{"id":5516,"date":"2014-04-14T08:27:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T08:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=5516"},"modified":"2014-04-14T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T12:12:37","slug":"russian-outside-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/russian-outside-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian outside Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Russian

Russian store signs in Brighton Beach, NY (my photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite being from Russia, I find it bothersome when people equate the Russian language with the country of Russia. In my opinion, it not only leaves other Russian-speaking communities out of the discussion of the language, but also misrepresents them by implying that if you speak Russian, you must be culturally\/politically\/ethnically aligned with Russia. I would like to explore where Russian is spoken, by whom, its official status, and attitudes towards the language.<\/p>\n

Russian in the former Soviet republics<\/h2>\n

During the Soviet period, Russian was often imposed<\/a> on the population of the USSR. As a result, many of the former Soviet republics tried to limit its status and promote the use of their national language after gaining independence. However, Russian remains a state language in Belarus (along with Belorussian), and an official language in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n

According to an article<\/a> in the demographic journal Demoscope (\u0414\u0435\u043c\u043e\u0441\u043a\u043e<\/span>\u043f), as of 2008, Russian was still widely spoken in\u00a0 several former Soviet republics. Belarus (\u0411\u0435\u043b\u0430\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u044c), Ukraine (\u0423\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0438<\/span>\u043d\u0430), Kazakhstan (\u041a\u0430\u0437\u0430\u0445\u0441\u0442\u0430<\/span>\u043d), Latvia, and Moldova top the rating of the countries where Russian is widely spoken and understood. Seventy eight percent of people surveyed in Belarus said they were fluent in speaking, reading, and writing Russian; and an additional 18 percent said they could speak and read Russian but made mistakes in writing. Fifty to 70 percent of respondents in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Moldova reported fluency in reading, writing, and speaking Russian. Other former Soviet republics, such as Armenia or Georgia, had a lower level of proficiency, with approximately half of the respondents fluent in Russian to differing degrees. Azerbaijan had the lowest level of proficiency.<\/p>\n

The authors of the study realized that numbers might be skewed because older people may know Russian from the Soviet days, when they had to learn it in school. Therefore, they also asked people with underage children how well the children knew Russian. It turned out that two thirds of young people in Belarus were fluent in Russian. Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan also had high rates of young people who were fluent or intermediate in Russian. Finally, Russian was widely used at home, with friends, or at work for a large proportion of people in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Russian in other countries<\/h2>\n

It is not only in the former Soviet republics that Russian is spoken. The number of people leaving Russia in the 90s was very high, with about 1.6 million people emigrating between 1989 and 2002. About 2 million (current-border-)Russian-born people were living abroad<\/a> at the turn of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Most of the nineties emigration had three main destinations — Germany (\u0413\u0435\u0440\u043c\u0430<\/span>\u043d\u0438\u044f), Israel (\u0418\u0437\u0440\u0430<\/span>\u0438\u043b\u044c), and the US (\u0421\u0428\u0410). Ethnic Germans and Jews repatriating to Germany and Israel, respectively, made up a large share of the emigrants in the early 90s. As a result, considerable Russian-speaking diasporas formed in these countries. For instance, fifteen percent of Israeli population<\/a> is Russian-speaking. Brooklyn and California<\/a> in the US have large Russian-speaking communities, as well.<\/p>\n

Attitudes to Russian abroad<\/h2>\n

While we see that Russian is spoken in several countries, and not only by ethnic\/heritage Russians, that alone does not tell us how the language is perceived. Is it seen as a remnant of oppression that needs to be crushed or as a lingua franca<\/em> allowing communication with other Russophone regions? Well, according to Demoscope, that depends on the country<\/a>. Since the populations of Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan had good command of the language, they did not feel like it needed to be promoted further (as of 2008). People in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia did not know Russian very well and did not feel like it needed to be fostered. Finally, people Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan wanted more Russian to be taught in schools and welcomed Russia’s efforts to foster the language in these countries. Outside the former Soviet Union, such as in Israel, Russian-speaking communities are often seen as unwilling to adopt the local language and culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n