The only official language of Russia is…surprise! Russian. Okay, no surprise. The real surprise — which actually isn’t a surprise if you consider the enormity of Russia, and the incredible complexity of the myriad peoples and cultures that co-exist there there — is that there are 27 other languages that are official in parts of the nation. Languages such as Avar, from the Republic of Dagestan. And Chuvash, from the Chuvash Republic. And Khanty, from the Khanty-Mansi
Autonomous Okrug. For even more of a surprise, take a look at Wikipedia’s list of languages of Russia. There are over 100, many of which hundreds of thousands of people still speak.
Despite all this linguistic fun, in class we’re still going to say hello and goodbye in Russian:
Hello: Zdrastvuytye
Goodbye: Dahsveedaneeya
Maybe next time we’ll try some Khanty from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.
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