The most common and rare native languages in Russia
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On February 21, at the initiative of UNESCO, International Mother Language Day is celebrated, designed to emphasize the importance of preserving cultural and linguistic diversity.
According to the latest census of the population, 176 native languages are recorded in Russia, led by Russian, which is considered as such by 111.5 million people. Other most widely spoken native languages (more than 1 million each) include Tatar, Chechen and Bashkir.
If we take for comparison the census data on the languages spoken by the population, English (5.07 million people) and German (1.06 million) are in the top ten most common. Russians generally speak English more often than any other native language other than Russian.
It is noteworthy that, compared with the previous census, Russian Sign Language of the Deaf was among the natives (1.4 thousand people). It is possible that in the next census, programming languages will be added to them, which so far are indicated only in the number of languages of use.
The rarest native languages in Russia, according to the census, are Yuite, Gabonese, Yugian, Kerek, Icelandic – less than ten speakers each. At the same time, only one resident of Russia called the language of the Asian Eskimos (Yuits) native. And only two people can speak it.
Yuit, Yugsky (Yenisei language family), Kerek (Chukotka-Kamchatka language family) and many other languages of the small peoples of Russia are on the verge of extinction. By data Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, over the past 100 years, 15 languages \u200b\u200bof small peoples have disappeared in Russia, 10 of them in the last 35 years. Of the existing one and a half hundred about 10% of the languages of the peoples of Russia are on the verge of extinction, more than 60% are approaching this border.
Russia is no exception here. By data UNESCO, every two weeks a rare language disappears in the world. At least 43% of the organization’s approximately 6,000 languages are at risk to some extent. At the same time, Oceania is the most linguistically vulnerable region.
By words Director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Kibrik, now languages are disappearing, as a rule, through the so-called language shift: parents decide that their native language is unpromising and that children should be taught more prestigious. However, this is a reversible process. One of the most effective methods was invented in the 1970s in New Zealand to save the endangered Maori language. It is called “language nest” and provides for the transmission of language through generations. Grandparents, who did not pass on their native language to their children, subsequently teach their grandchildren. For example, by organizing a language kindergarten.
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