Russophone

:"See also Russophone (novel)"A Russophone (or russophone; _ru. русскоговорящий, русскоязычный, "russkogovoryashchy, russkoyazychny", also "Russian-speaking") is literally a speaker of the Russian language either natively or by preference. At the same time the term is used in a more specialized meaning to describe the category of people whose cultural background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and territorial distinctions.

The largest and most populous Russophone country is Russia, where the language originates from. There are sizable Russophone communities in many neighbouring countries that were parts of the former Soviet Union, including Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Estonia and Latvia. Additionally, there are large Russophone immigrant communities in Israel and various parts of the United States, Canada and Australia.

There are an estimated 280 million Russophones worldwide.

Russian population in post-Soviet states

Russophony in the post-Soviet states is a controversial phenomenon. Throughout Russia and the former Soviet states, the languages of many different ethnic groups were suppressed by Russification, as Russian attained its status as a de facto language that unified the Soviet nation and was used exclusively in all official and interstate affairs. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union this situation was reversed in the countries of the "Near abroad" (ближнее зарубежье, "blizhneye zarubezhye") — the term used in Russia for the post-Soviet states — and the use of Russian was discouraged, with the notable exceptions of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan where Russian remains today an official language. The breakaway republics of Abkhazia (Georgia), South Ossetia (Georgia), and Transnistria (Moldova) have also declared Russian as official in the territories under their control.

See also

*Russians in Ukraine
*Russians in Kazakhstan
*Post-Soviet states
*Ukrainophone
*History of Russians in Latvia
*History of Russians in Estonia
*History of Russians in Lithuania

References

*Pål Kolstø, "The new Russian diaspora - an identity of its own? Possible identity trajectories for Russians in the former Soviet republic." "Ethnic and Racial studies", July 1996, pp. 609-639
*Pål Kolstø, "The price of stability. Kazakhstani control mechanisms in a bipolar cultural and demographic situation", paper presented at conf. "Democracy and Pluralism in the Muslim Areas of the Former Soviet Union" at The Cummings Center, University of Tel Aviv, 7-9 November 1999 [http://folk.uio.no/palk/stability.htm]
*Autin, Claire, «Les États baltes. Le défi des minorités russophones», Géographie et cultures, No. 38, 2001 :5-24

External links

* [http://www.russianboston.org/ Boston Jewish Russian Center & Synagogue]
* [http://community.livejournal.com/russophone/profile Russophone] , a LiveJournal community