Russia is a multinational country, which means it is multilingual

Russia is a multinational country, which means it is multilingual. Linguistic scientists number 150 languages ​​- here, such a language as Russian, which is spoken by 97.72% of the population in Russia, and the language of the Negidal - a small people (only 622 people!), Living on the Amur River, are equally taken into account.

Some languages ​​are very similar: people can each speak their own and at the same time understand each other perfectly, for example, Russian - Belarusian, Tatar - Bashkir, Kalmyk - Buryat. In other languages, although they also have a lot in common - sounds, some words, grammar - it will still not be possible to agree: a Mari with a Mordovian, a Lezgin with an Avar. And finally, there are languages ​​- scientists call them isolated - that are not like any other. These are the languages ​​of the Kets, Nivkhs and Yukagirs.

Most of the languages ​​of Russia belong to one of four language families:

Indo-European;

Altai;

Ural;

North Caucasian.

Each family has a common ancestor language - the proto-language. The ancient tribes that spoke such a proto-language migrated, mixed with other peoples, and once a single language broke up into several. This is how many languages ​​emerged on Earth.

Let's say Russian belongs to the Indo-European family. In the same family - English and German, Hindi and Farsi, Ossetian and Spanish (and many, many others). Part of the family is a group of Slavic languages. Here Czech and Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, etc. coexist with Russian.

The Altai family in Russia is represented by three groups: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu. There are only two peoples speaking Mongolian languages ​​- Kalmyks and Buryats, but one listing of the Turkic languages ​​may surprise. These are Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Karachai-Bal-Karsk, Nogai, Kumyk, Altai, Khakass, Shor, Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Dolgan, Azeri, etc. Most of these peoples live in Russia.