112-652: The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal , Russian : Сунгари Sungari ) is one of the primary rivers of China , and the longest tributary of the Amur . It flows about 1,897 km (1,179 mi) from Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea border through China's northeastern Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. The river drains 557,180 km (215,130 sq mi) of land, and has an annual discharge of 76.2 km/a (2,410 m/s) to 81.77 km/a (2,591 m/s). The extreme flatness of
224-586: A Qahtanite Arab tribe who emigrated to the Transoxiana region of Central Asia in the 7th century AD. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991. This is due to a transliteration from the Russian : "Таджикистан" . In Russian, there is no single letter "j" to represent the phoneme /d͡ʒ/ , and therefore дж , or dzh, is used. Tadzhikistan is the alternate spelling and
336-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
448-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
560-516: A collection of Yuezhi tribes, took control of the region in the first century AD and ruled until the fourth century AD during which time Buddhism , Nestorian Christianity , Zoroastrianism , and Manichaeism were practised in the region. Later the Hephthalite Empire , a collection of nomadic tribes, moved into the region and Arabs brought Islam in the eighth century. The Samanid Empire , 819 to 999, restored Persian control of
672-790: A definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia, and gradually the Kara-khanids became assimilated into the Perso-Arab Muslim culture of the region. In the 13th century, the Mongol Empire swept through Central Asia, invaded the Khwarezmian Empire and sacked its cities, looting and massacring people. Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane founded the Timurid Empire , becoming
784-517: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Tajikistan Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a landlocked country in Central Asia . Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south , Uzbekistan to
896-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
1008-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
1120-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
1232-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
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#17327648465791344-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
1456-443: A result praised as a successful United Nations peacekeeping initiative. The ceasefire guaranteed 30% of ministerial positions would go to the opposition . Elections were held in 1999 and were criticised by opposition parties and foreign observers as unfair; Rahmon was re-elected with 98% of the vote. Elections in 2006 were again won by Rahmon (with 79% of the vote) and he began his third term in office. Opposition parties boycotted
1568-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
1680-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
1792-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
1904-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
2016-673: Is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and
2128-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
2240-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
2352-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
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#17327648465792464-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
2576-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
2688-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
2800-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
2912-677: Is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and
3024-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
3136-500: Is tolerated and all direct protest is suppressed and denied coverage in the local media. In the 2020 Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit , Tajikistan was ranked 160th, after Saudi Arabia , while receiving the designation of "authoritarian regime". In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Tajikistan, signed a joint letter to UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in
3248-465: Is used in English literature derived from Russian sources. While the Library of Congress 's 1997 Country Study of Tajikistan found it difficult to definitively state the origins of the word "Tajik" because the term is "embroiled in twentieth-century political disputes about whether Turkic or Iranic peoples were the original inhabitants of Central Asia," scholars concluded that contemporary Tajiks are
3360-584: The Encyclopædia Britannica states: The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranic peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan is attested from the middle of the first millennium BC. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). Over the course of time,
3472-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
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3584-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
3696-592: The Ayni Air Base , a military airport located 15 km southwest of Dushanbe, at a cost of $ 70 million, completing the repairs in September 2010. It is the main base of the Tajikistan air force. There have been talks with Russia concerning use of the Ayni facility, and Russia continues to maintain a base on the outskirts of Dushanbe. In 2010, there were concerns among Tajik officials that Islamic militarism in
3808-554: The Basmachi movement . Some industrial development occurred during this time along with the expansion of irrigation infrastructure. Two rounds of Stalin's purges (1927–1934 and 1937–1938 ) resulted in the expulsion of nearly 10,000 people from all levels of the Communist Party of Tajikistan . Ethnic Russians were sent in to replace those expelled and subsequently Russians dominated party positions at all levels, including
3920-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
4032-671: The Emirate of Bukhara and Khanate of Kokand . Russia was interested in gaining access to a supply of cotton and in the 1870s attempted to switch cultivation in the region from grain to cotton (a strategy later copied and expanded by the Soviets). During the 19th century, the Jadidists established themselves as an Islamic social movement throughout the region. While the Jadidists were pro-modernization and not necessarily anti-Russian,
4144-733: The Islamic State . Khalimov was allegedly killed on 8 September 2017 during a Russian airstrike near Deir ez-Zor , Syria , although Tajikistan authorities express doubts whether he has died. In 2021, following the Fall of Kabul , Tajikistan allegedly got involved in the Panjshir conflict against the Taliban on the side of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan . In September 2022 armed clashes , including
4256-616: The Northeast China Plain has caused the river to meander over time, filling the wide plain with oxbow lakes , as remnants of the previous paths of the river. The Songhua rises south of Heaven Lake , near the China - North Korea border. From there it flows north, to be interrupted by the Baishan , Hongshi and Fengman hydroelectric dams. The Fengman Dam forms a lake that stretches for 62 kilometers (39 mi). Below
4368-611: The Oxus civilization , Andronovo culture , Buddhism , Nestorian Christianity , Hinduism , Zoroastrianism , Manichaeism , and Islam . The area has been ruled by empires and dynasties including the Achaemenid Empire , Sasanian Empire , Hephthalite Empire , Samanid Empire , and Mongol Empire . After being ruled by the Timurid Empire and Khanate of Bukhara , the Timurid Renaissance flourished. The region
4480-584: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
4592-721: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
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4704-518: The west , Kyrgyzstan to the north , and China to the east . It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor . It has a population of approximately 10.6 million people. The territory was previously home to cultures of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age , including the city of Sarazm , and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of various faiths and cultures including
4816-474: The 19th century, for the second time in world history, a European power (the Russian Empire ) began to conquer parts of the region. Russian Imperialism led to the Russian Empire 's conquest of Central Asia during the 19th century's Imperial Era . Between 1864 and 1885, Russia gradually took control of the entire territory of Russian Turkestan , the Tajikistan portion of which had been controlled by
4928-735: The 2006 election and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticised it, while observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States claimed the elections were legal and transparent. Rahmon's administration came under further criticism from OSCE in October 2010 for its censorship and repression of the media. OSCE claimed that the Tajik Government censored Tajik and foreign websites and instituted tax inspections on independent printing houses that led to
5040-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
5152-624: The Amur (Heilong) River on the China–Russia border . On July 28, 2010, several thousand barrels from two chemical plants in China's Jilin City were washed away by floods . Some of them contained 170 kilograms (370 lb) of explosive material like trimethylsilyl chloride and hexamethyldisiloxane . In 2016, the part near the city of Jilin was affected by a minor flood. Russian language Russian
5264-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
5376-401: The Dadingshan Reservoir, which is named after the scenic area on the south bank ( Chinese : 大頂山 ; pinyin : dàdǐngshān ; lit. 'Big Topped Mountain'). The river flows onward through Jiamusi and south of the Lesser Xing'an Range, to eventually join the Amur at Tongjiang, Heilongjiang . The river freezes from late November until March. It has its highest flows when
5488-409: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
5600-468: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
5712-594: The Islamist-led opposition, a central government began to take form, with peaceful elections in 1999. "Longtime observers of Tajikistan often characterize the country as profoundly averse to risk and skeptical of promises of reform, a political passivity they trace to the country's ruinous civil war," Ilan Greenberg wrote in a news article in The New York Times before the country's November 2006 presidential election. The parliamentary elections of 2005 aroused accusations from opposition parties and international observers that President Emomali Rahmon corruptly manipulates
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#17327648465795824-411: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
5936-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
6048-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
6160-463: The Russians viewed the movement as a threat because the Russian Empire was predominantly Christian. Russian troops were required to restore order during uprisings against the Khanate of Kokand between 1910 and 1913. Further violence occurred in July 1916 when demonstrators attacked Russian soldiers in Khujand over the threat of forced conscription during World War I . While Russian troops brought Khujand back under control, clashes continued throughout
6272-428: The Samanid state under one ruler, thus putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids. It was under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania (which corresponded approximately with what later would be Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgyzstan, and southwest Kazakhstan) and ruled between 999 and 1211. Their arrival in Transoxania signalled
6384-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
6496-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
6608-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
6720-544: The cessation of printing activities for a number of independent newspapers. Russian border troops were stationed along the Tajik–Afghan border until summer 2005. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks , French troops have been stationed at Dushanbe Airport in support of air operations of NATO 's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan . United States Army and Marine Corps personnel periodically visit Tajikistan to conduct joint training missions of up to several weeks duration. The Government of India rebuilt
6832-423: The country's east, and the military operation in the Rasht Valley was concluded in November 2010. Fighting erupted again, this time in and around Gorno-Badakhshan, in July 2012. In 2015, Russia sent more troops to Tajikistan. In May 2015, Tajikistan's national security underwent a setback when Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov , commander of the special-purpose police unit (OMON) of the Interior Ministry, defected to
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#17327648465796944-460: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
7056-425: The country. It is a developing country with a transitional economy that is dependent on remittances , and on production of aluminium and cotton . Tajikistan is a member of the United Nations , CIS , OSCE , OIC , ECO , SCO , CSTO and a NATO PfP partner . The term "Tajik" itself ultimately derives from the Middle Persian Tāzīk , the Turkic rendition of the Arabic ethnonym Ṭayyi’ , denoting
7168-429: The dam, the Second Songhua flows north through Jilin , then northwest until it is joined by its largest tributary, the Nen River , near Da'an , to create the Songhua proper. The Songhua turns east through Harbin , and after the city, it is joined from the south by the Ashi River , and then by the Hulan River from the north. A new dam was constructed in 2007 near Bayan (50 km northeast of Harbin ), creating
7280-615: The descendants of the Eastern Iranic inhabitants of Central Asia , in particular, the Sogdians and the Bactrians and possibly other groups. In later works, Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a 1996 publication, Frye explains that "factors must be taken into account in explaining the evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether Iranic or Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them." Regarding Tajiks,
7392-411: The difficult socio-economic situation, lack of housing, and youth unemployment. The nationalist and democratic opposition and supporters of independence joined the strikes and began to demand the independence of the republic and democratic reforms. Islamists began to hold strikes to demand respect for their rights and independence. The Soviet leadership introduced Internal Troops in Dushanbe to eliminate
7504-407: The early part of this conflict in 1992, after Nabiyev was forced at gunpoint on 7 September 1992 to resign from office. Rahmon defeated former prime minister Abdumalik Abdullajanov in a November presidential election with 58% of the vote. In 1997, a ceasefire was reached between Rahmon and opposition parties under the guidance of Gerd D. Merrem, Special Representative to the Secretary General,
7616-421: The east of the country was on the rise following the escape of 25 militants from a Tajik prison in August, an ambush that killed 28 Tajik soldiers in the Rasht Valley in September, and another ambush in the valley in October that killed 30 soldiers, followed by fighting outside Gharm that left three militants dead. The country's Interior Ministry insisted that the central government maintained full control over
7728-453: The eastern Iranic dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Tajiki . Cultures in the region have been dated back to at least the fourth millennium BC, including the Bronze Age Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex , the Andronovo cultures and the pro-urban site of Sarazm , a UNESCO World Heritage Site . The earliest recorded history of the region dates back to about 500 BC when most, if not all, of Tajikistan
7840-450: The election process and unemployment. Elections in February 2010 saw the ruling PDPT lose four seats in Parliament, yet still maintain a majority. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe election observers said the 2010 polling "failed to meet many key OSCE commitments" and that "these elections failed on many basic democratic standards." The government insisted that only minor violations had occurred, which would not affect
7952-435: The ethnic majority in the country, and their national language is Tajik . Russian is used as the official inter-ethnic language. While the state is constitutionally secular, Islam is nominally adhered to by 97.5% of the population. In the Gorno-Badakhshan oblast , there is a linguistic diversity where Rushani , Shughni , Ishkashimi , Wakhi and Tajik are some of the languages spoken. Mountains cover more than 90% of
8064-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
8176-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
8288-516: The first ruler of the Timurid dynasty in and around what later became Tajikistan and Central Asia. What later became Tajikistan fell under the rule of the Khanate of Bukhara during the 16th century and, with the empire's collapse in the 18th century, it came under the rule of the Emirate of Bukhara and Khanate of Kokand . The Emirate of Bukhara remained intact until the 20th century. During
8400-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
8512-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
8624-459: The incumbent", Rahmon. Freedom of the press is officially guaranteed by the government, and independent press outlets remain restricted, as does an amount of web content. According to the Institute for War & Peace Reporting , access to local and foreign websites is blocked, and journalists are sometimes obstructed from reporting on some events. In practice, no public criticism of the regime
8736-523: The mountain snow melts during the spring thaw. The river is navigable up to Harbin by medium-sized ships. Smaller craft can navigate the Songhua up to Jilin and the Nen River up to Qiqihar . Cities along the river include: In November 2005, the river was contaminated with benzene , leading to a shutdown of Harbin's water supply. The spill stretched 80 kilometers (50 mi) and eventually reached
8848-472: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
8960-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
9072-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
9184-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
9296-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
9408-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
9520-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
9632-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
9744-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
9856-626: The region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara , which became the cultural centers of Iran ; the region was known as Khorasan. The empire was centered in Khorasan and Transoxiana; at its greatest extent encompassing Afghanistan, parts of Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, parts of Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. Four brothers Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas founded the Samanid state. Each of them ruled territory under Abbasid suzerainty. In 892, Ismail Samani (892–907) united
9968-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
10080-679: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
10192-512: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
10304-801: The top position of first secretary. Between 1926 and 1959 the proportion of Russians among Tajikistan's population grew from less than 1% to 13%. Bobojon Ghafurov , First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan from 1946 to 1956, was the only Tajik politician of significance outside of the republic during the Soviet Era. Tajiks began to be conscripted into the Soviet Army in 1939 and during World War II around 260,000 Tajik citizens fought against Germany, Finland and Japan. Between 60,000 (4%) and 120,000 (8%) of Tajikistan's 1,530,000 citizens were killed during World War II. Following
10416-608: The two top per capita income groups, and the lowest rate of university graduates per 1000 people. By the 1980s Tajik nationalists were calling for increased rights. Real disturbances did not occur within the republic until 1990. The following year, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Tajikistan declared its independence on 9 September 1991, a day which is celebrated as the country's Independence Day . In February 1990, riots and strikes in Dushanbe and other cities began due to
10528-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
10640-532: The unrest. Following independence, the nation fell into civil war among factions distinguished by clan loyalties. Regional groups from the Gharm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan. led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists , who eventually became the United Tajik Opposition , rose up against the newly formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev , which
10752-534: The use of artillery, erupted along most of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In 2023, according to the World Health Organization , Tajikistan received its certification, declaring its a status as a malaria -free country. After independence, Tajikistan was plunged into a civil war. Factions were supported by foreign countries including Afghanistan , Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Russia and Iran focused on keeping peace in
10864-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
10976-486: The war and the end of Stalin's reign, attempts were made to further expand the agriculture and industry of Tajikistan. During 1957–58 Nikita Khrushchev 's Virgin Lands Campaign focused attention on Tajikistan, where living conditions, education and industry lagged behind the other Soviet Republics . In the 1980s, Tajikistan had the lowest household saving rate in the USSR, the lowest percentage of households in
11088-484: The warring nation to decrease the chances of U.S. or Turkish involvement. Russia backed the pro-government faction and deployed troops from the Commonwealth of Independent States to guard the Tajikistan-Afghan border. All but 25,000 of the more than 400,000 ethnic Russians, who were mostly employed in industry, fled to Russia. By 1997, the war had ended after a peace agreement between the government and
11200-504: The will of the Tajik people. The Tajik government has reportedly clamped down on facial hair as part of a crackdown on Islamic influence and due to its perceived associations with Islamic extremism , which is evident in bordering Afghanistan . The presidential election held on 6 November 2006 was boycotted by "mainline" opposition parties, including the 23,000-member Islamic Renaissance Party . Four remaining opponents "all but endorsed
11312-707: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
11424-530: The year in various locations in Tajikistan. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 guerrillas throughout Central Asia, known as basmachi , waged a war against Bolshevik armies in an attempt to maintain independence. The Bolsheviks prevailed after a four-year war, in which mosques and villages were burned down and the population suppressed. Soviet authorities started a campaign of secularisation. Practising Islam , Judaism , and Christianity
11536-430: Was later conquered by the Russian Empire , before becoming part of the Soviet Union . Within the Soviet Union, the country's borders were drawn when it was part of Uzbekistan as an autonomous republic before becoming a constituent republic of the Soviet Union on 5 December 1929. On 9 September 1991, Tajikistan declared itself an independent sovereign nation as the Soviet Union was disintegrating . A civil war
11648-608: Was discouraged and repressed, and mosques, churches , and synagogues were closed. As a consequence of the conflict and Soviet agriculture policies, Central Asia , Tajikistan included, underwent a famine that claimed lives. In 1924, the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as a part of Uzbekistan , and in 1929 the Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajikistan SSR, Таджикская ССР)
11760-537: Was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The war lasted until 1997. More than 500,000 residents fled during this time because of persecution and increased poverty, seeking better economic opportunities in the West or in other former Soviet republics. The estimated dead numbered over 100,000. Around 1.2 million people were refugees inside and outside of the country. Emomali Rahmon came to power in
11872-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
11984-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
12096-426: Was fought after independence, lasting from May 1992 to June 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. The country has been led since 1994 by Emomali Rahmon , who heads an authoritarian regime and whose human rights record has been criticised. Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces . Tajiks form
12208-524: Was made a separate constituent republic; the predominantly ethnic Tajik cities of Samarkand and Bukhara remained in the Uzbek SSR . Between 1927 and 1934, collectivisation of agriculture and an expansion of cotton production took place, especially in the southern region. Soviet collectivisation policy brought violence against peasants and forced resettlement occurred throughout Tajikistan. Consequently, some peasants fought collectivization and revived
12320-505: Was part of Sogdia , a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scytho-Siberians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BC. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi (141 BC–87 BC) commercial relations between Han Empire and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers, and woodcarvers. The Kushan Empire ,
12432-723: Was part of the Achaemenid Empire . Some authors have suggested that in the seventh and sixth centuries BC parts of Tajikistan, including territories in the Zeravshan valley, formed part of the Hindu Kambojas tribe before it became part of the Achaemenid Empire . After the region's conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom , a successor state of Alexander's empire. Northern Tajikistan (the cities of Khujand and Panjakent )
12544-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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