In the age of globalization, everyone’s concern should be about speaking the most languages. The real question though remains through languages choices. What would be the best language to learn? There is your own, of course, and there is English, or Spanish and perhaps French. At least this is what most of us picked as second language. Some of your friends might also recommend Chinese or Japanese, but have you ever consider Russian language?
Russian language in some countries has been considered as the occupation language for a while and the number of Russian speakers has been gradually decreasing from 1991 until recently. Since a few years Russian is slowly getting back to its former leading position and more and more projects break through to restore Russian as one of the main language.
In short, we reported that the Tallinn City Council, in Estonia, decided to establish a city-funded school where students can receive free primary and secondary education in Russian. Also Latvia organized recently a massive census to set Russian as the second official language of the country. The Carousel of Languages, Manhattan’s premier early childhood foreign language program, announced the introduction of a Russian language program for children 6 months to 5 years of age.
Today Russian is a common second language picked in Europe and USA, when USA recently made a census of more than 4 million speakers on its territory. Russian is also the first language for over 220 million people in the world. And remarkable numbers keep being impressive when you learn that Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Europe and Asia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. It is also the largest native language in Europe, with 160 million native speaker. Nowadays, Russian is the 8th most spoken language in the world.
It’s then true that Russian remains one of the main world languages. Besides, it is a language of international communication on the post-Soviet territory and a working language of many international and intergovernmental organizations in which Russia has membership. Definitely a language you may add to your skills!
“In days of doubt, in days of painful thought on the destiny of my native land, thou alone are my comfort and support, O great, powerful Russian tongue, truthful and free!”
Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer of the 19th century.
