Languages spoken in Russia

There are many languages spoken in Russia. This phenomenon has social and political reasons. Russia is currently home to people from about 100 different ethnic groups, most of which have their own language. During the time of Soviet rule, the Communist government wanted everyone to speak the same language. Consequently, many people in Russia speak the language of their particular ethnic group as well as the shared language, Russian. 

The Russian language

Russian, one of the world’s great literary languages, is the official language of Russia. The Russian language is the mother tongue of writers such as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pasternak, and Solzhenitsyn. It is also one of the United Nations’ six official languages. Another 100 or so languages are spoken in Russia today, too.

Russian is the most widely and commonly spoken language in the country. It was also used as a second language in many of the other former Soviet republics that returned to their native ethnic languages following independence. In addition to Russian, there are also other indo-European languages widely spoken in Russia. English is also becoming more common. 

While Russian is by far the most widely spoken language in Russia, many ethnic minority groups speak other languages. The people of Russia can be divided into four distinct language groups: the Altaic group, the East Slavs, the Caucasian group, and the Uralic group. 

The groups of languages spoken in Russia

• Many members of the Altaic group, including Tatars, Chuvash, and Bashkir, speak various Turkic languages. Some in the Altaic group speak Mongolian.
• The largest of these groups is the East Slavs, of which majority are Russians but also includes Ukrainians and Belarusians. 
• The Caucasian group, named for the Caucasus Mountains, speaks a variety of northwest and northeast Caucasian languages.    
• The Uralic group, named for the Ural Mountains, speaks Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages. 

Russian grammar

These language groups have similarities and differences with the Russian language. However, they come from the same family, Indo-European languages, so they keep a great similarity with Russian grammar. If you take a language course of any of these language groups, you will notice they are not as different as many people think. The languages spoken in Russia are many as the number of ethnic groups. However, you don’t have to learn all these languages to live or study in Russia. The most widely spoken language is Russian. If you learn this language, you will be able to write moving postcard, letters or emails to people who live in Russia and other ex-Soviet countries.