Russian

Main article: Culture of Russia

In 2019, the Russian language is in eighth place in terms of the number of speakers: 258 million speakers, 113 million of whom live outside Russia.

Data for 2019

National Dictionary Foundation

Main article: National Dictionary Foundation

A digital resource that combines data from dictionaries of the Russian language collected over three centuries.

Russian language in Ukraine

Main article: Russian language in Ukraine

Chronicle

2023:24 thousand students study Russian in 209 schools

One of the main activities of the Russian House in Syria is the promotion of the Russian language in the country.

For the summer of 2023, Russian is the second-choice foreign language to study, and 24,400 students in 209 schools in Syria officially study it. However, training is not always at an acceptable level due to a lack of teachers, benefits and other difficulties.

There are no such problems in the courses of the Russian House - there is a staff of experienced teachers, textbooks and the necessary equipment. At the cultural center, 663 people learn the language, including 188 children.

In the higher education system, 250 students study Russian at the profile department at the University of Damascus, collaborating with universities in Belgorod (BelSU), Moscow ( GIRYAP and Moscow State Pedagogical University) and Stavropol (SKFU). The Russian House also interacts with Syrian universities to improve the qualifications of teachers and transfer teaching aids.

The promotion of the language in the SAR is limited by the difficult economic situation in the country, and the Russian House's own capabilities are not unlimited.

2022: In the CIS countries, the Russian language is perceived as an indicator of high-quality information

According to the to data scientific team obtained State Institute of Russian Language named after A.S. Pushkin during the preparation of the index of the position of Russian the language in the world, over the past 30 years, the share of Russian-language publications countries CIS in has increased significantly. This parameter - the share of Russian speakers MEDIA in the post-Soviet space - is taken into account for the first time when preparing the index. The institute announced this on March 31, 2022.

The problem of investigating the sustainability and competitiveness of language is very deep. Simply counting the number of speakers does not fully reflect the position of a particular language. Equally important is how actively the language is used in the cultural sphere, science, education, media, and the labor market. In 2022, studying the position of the Russian language in the Commonwealth countries, we first introduced such a section as the media to see how the language develops in the mass media space of neighboring states, "said Margarita Rusetskaya, rector of the Pushkin Institute.

The issue of media production in a particular country depends on many factors, including the status of the language in the legislation, the share of Russian speakers in the country, political decisions and the vector of development of the country as a whole. Nevertheless, the history of the use of the Russian language in the media turned out to be very curious.

In Kazakhstan, the share of Russian-speaking media increased by 7%, in Kyrgyzstan by 9.4%, in Ukraine by 19.3%, by almost 59% in Belarus, by 80% in Azerbaijan. Researchers recorded a record 86.6% and 147.8% in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, respectively.

The highest share of Russian-speaking media in Belarus. Over three decades, their number has increased from 51% to 81%. In Turkmenistan, indicators have grown from 30 to 56%, in Tajikistan - from 23 to 57%, in Azerbaijan - from 20 to 36%. Three countries show a decrease in the share of periodicals in Russian. Among them are Moldova with a record decrease from 50 to 18%. The number of Russian-language media in Latvia and Armenia decreased from 35 to 18.5% and from 16 to 13%, respectively.

At the same time, a decrease in the share of publications in Russian does not always indicate a decrease in their number. So, in Latvia, their number actually increased from 147 to 338, and in Armenia - from 52 to 89.

Researchers attributed Belarus (81%) and Kazakhstan (62%) to countries with a high share (up to 80%) of Russian-speaking media. This is due to the status of the Russian language in the countries and the high share of the Russian-speaking population. The second and third groups include Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan Azerbaijan Ukraine and with indicators from 36 to 57%. Least of all Russian-language periodicals in Armenia,, and Georgia Estonia Lithuania - 13, 7, 8.5 and 7%, respectively.

Employees of the Pushkin Institute examined in the index the share of Russian-speaking media in the national media market without taking into account circulation and audience coverage, in the future, it is planned to continue to study the situation of the language in this direction. Nevertheless, the study convincingly proved that in the CIS countries the Russian language is still perceived as a language of high-quality information.

2019: US students' interest in Russian dwindles

Hype around Korean music and pop culture has led to more U.S. students learning Korean in 2019. Since 2006, the number of students studying this language has almost doubled - the largest increase among all languages. Interest in Russian, as well as in other European languages, is falling.

2015:215 million people speak Russian

Russian is the native language for 164 million people and the second language for 75 million people (mainly in the CIS, Baltic and European countries).

Percentage of Russian-speaking population in Europe

In 1990, there were almost 300 million Russian speakers in the world, but the number began to decline to 275 million in 2005 and to 240 million by 2015. By use on the Internet, the Russian language takes 2nd place.

Number of letters

Number of letters in European alphabets