Text 8 languages of russia

Task: read the text, get ready to render its contents in Russian.

As we all know, Russia is a multina­tional country, which means it is a multilin­gual one. Linguists count about 150 dif­ferent languages here, among which scien­tists paid attention to all languages, starting with Russian, spoken by 97 per cent of the population, and fin­ishing with the lan­guage of a small com­munity of 662 people living near the Amur River.

Some languages are very similar: representatives of different peoples can speak their own language and per­fectly well understand each other. For example, a Russian can talk to a Byelorussian, a Tatar to a Bashkir, a Kalmyk to a Buryat. Some languages, despite the fact they have a lot in com­mon, can not be so easily understood. This is the case of a Mari and a Mordvinian, a Lezghin and an Avar. And, finally, there are the so-called iso­lated languages, i.e. those which are completely different from all others.

The majority of languages in Rus­sia derive from one of four big lan­guage families: Indo-European, Altaic, Uralic and Caucasian ones. Each lan­guage family has its common ances­tor language. Many centuries ago tribes, speaking the same languages, were constantly moving to other terri­tories, mixing with other ones, hence the division of a lan­guage into several branches.

Russian, for ex­ample, belongs to the Indo-European group of languages. There belong also such lan­guages as English, German, Spanish and many others. A part of this group unites Slavic languages - Bulgar­ian, Czech, and Polish.

About 87 per cent of the population of Russia speaks languages of the Indo-European group; only 2 per cent of them are not Slavic. Among them let us mention German and Yiddish; Ar­menian (it makes a separate group alone); Iranian languages: Ossetic, Kurdish, Tajik; Romanic languages: Moldavian; and even Newindian spo­ken by Gipsies.

The Altaic group of languages is represented by three groups, such as Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchurian. One of the Uralic group of lan­guages consists of the Finno-Ugric group. "Finno" has nothing to do with the state language of Finland: lan­guages forming this group simply have similar grammar and sounding. Among peoples speaking the Finnish lan­guages we could name Karelians, Komis, Maris, Udmurts, Mordvinians, and Lapps.

As for the northern Caucasian lan­guage group, only specialists are able to point out their origins and common roots. These languages have a very complicated grammar and phonetics. There are sounds which do not exist in other languages.

One of the branches of the northern Caucasian group is the Daghestan group, which includes, for example, the language of Avars, Lezghins and many other peoples. Daghestan is often re­ferred to as "a mountain of languages" and "a paradise for linguists" as the field of work for them in this country is enormous.

There are some languages which do not belong to any of four above mentioned groups. These are lan­guages of peoples in Siberia and the Far East. All of them are represented only by small tribal communities of speakers (Chukchis, Koryaks, Eski­mos, Aleutians).

No doubt, there are many different languages; but people still need a com­mon one. In Russia it is the Russian language, because Russians represent the majority of the population in the country.

Of course, all languages are valu­able, and we must do everything to preserve them; but there is no possi­bility to publish all books in every lan­guage: still, this can be done in the lan­guage spoken by millions.

Some peoples in Russia are, unfor­tunately, losing their mother tongue, and the list of such nations is quite long. In our towns and cities Russian is be­coming more and more popular and very often the only one used. Nevertheless, there are national cultural centers trying to do their best in order to save their identities.

Most peoples in Russia did not have any written lan­guages at all till the 1920s. Georgians, Armenians and Jews were an exception. Ger­mans, Polish, Lithuanians, Letts, Estonians, and Finns used the Latin alphabet. Some languages do not have any written form even today. The first attempts to create written languages for peoples in Russia were un­dertaken before the Revolution. Start­ing from 1936 everyone in the country was taught to write using the Slavonic alphabet, as it was believed that the common system could assist in learn­ing the Russian language quickly.