Multilingualism in the Successor States of the Soviet Union

Bibliographic Data

ID24220697
AuthorsIsabelle Kreindler
Year1997
Volume17
Pages91-112
Publication date1997-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnual Review of Applied Linguistics (BOOK_SERIES)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-1905 • E-ISSN: 1471-6356
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0267190500003299
OpenAlexW2166437903
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited44

The Soviet Union was a country with one of the most complex language situations in the world. Over one hundred nationalities were listed in its last 1989 census, ranging in size from 145 million Russians (50.8 percent of the population) to the ‘26 Peoples of the North’ who together numbered only 184,448. For most of these nationalities, the majority claimed that their national language was their mother tongue. However, knowledge of Russian as first or second language was claimed by about 62 percent of the non-Russians. Only 4.2 percent of the Russians reported fluency in one of the national languages, though among the Russians living outside the Russian Federation, bilingualism was about 19 percent (Anderson and Silver 1990, Arutiunian, et al. 1992, Goskomstat 1991, Haarmann 1992).

Bilingualism · language attitudes · Language policy · language situation · minority languages · Multilingualism · National language · Russian language · Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Soviet and Russian History

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