The Russian language is in fifth place in the list of 12 leading languages in the world on a set of parameters, including its role in both everyday and scientific communication. This is evidenced by the study of the Pushkin Institute "Index of the Russian language in the world" in 2021, the text of which is available to TASS.
According to the "Index-2021," the Russian language yielded to English, Spanish, Chinese and French, while leaving behind Arabic, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Hindi, Bengali and Urdu. The rating is based on the number of speakers of the language and the number of Internet users, the number of Internet resources and the amount of scientific information in the language, the status of the language in international organizations, as well as the number of media in the language.
"Of course, Russian is not the most common language in terms of the number of speakers, the same Hindi is spoken by more people, but if we evaluate the language by the frequency of use in intercountry, scientific communications, Hindi lags behind many other languages that belong to the category of international," Margarita Rusetskaya, rector of the Pushkin State Institute of Russian Language, commented the results, whose words were quoted by the TASS press service.
According to the researchers, the Russian language is in the middle positions - from 4 to 7 - according to most parameters, but in terms of the number of resources in the language, it has been holding the second position for several years. As Rusetskaya explained, "in the modern world, the role of languages is determined not only and not so much by the number of speakers". "The functional load of a language, that is, its ability to satisfy a person's need for education, information, social and professional interaction, is a much more important factor in determining its competitiveness," she added.
Russian language in the CIS
The experts also analyzed the index of sustainability of the Russian language for the 30-year period - from 1991 to 2021 - in the CIS. Index takes into account constitutional status of Russian language and its status in state communications, share of students and teachers in Russian language, share of scientific publications in Russian language and share of Russian-language media. According to the authors of research, the most acute problem is the reduction of the sphere of reproduction of personnel of Russians, the number of students studying in Russian decreased by half for 30 years at all levels of education.
Analyzing the share of scientific publications in Russian, experts found out that it plays an important role in the national science of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, while it does not play a leading role in Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
In some post-Soviet countries, there has been a significant increase in the share of Russian-language publications over the past 30 years. For example, in Belarus - from 51% in 1990 to 81% in 2021, in Azerbaijan - from 20% to 36%, in Turkmenistan - from 30% to 56%. At the same time, the decrease in the share of Russian-language media does not mean a reduction in their number. For example, in Latvia the number of Russian-language media increased from 147 to 338, although the share in the national media market decreased by 47%, the Pushkin Institute pointed out.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS