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There are an estimated 280 million Russophones worldwide. (Index
MIB Russian)
Russian is the official language of Russia. It is also an official
language of Belarus, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. Russian is one of the six
official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a
popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers
in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics.
BLUE= Official Language. GREEN= Russian is spoken. Source Map: Aivazovsky.
Russian is primarily spoken in Russia and the other countries that were
once constituent republics of the USSR.
In Latvia more than one-third of the population is Russian-speaking. In
Estonia, the 67,8% of Estonia's population can speak Russian. In many
Central Asian countries, Russian is still the lingua franca of
business or education. More than half of the population of the Baltic
states are able to hold a conversation in Russian.
97% of the public school students of Russia, 75% in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan,
25% in Ukraine, 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in
Georgia and 2% in Armenia and Tajikistan receive their education only or
mostly in Russian. Although the corresponding percentage of ethnic Russians
is 78% in Russia, 10% in Belarus, 26% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in
Kyrgyzstan, 6% in Moldova, 2% in Azerbaijan, 1.5% in Georgia and less than 1% in
both Armenia and Tajikistan.
In the XXth century, Russian was widely taught in the schools of the countries
that used to be allies of the USSR: , Bulgaria, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania and Cuba. However, younger generations are
usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the
school system. It was, and to a lesser extent still is, taught in
Mongolia due to Soviet influence. Russian is also spoken in Israel by
at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian is the primary
language spoken in the homes of over 700,000 individuals living in the United
States.
Russian is written in a non-Latin script using the Cyrillic alphabet.
Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three
living members of the East Slavic languages, the others being Belarusian and
Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian). It is
also spoken by the countries of the Russophone.
A Russophone is a speaker of the Russian
language either natively or by preference. Also is used to describe the category of people whose
cultural
background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and
territorial distinctions.
The largest and most populous Russophone country is Russia. There are sizable Russophone communities in many neighbouring
countries that were parts of the former Soviet Union, of which Belarus, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, Moldova and Latvia.
Today Russian is widely used outside Russia. Over a quarter of the world's
scientific literature is published in Russian. It is also applied as
a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge — 60–70% of all world
information is published in English and Russian languages. Is one of the official languages of the United Nations.
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