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 in it, and work is carried out in legislative and executive bodies of state power and 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 should also determine the general principles of taxation and fees. 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 only national state language of the Russian Federation is Russian. In total, according to the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, Russians speak more than 150 languages, belonging to approximately 14 language families.
Official languages of Russia
Russia is a multinational country, therefore some federal subjects that are part of it, along with Russian, also approve their own languages as official ones.
Adygea - Adyghe language
Altai Republic - Altai language
Bashkortostan - Bashkir language
Buryatia - Buryat language
Ingushetia - Ingush language
Karachay-Cherkessia – Abaza, Circassian, Karachay languages
Kabardino-Balkaria - Kabardian language
Kalmykia - Kalmyk language
Komi Republic - Komi language
Mari El - Mari language
Mordovia – Moksha, Erzya languages
North Ossetia - Ossetian language
Tatarstan - Tatar language
Tuva - Tuvan language
Udmurtia - Udmurt language
Khakassia - Khakassian language
Chechnya - Chechen language
Chuvashia - Chuvash language
Yakutia - Yakut language
In the republics of Sakha, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, in addition to Russian, Yakut, Tatar and Bashkir languages are compulsorily studied in schools.
The media can work, and documentation can be conducted in languages other than Russian in places where peoples live compactly. Thus, in different regions of Yakutia, along with Russian and Yakut, Dolgan, Chukchi, Evenki, Even and Yukaghir are officially used, in the Altai Republic - Kazakh, in Karelia - Vepsian, Karelian, Finnish, in the Perm region - Komi-Permyat, in Khanty-Mansk Autonomous Okrug - Khanty, Mansi and Nenets, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug - Khanty, Nenets and Selkup.
Unofficial languages of Russia
There are also very rare languages in Russia, albeit unofficially: for example, less than 200 people speak Enets, about 100 people speak Ket and Kerek, and only a few dozen people speak Votic. Some of these languages have never had their own written language, so most often they use Russian graphics, and Karelian and Vepsian use Latin. During the Soviet years, the languages of small nations disappeared because a deliberate policy of Russification was pursued. After the collapse of the USSR, they are trying to revive these languages, but in Russia today, according to UNESCO, there are 136 endangered languages, and 20 of them have already been declared dead.
Also, on the territory of the modern Russian Federation there live quite a lot of people whose native languages are the languages of foreign countries that were part of the Soviet Union a couple of decades ago. The most common of these languages are Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Armenian and Azerbaijani.
Dialects in Russia
Among Russian speakers living in different regions of central Russia, several groups of dialects can be distinguished. Usually scientists talk about northern and southern dialects and Central Russian dialects. Despite the fact that differences between dialects concern all levels of the language from phonetics to syntax, they do not prevent speakers of different dialects from understanding each other.
Knowledge of foreign languages in Russia
Unfortunately, most Russians do not speak foreign languages well. According to various sociological surveys, only approximately 14-18 percent of the country's population can speak freely with foreign guests. The most common foreign language is English (about 4/5 speak it), followed by German. Young people under 35 years of age living in the central regions of Russia know languages best. In distant provincial cities, it is difficult for foreigners - there you may not find a single person who understands foreign dialects.
This Federal Law is aimed at ensuring the use of the state language of the Russian Federation throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation, ensuring the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to use the state language of the Russian Federation, protecting and developing linguistic culture.
Article 1. Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation
1. In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the state language of the Russian Federation throughout its entire territory is Russian.
2. The status of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation provides for the mandatory use of the Russian language in the areas defined by this Federal Law, other federal laws, the Law of the Russian Federation of October 25, 1991 N 1807-I “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation” and other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, its protection and support, as well as ensuring the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to use the state language of the Russian Federation.
3. The procedure for approving the norms of the modern Russian literary language when it is used as the state language of the Russian Federation, the rules of Russian spelling and punctuation, is determined by the Government of the Russian Federation.
4. The state language of the Russian Federation is a language that promotes mutual understanding and strengthens interethnic ties between the peoples of the Russian Federation in a single multinational state.
5. Protection and support of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation contributes to the increase and mutual enrichment of the spiritual culture of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
6. When using the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation, the use of words and expressions that do not comply with the norms of the modern Russian literary language is not allowed, with the exception of foreign words that do not have commonly used analogues in the Russian language.
7. The mandatory use of the state language of the Russian Federation should not be interpreted as a denial or derogation of the right to use the state languages of the republics that are part of the Russian Federation and the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
Article 2. Legislation of the Russian Federation on the state language of the Russian Federation
The legislation of the Russian Federation on the state language of the Russian Federation is based on the Constitution of the Russian Federation, generally recognized principles and norms of international law, international treaties of the Russian Federation and consists of this Federal Law, other federal laws, Law of the Russian Federation of October 25, 1991 N 1807-I "On languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation" and other normative legal acts of the Russian Federation regulating language problems.
Article 3. Areas of use of the state language of the Russian Federation
1. The state language of the Russian Federation is subject to mandatory use:
1) 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 the activities of record keeping;
2) in the names 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;
3) during the preparation and conduct of elections and referendums;
4) in constitutional, civil, criminal, administrative proceedings, proceedings in arbitration courts, proceedings in federal courts, proceedings and proceedings before justices of the peace and in other courts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
6) in the relationships between federal government bodies, government bodies of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, other government bodies, local government bodies, organizations of all forms of ownership and citizens of the Russian Federation, foreign citizens, stateless persons, public associations;
7) when writing names of geographical objects, applying inscriptions to road signs;
8) when preparing identity documents of a citizen of the Russian Federation, with the exception of cases provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation, preparing forms of certificates of state registration of acts of civil status, processing educational documents issued by educational institutions with state accreditation, as well as other documents, the registration of which in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, carried out in the state language of the Russian Federation, when registering the addresses of senders and recipients of telegrams and postal items sent within the Russian Federation, postal money transfers;
9) in the activities of all-Russian, regional and municipal television and radio broadcasting organizations, editorial offices of all-Russian, regional and municipal periodicals, with the exception of the activities of television and radio broadcasting organizations and editorial offices of periodicals established specifically for television and (or) radio broadcasting or publication of printed materials on state languages of the republics that are part of the Russian Federation, other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation or foreign languages, and also with the exception of cases where the use of vocabulary that does not comply with the norms of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation is an integral part of the artistic concept;
11) in other areas determined by federal laws.
2. In cases of use in the areas specified in part 1 of this article, along with the state language of the Russian Federation of the state language of the republic located in the Russian Federation, other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation or a foreign language, texts in Russian and in the state language of the republic located as part of the Russian Federation, other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation or a foreign language, unless otherwise established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, must be identical in content and technical design, made legibly, sound information (including in audio and audiovisual materials, television and radio programs) in Russian and the specified information in the state language of the republic that is part of the Russian Federation, other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation or a foreign language, unless otherwise established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, must also be identical in content, sound and methods of transmission.
3. The provisions of Part 2 of this article do not apply to brand names, trademarks, service marks, as well as television and radio programs, audio and audiovisual materials, printed publications intended for teaching the official languages of the republics that are part of the Russian Federation and other languages peoples of the Russian Federation or foreign languages.
Article 4. Protection and support of the state language of the Russian Federation
In order to protect and support the state language of the Russian Federation, federal government bodies, within their competence:
1) ensure the functioning of the state language of the Russian Federation throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation;
2) develop and adopt federal laws and other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, develop and implement relevant federal target programs aimed at protecting and supporting the state language of the Russian Federation;
3) take measures aimed at ensuring the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to use the state language of the Russian Federation;
4) take measures to improve the education system and the system of training specialists in the field of the Russian language and teachers of Russian as a foreign language, and also train scientific and pedagogical personnel for educational institutions with instruction in Russian outside the Russian Federation;
5) promote the study of the Russian language outside the Russian Federation;
6) provide state support for the publication of dictionaries and grammars of the Russian language;
7) exercise control over compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation on the state language of the Russian Federation;
8) take other measures to protect and support the state language of the Russian Federation.
Article 5. Ensuring the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to use the state language of the Russian Federation
1. Ensuring the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to use the state language of the Russian Federation provides for:
1) obtaining education in Russian in state and municipal educational institutions;
2) obtaining information in Russian from federal government bodies, government bodies of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, other government bodies, local government bodies, organizations of all forms of ownership;
3) obtaining information in Russian through all-Russian, regional and municipal media. This provision does not apply to media outlets established specifically for television and (or) radio broadcasting or publishing printed materials in the state languages of the republics that are part of the Russian Federation, other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation or foreign languages.
2. Persons who do not speak the state language of the Russian Federation, in the implementation and protection of their rights and legitimate interests on the territory of the Russian Federation in cases provided for by federal laws, are provided with the right to use the services of translators.
Article 6. Responsibility for violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the state language of the Russian Federation
1. Adoption of federal laws and other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, laws and other regulatory legal acts of constituent entities of the Russian Federation aimed at limiting the use of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation, as well as other actions and violations that impede the exercise of the right of citizens to use the state language Russian Federation entail liability established by the legislation of the Russian Federation.
2. Violation of this Federal Law entails liability established by the legislation of the Russian Federation.
Article 7. Entry into force of this Federal Law
This Federal Law comes into force on the date of its official publication.
The president
Russian Federation
V. Putin
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.
The main constitutional principle of preserving the languages of the peoples of Russia is their equality, i.e. all 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 to protect 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 liability of legal entities and individuals for violating 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), Urakha (approximately 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 with their own interesting history, traditions, customs and, of course, 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 a separate and very interesting topic for study.
