5. Retell the text. The languages of Russia

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 Mari and Mordvinian, Lezghin and 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 Karelians, Komis, Maris, Udmurts, Mordvinians, and Lapps there are persons who study and speak the Finnish language.

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 centres 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, Lithuanians, Letts, Estonians, and Finns used the Latin alphabet. Some languages do not have any written form even today. The first attempt to create written languages for peoples in Russia was 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.