea, Odessa, Donbass) lead to the opposite result. The previously neutral attitude towards the Ukrainian language is changing to a negative one.

    As a result, even the traditional mixed speech disappears in these territories - Surzhik in the east and the Odessa dialect in Odessa and the surrounding area. The new generation learns the language not from the example of parental speech, but from the example of the speech of Russian television announcers, and begins to speak the correct Russian literary language (with slang features of the 21st century).

    An illustrative example: in the Russian speech of Ukrainian youth, the guttural Ukrainian “soft” G (h) is replaced by the “hard” Ґ (g) of the Moscow-St. Petersburg type.

    And in western Ukraine, things are not simple either. After all, the population of the Carpathian and Transcarpathian Ukraine speaks dialects, which in neighboring countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia) are considered a separate Rusyn language.

    And it turns out that the Ukrainian literary language and dialects close to the literary one are spoken by a minority of the population in the Ukrainian state. However, in recent years, the Ukrainian authorities have been imposing the Ukrainian language using completely ridiculous methods - like the unnecessary, but mandatory translation of all films shown in cinemas into the Ukrainian language.

    However, unsurpassed in the desire to ensure that translation from Russian requires services translation agency, the Baltic countries remain - especially Latvia and Estonia.

    True, it should be noted that the language policy of the state and the attitude of the population are still two big differences (as they still say in Odessa). Rumors that in order to communicate with the local population, a Russian tourist needs translation from English, are greatly exaggerated.

    The demands of life are stronger than the efforts of the state, and in this case this is manifested most clearly. Even young people born in Latvia and Estonia already during the period of independence speak Russian sufficiently to be able to understand each other. And cases when a Latvian or Estonian refuses to speak Russian out of principle are rare. So much so that each of these cases is the subject of heated discussion in the press.

    According to the testimony of the majority of Russians who have visited Latvia and Estonia in recent years, they have not encountered any signs of linguistic discrimination. Latvians and Estonians are very hospitable, and the Russian language continues to be the language of interethnic communication in these countries. In Lithuania, the language policy was initially softer.

    In Georgia and Armenia, the Russian language has the status of a national minority language. In Armenia, the share of Russians in the total population is very small, but a significant proportion of Armenians can speak Russian well. In Georgia, the situation is approximately the same, and the Russian language is more common in communication in those places where the proportion of foreign-speaking population is large. However, among young people, knowledge of the Russian language in Georgia is very weak.

    In Moldova, the Russian language does not have official status (with the exception of Transnistria and Gagauzia), but de facto can be used in the official sphere.

    In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the Russian language is less commonly used than in neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, according to the Constitution, the Russian language is the language of interethnic communication; in Uzbekistan, it has the status of a national minority language; in Turkmenistan, the situation remains unclear.

    One way or another, in all three states the majority of the urban population speaks Russian. On the other hand, indigenous residents speak their native language among themselves, and switch to Russian only when talking with Russians or representatives of national minorities.

    The linguistic and sociocultural situation in Uzbekistan is very clearly illustrated by modern Uzbek films. It is very interesting to observe from them in what situations Uzbek townspeople switch to Russian when talking among themselves.

    For example, in some new Uzbek films, reminiscent of Indian melodramas in plot, the characters switch to Russian to express feelings or clarify relationships that do not fit into patriarchal local customs. And a kind of language barrier emerges. In the rather Europeanized Uzbek society, any topic can be discussed - but not every topic can be discussed in the Uzbek language. For some, Russian is better.

    One way or another, the Russian language still remains the language of interethnic communication throughout the post-Soviet space. Moreover, the main role here is played not by the position of the state, but by the attitude of the population.

    But in non-CIS countries the situation with the Russian language is the opposite. Russian, alas, is one of the languages ​​that are lost within two generations.

    First-generation Russian emigrants prefer to speak Russian, and many of them do not fully master the language of the new country and speak with a strong accent. But their children already speak the local language with practically no accent (a girl known to the author from her birth and who left with her mother for Sweden at the age of 11, by the age of sixteen the Swedes accepted her as a local, speaking a village dialect) and prefer the local language in communication.

    They speak Russian only with their parents, and recently also on the Internet. And, by the way, the Internet plays an extremely important role in preserving the Russian language in the diaspora.

    But on the other hand, in the third or fourth generation, the interest in the roots of the descendants of emigrants is revived, and they begin to specifically learn the language of their ancestors. Including Russian language.

    In the seventies and eighties, with the almost complete breakdown of ties with the USSR, the Russian language gave way to English or Hebrew much faster than now, when any emigrant can maintain contact with family friends and acquaintances on the Internet.

    In the seventies and eighties in Israel, emigrants from Russia learned Hebrew at an accelerated pace. And in the nineties, Israeli officials began to learn Russian at an accelerated pace, so as not to burden them with unnecessary work. translation agencies.

    Today, in the last year of the “2000s,” the Russian language not only remains the main language of interethnic communication throughout the entire post-Soviet space. It is spoken well by the older generation and is well understood by the younger generation in many countries of the former socialist camp.

    For example, in the former GDR, schoolchildren were taught Russian, frankly, much better than Soviet schoolchildren were taught German.

    And it can hardly be said that the role of the Russian language in the world has fallen over the past twenty years.

    One can only rejoice at the fact that the role of national languages ​​in the post-Soviet space has increased over the years. But the Russian language continues to be the language of interethnic communication and one of the world languages, which is not for nothing that is one of the official languages ​​of the UN.