LANGUAGE IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

While theRussian languageis the dominant medium of communication ineducation,media,literature, public life, and theeconomyof the Russian Federation, the country is home to dozens of languages spoken nowhere else in the world. While only 80 percent of the population isethnic Russian, 97 percent of all Russian citizens are fluent in Russian.

In theethnic republicsandautonomous okrugs, certain languages enjoy equal status with Russian, while the nongovernmental organization Russian Association of theIndigenous Peoples of the Northand other cultural groups attempt to provide support to tongues that lack the political protection of one of Russia’sfederal subjects(particularly Paleo-Siberian and Manchu-Tungus languages).Linguistic diversity is particularly high in theVolga-Ural region, theFar North, and theNorth Caucasus, and especiallyDagestan, where Russian, Agul, Avar, Azeri, Chechen, Dargin, Kumyk, Lak, Lezgian, Nogai, Rutul, Tabasaran, Tat, and Tsakhur all enjoy the status of official languages.

Besides Russian, the indigenous languages spoken in Russia can be allocated into four major groups: Finno-Ugric (Karelian, Mari, Udmurt, Erzya, Moksha, Nenets, Komi, Khanty, and Mansi); Turkic (Tatar, Bashkir, Karachay-Balkar, Nogay, Altay, Sakha, Tuvan, Khakas, and Chuvash); Mongolic (Kalmyk and Buryat); and Caucasian (Adyghe, Kabardian, Chechen, Ingush, and the languages of Dagestan). Other languages include Ossetic, Yiddish, Romany, Ukrainian, Polish, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Chinese, Korean, and Armenian. In terms of foreign language study, English is the most popular, accounting for 80 percent of foreign-language speakers; German, French, and Turkish are also spoken by a significant portion of the Russian population.

See alsoImmigration; National minorities.