Why Speak Russian Language?

Russian belongs to the most widespread languages of the world. It takes the fifth place in the world (after Chinese, Hindi together with close to it Urdu, English and Spanish languages). Approximately 500.000 million people master Russian language it is studied in 140 countries of the world.

The analysis of geographic distribution of Russian language allows to reveal the role of Russian language abroad and to attribute Russian to the international languages. In comparison with other languages, included in the system of international languages, Russian was on the modest position not long ago. Down to XX century it did not compete with other international languages even in areal scales (excepting the Slavic world).

As the result of interaction of objective and subjective factors (economic, social, cultural), Russian language spread abroad. And today we have the situation when considerable social stratums (employees, businessmen, public figures, etc.) in different countries use Russian language in various communicative spheres. Nowadays Russian language is one of official and working languages in the international organizations (the United Nations, UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, etc.).

The literary norm and standards of modern Russian in Russia are the examples for people who use it as means of international dialogue, therefore the care of correctness of Russian speech is important not only for native speakers of Russian. So, for example, language of advertising, a standard of speech of journalists, a level of political rhetoric, etc. are capable to affect correctness of use, and also on the attitude to Russian language.

On the other hand, the use of Russian in the international dialogue, in business and the industry, in mass-media of Russian diasporas, in world systems of the communications, first of all on the Russian-speaking Internet, faxes, e-mail, databases, etc. influence on its development in Russia.

The leading European organizations the European un ion and the Council of Europe encourage measures for assistance of multilingual education, particularly approve functioning and learning Russian in all European countries According to the inspection of "Eurobarometer" (1997) led by EU in 34 countries Western, Central and the East Europe (including the CIS), Russian is the main language of 35% people in these countries, English language 28%, German language 20%, the French language 17% and Italian 10%.