The number of Russian-speaking people in the world is significantly higher than official statistics shows, the analyst of the news agency Vestnik Kavkaza, Artem Sokolov, told on Vesti FM in the National Question program, speaking about the distribution and promotion of the Russian language outside of Russia.
First of all, he reminded that according to the official data, the Russian language occupies the sixth place in the world in number and the eighth in prevalence. "Currently, about 125 million people speak Russia outside our country. The leader is Ukraine, where about 37 million people speak Russian. Besides, there are the post-Soviet republics - Kazakhstan (13.5 million), Uzbekistan (12 million), Belarus (9 million) and Azerbaijan (5 million). In the West, the most of the Russian speakers live in Germany and Poland - about 5.5 million people, and in the US this number is 3.5 million people,’’ the analyst said.
These figures are very conventional. "There are a lot of people who simply do not advertise their knowledge of Russian, preferring to communicate in everyday life in the language of the country in which they live. A young person who lives in Europe and has a parent from Russia or some former Soviet republic speaks the local language, but communicates in Russian at home,” Artem Sokolov explained.
The promotion of the Russian language abroad can affect the situation. "In 2016, Russia adopted the Federal Program on Russian language, one of the main goals of which is to promote the Russian language abroad. This program is valid until 2020. About 60 countries around the world are included in the program, the Russian language is taught systematically there’’, Sokolov said.
