Can you say that in Russian, please?Say "Russia," and most people think of the country that emerged from the ashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. "Russia" is actually short for the country's official name, the Russian Federation Russian Federation: see Russia. . That's a clue to the fact that Russia is far from a uniform nation like France, where French people live and speak French. In Russia, a lot of people are not Russian--and don't necessarily want to be. The reality of Russia is that it is actually a conglomeration con·glom·er·a·tion n. 1. a. The act or process of conglomerating. b. The state of being conglomerated. 2. An accumulation of miscellaneous things. of different peoples--some of them very different from what Westerners think of as "Russian." For millions of these people, Russian is not even their first language. From Finland's border in the West to the Bering Strait Bering Strait, c.55 mi (90 km) wide, between extreme NE Asia and extreme NW North America, connecting the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea. It is usually completely frozen over from October to June. The Diomede Islands are in the strait. just 50 miles from Alaska in the East, scores of languages other than Russian serve as the mother tongues mother tongue n. 1. One's native language. 2. A parent language. mother tongue Noun the language first learned by a child Noun 1. of millions of people. One example: In the Russian republic Russian Republic may refer to one of the following states in the history of Russia.
or Tartar Any member of the Turkic-speaking peoples who today live mainly in west-central Russia east to the Ural Mountains, in Kazakhstan, and in western Siberia. They first appeared as nomadic tribes in northeastern Mongolia in the 5th century. . This graph shows 13 of the most widely spoken minority languages in Russia by number of speakers. Use the data in the graph to answer the questions to the right. (Google languages to find where they are spoken.) 1. How many people speak Buryat as a first language? -- 2. Half as many people speak Moksha Moksha (môk`shə), river, c.375 mi (600 km) long, rising NW of Penza, central European Russia, and flowing generally NW into the Oka River. Its lower course is navigable. as peak either--or --. 3. The difference between the number of people who speak Chechen and the number of people who speak Moksha, Komi or--is about 490,000. 4. The number of people who speak Evenki, a language not shown on the graph, is only 5 percent of the number of people who speak Lezgi. How many people speak Evenki?-- 5. Twice as many people speak Kabard as a first language as those who speak Ingush, another language not shown on the graph. About how many people speak Ingush? -- 6. The number of people who speak Chechen as a first language is about half the number of people who speak --. 7. CRITICAL THINKING: In many countries, languages are disappearing as minority communities die out. Should governments make special efforts to preserve minority languages? Identify one pro and one con of language preservation Language preservation strives to prevent languages from becoming unknown. This can happen when a language is no longer taught to younger generations, and the elderly people who do speak the language fluently die. . -- Answer Key 1.300,000. 2. Erzya or Hil Mari. 3. Kumyk. 4. 10,000. 5. 195,000. (190,000 to 200,000 is acceptable.) 6. Chuvash. 7. Answers will vary, but a pro response might include the idea that language is part of a nation's history, culture, and identity, and as such is valuable. One con response might include the idea that preserving a dying language denies the fact that societies evolve. |
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