121-486: Wrangel Island ( Russian : О́стров Вра́нгеля , romanized : Ostrov Vrangelya , IPA: [ˈostrəf ˈvrangʲɪlʲə] ; Chukot : Умӄиԓир , romanized: Umqiḷir , IPA: [umqiɬir] , lit. ' island of polar bears ' ) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , Russia . It is the 92nd largest island in the world and roughly the size of Crete . Located in
242-649: 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
363-510: 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
484-562: A walrus and a polar bear were found in association with stone tools, as well as a toggling harpoon head made of walrus tusk. The tools show cultural similarities to other contemporaneous Paleoeskimo sites in Alaska. A legend prevalent among the Chukchi people of Siberia tells of a chief Krachai (or Krächoj, Krahay, Khrakhai), who fled with his people (the Krachaians or Krahays, also identified as
605-511: A " zapovednik " (a "strict nature reserve") and, as such, receive the highest level of protection, excluding virtually all human activity other than conservation research and scientific purposes. In 1999, the Chukotka Regional government extended the protected marine area to 24 nmi (44 km) offshore. As of 2003, there were four rangers who reside on the island year-round, while a core group of about 12 scientists conduct research during
726-697: A diplomatic American-Soviet row about an American boundary marker on the Siberian coast, and so did an Inuit child. The others were deported from Vladivostok to the Chinese border post Suifenhe , but the Chinese government did not want to accept them as the American consul in Harbin told them the Inuit were not American citizens. Later, the American government came up with a statement that
847-454: 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) Gora Sovetskaya Gora Sovetskaya (Russian: гора советская , meaning "Soviet Mountain"), also known as Berry Peak , is a mountain on Wrangel Island . Administratively it is part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , Russian Federation . This 1,096-metre (3,596 ft) high mountain
968-479: 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
1089-572: 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
1210-607: 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
1331-1130: A population that has grown from 20 to about 1,000 animals. In 2002, wolves were spotted on the island, a significant sighting as the canids were present on the island in ancient times. The flora of the island includes 417 species of plants , double that of any other Arctic tundra territory, of comparable size, and more than any other Arctic island. Thus, the island was proclaimed the northernmost World Heritage Site in 2004. Species and genera present include various Arctic-adapted types of Androsace , Artemisia , Astragalus , Carex , Cerastium , Draba , Erigeron , Oxytropis , Papaver , Pedicularis , Potentilla , Primula , Ranunculus , Rhodiola , Rumex , Salix , Saxifraga , Silene and Valeriana , among others. Wrangel Island, along with nearby Herald Island, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International as it supports breeding colonies of many species of birds, including geese such as brant , cackling , greater white-fronted , Ross' and snow geese , and snowy owls —another Arctic predator attracted by
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#17328514093431452-516: 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
1573-522: A small herd of domestic reindeer was introduced with the intention of establishing commercial herding to generate income for island residents. Aside from the main settlement of Ushakovskoye near Rogers Bay, on the south-central coast, in the 1960s a new settlement named Zvyozdny was established some 38 km (24 mi) to the west in the Somnitelnaya Bay area, where ground runways reserved for military aviation were constructed (these were abandoned in
1694-412: A speculative attempt to claim it for Canada . The explorers were handpicked by Stefansson based upon their previous experience and academic credentials. Stefansson considered those with advanced knowledge in the fields of geography and science for this expedition. At the time, Stefansson claimed that his purpose was to head off a possible Japanese claim. An attempt to relieve this group in 1922 failed when
1815-451: A very thin and patchy surficial layer of either colluvium or eluvium . Wrangel Island is a breeding ground for polar bears —having the highest density of dens in the world— bearded and ringed seals , walrus , as well as collared and west and east Siberian lemmings , a major food source for terrestrial carnivores , namely the Arctic foxes , wolverines and wolves which also inhabit
1936-428: A warning for continued efforts to protect current endangered species with small population sizes. However, this conclusion regarding the mammoth population was disputed in 2024, who found that many of the most deleterious mutations had been purged from the genome, and instead suggested that the extinction was likely due to a catastrophic event, and that the woolly mammoths were already extinct for several centuries prior to
2057-527: 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,
2178-475: 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
2299-401: 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
2420-593: 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
2541-510: Is about 83%. According to a 2003 report prepared by the Wrangel Island Nature Preserve, the hydrographic network of Wrangel Island consists of approximately 1,400 rivers over 1 km (0.62 mi) in length; five rivers over 50 kilometres (31.07 mi) long; and approximately 900 shallow lakes, mostly located in the northern portion of Wrangel Island, with a total surface area of 80 km (31 sq mi). The waters of
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#17328514093432662-485: 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
2783-613: 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
2904-563: 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
3025-564: 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
3146-414: Is possibly the furthest-north that a sandhill crane has been observed, in 2014. Wrangel Island has a severe polar climate ( Köppen ET). The region is blanketed by dry and cold Arctic air masses for most of the year. Warmer and more humid air can reach the island from the south-east during summer. Dry and heated air from Siberia comes to the island periodically. Wrangel Island is influenced by both
3267-402: 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
3388-624: Is separated from the Siberian mainland by the Long Strait , and the island itself is a landmark separating the East Siberian Sea from the Chukchi Sea on the northern end. The distance to the closest point on the mainland is 140 km (87 mi). The island's topography consists of a southern coastal plain that is on average 15 km (9.3 mi) wide; a 40 km (25 mi) wide east-west trending central belt of low-relief mountains, with
3509-569: 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
3630-576: 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
3751-643: Is the highest point of Wrangel Island. It is located in the area near the center of the island, in the Central Mountain Range that runs across Wrangel Island from east to west. The mountain is conspicuous from the sea and was first described by Captain Thomas Long in 1867 as having "the appearance of an extinct volcano ." It was named "Berry Peak" by the United States Navy in 1881 after U.S. Navy Lieutenant Robert M. Berry , commanding officer of
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3872-518: 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
3993-461: 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
4114-966: 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
4235-602: The Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea , the island lies astride the 180th meridian . The International Date Line is therefore displaced eastwards at this latitude to keep the island, as well as the Chukchi Peninsula on the Russian mainland, on the same day as the rest of Russia . The closest land to Wrangel Island is the tiny and rocky Herald Island located 60 kilometres (32 nautical miles) to
4356-413: 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
4477-555: 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 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
4598-520: The Jeannette and two missing whalers in addition to conducting general exploration. It included naturalist John Muir , who published the first description of Wrangel Island. In the same year on 23 August, the USS Rodgers , commanded by Lieutenant R. M. Berry during the second search for the Jeannette , landed a party on Wrangel Island which stayed about two weeks and conducted an extensive survey of
4719-593: The Russian Duma , does not specifically address the status of these islands nor the maritime boundaries associated with them. On 1 June 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker signed an executive agreement with Eduard Shevardnadze , the Soviet foreign minister. It specified that even though the treaty had not been ratified, the U.S. and the USSR agreed to abide by the terms of the treaty beginning 15 June 1990. The Senate ratified
4840-664: The Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and 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
4961-638: The USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement in 1991, which was then signed by President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, Wrangel Island and neighboring Herald Island, along with their surrounding waters, were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List . In 2014, the Russian Navy announced plans to establish a base on the island. The bases on Wrangel Island and on Cape Schmidt on Russia's Arctic coast reportedly consist of two sets of 34 prefabricated modules. In Jules Verne 's novel César Cascabel ,
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5082-575: 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
5203-694: 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
5324-416: The polar day generally keeps temperatures above 0 °C (32 °F). Some frosts and snowfalls occur, and fog is common. Warmer and drier weather is experienced in the center of the island because the interior's topography encourages foehn winds . As of 2003, the frost-free period on the island was very short, usually not more than 20 to 25 days, and more often only two weeks. Average relative humidity
5445-474: The steamer USS Rodgers , who led the group which landed on the island. As a result of the surveys of the time, Berry Peak was marked as a 762-metre-high (2,500-foot) mountain by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey . By the early 20th century other surveys of the mountain had been carried out from the shore, but once inland it was not clear which mountain was "Berry Peak." The mountain
5566-584: The "Invisible Land" or "Invisible Island". Russian language Russian 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
5687-558: The 'islanders' to safety. This operation earned Litke the order of the Red Banner of Labour (January 20, 1930), as well as commemorative badges for the crew. According to a 1936 article in Time magazine, Wrangel Island became the scene of a bizarre criminal story in the 1930s when it fell under the increasingly arbitrary rule of its appointed governor Konstantin Semenchuk . Semenchuk controlled
5808-421: The (regional) Governor of Chukotka issued Decree No. 91, which again expanded the protected water area to 24 nmi (44 km) around Wrangel and Herald Islands. By the 1980s, the reindeer-herding farm on Wrangel had been abolished and the settlement of Zvezdnyi was virtually abandoned. Hunting had already been stopped, except for a small quota of marine mammals for the needs of the local population. In 1992,
5929-453: The 1970s). Moreover, a military radar installation was built on the southeast coast at Cape Hawaii. Rock crystal mining had been carried out for a number of years in the center of the island near Khrustalnyi Creek. At the time, a small settlement, Perkatkun , had been established nearby to house the miners, but later on it was completely destroyed. Resolution #189 of the Council of Ministers of
6050-461: 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
6171-519: The American flag was raised. In 1926, the government of the Soviet Union reaffirmed the Tsarist claim to sovereignty over Wrangel Island. In 1926, a team of Soviet explorers, equipped with three years of supplies, landed on Wrangel Island. Clear waters that facilitated the 1926 landing were followed by years of continuous heavy ice surrounding the island. Attempts to reach the island by sea failed, and it
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#17328514093436292-617: The Arctic and Pacific air masses. One consequence is the predominance of high winds. The island is subjected to "cyclonic" episodes characterized by rapid circular winds. It is also an island of mists and fogs. Winters are prolonged and are characterized by steady frosty weather and high northerly winds. During this period, the temperatures usually stay well below freezing for months. In February and March there are frequent snow-storms with wind speeds of 40 m/s (140 km/h; 89 mph) or above. There are noticeable differences in climate between
6413-522: The Arctic. His ship became locked in the polar ice pack and drifted westward, passing within sight of Wrangel before being crushed and sunk in the vicinity of the New Siberian Islands . A party from the USRC Corwin landed on Wrangel Island on 12 August 1881, claimed the island for the United States and named it "New Columbia". The expedition, under the command of Calvin L. Hooper, was seeking
6534-465: 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
6655-522: The East Siberian Sea and the Sea of Chukchi surrounding Wrangel and Herald Islands are classified as a separate chemical oceanographic region. These waters have among the lowest levels of salinity in the Arctic basin as well as a very high oxygen content and increased biogenic elements. This remote Arctic island is believed to have been the final place on Earth to support woolly mammoths as an isolated population until their extinction about 2000 BC, which makes them
6776-519: 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,
6897-578: 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
7018-482: The Inuit were 'wards' of the United States, but that there were no funds for returning them. Eventually, the American Red Cross came up with $ 1600 for their return. They subsequently moved through Dalian , Kobe and Seattle (where another Inuit child drowned during the wait for the return trip to Alaska) back to Nome . During the Soviet trip, the American reindeer owner Carl J. Lomen from Nome had taken over
7139-453: The Krahay. Eventually, the island was named after Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel , who, after reading Andreyev's report and hearing Chukchi stories of land at the island's coordinates , set off on an expedition (1820–1824) to discover the island, with no success. In 1849, Henry Kellett , captain of HMS Herald , landed on and named it Herald Island. He erroneously thought he saw another island to
7260-515: 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
7381-545: The Onkilon or Omoki – Siberian Yupik people ) across the ice to settle in a northern land. Though the story may be mythical, the existence of an island or continent to the north was lent credence by the annual migration of reindeer across the ice, as well as the appearance of slate spear-points washed up on Arctic shores, made in a fashion unknown to the Chukchi. Retired University of Alaska, Fairbanks , linguistics professor Michael E. Krauss has presented archaeological, historical, and linguistic evidence that Wrangel Island
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#17328514093437502-739: The Precambrian strata are up to 2.25 km (7,400 ft) of Upper Silurian to Lower Carboniferous consisting of interbedded sandstone , siltstone , slate, argillite , some conglomerate and rare limestone and dolomite . These strata are overlain by up to 2.15 km (7,100 ft) of Carboniferous to Permian limestone, often composed largely of crinoid plates, that is interbedded with slate, argillite and locally minor amounts of thick breccia , sandstone, and chert . The uppermost stratum consists of 0.7 to 1.5 km (2,300 to 4,900 ft) of Triassic clayey quartzose turbidites interbedded with black slate and siltstone. A thin veneer of Cenozoic gravel , sand , clay and mud underlie
7623-439: The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was adopted on 23 March 1976, for the establishment of the state Nature Reserve "Wrangel Island" for the purpose of conserving the unique natural systems of Wrangel and Herald Islands and the surrounding waters out to 5 nmi (9 km). On 15 December 1997, the Russian Government's Decree No. 1623-r expanded the marine reserve out to 12 nmi (22 km). On 25 May 1999,
7744-807: 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
7865-458: 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
7986-405: 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
8107-412: The Supreme Court of the RSFSR, sentenced Semenchuk and Startsev to death for "banditry" and violation of Soviet law, and "the most publicised result of the trial was the joy of the liberated Eskimos". This trial had the result of launching the career of the prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky , who called the two defendants "human waste" and who would soon achieve great notoriety in the Moscow Trials . In 1948,
8228-403: 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
8349-403: 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
8470-404: The coastal plains of Wrangel Island. Late Neogene clay and gravel, which are only a few tens of meters thick, rest upon the eroded surface of the folded and faulted strata that compose Wrangel Island. Indurated Pliocene mud and gravel, which are only a few meters thick, overlie the Late Neogene sediments. Sandy Pleistocene sediments occur as fluvial sediments along rivers and streams and as
8591-417: 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
8712-562: 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
8833-476: The earliest human presence on the island. The earliest evidence of humans (and the only known pre-modern archaeological site on the island) is Chertov Ovrag on the southern coast, a Paleoeskimo short-term hunting camp which dates to around 3,600 years ago. At the camp remains of birds (including the remains of at least 32 snow goose , 6 long-tailed duck , and one individual each of common murre and snow bunting ), as well as 2 seals (including 1 bearded seal ),
8954-613: The east. Its straddling the 180th meridian makes its north shore at that point both the northeasternmost and northwesternmost point of land in the world by strict longitude; using the International Date Line instead those respective points become Herald Island and Alaska's Cape Lisburne . Most of Wrangel Island, with the adjacent Herald Island , is a federally protected nature sanctuary administered by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment . In 1976, Wrangel Island and all of its surrounding waters were classified as
9075-413: 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,
9196-451: 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
9317-617: 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
9438-480: 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
9559-520: The highest elevations at the Tsentral'nye Mountain Range; and a roughly 25 km (16 mi) wide northern coastal plain. The highest mountain on this island is Gora Sovetskaya with an elevation of 1,096 m (3,596 ft) above mean sea level, although mostly the mountains are a little over 500 m (1,600 ft) above mean sea level. The island's mountain ranges terminate at sea cliffs at either end of
9680-413: The island from south. On 8 August a scout plane reported impassable ice in the strait, and Litke turned north, heading to Herald Island . It failed to escape mounting ice; August 12 the captain shut down the engines to save coal and had to wait two weeks until the ice pressure eased. Making a few hundred meters a day, Litke reached the settlement August 28. On September 5, Litke turned back, taking all
9801-719: The island's lemmings (which the owls can hear tunneling beneath the snow, catching the rodents with adept proficiency). Several gull species are present, including glaucous , Ross' , Sabine's and ivory gulls , long-tailed , pomarine and parasitic jaegers , and black-legged kittiwakes , as well as many other sea and shorebird species, such as common and king eiders , horned puffins , pelagic cormorants , long-tailed ducks , red phalarope , dunlin , pectoral sandpipers , ruddy turnstones , red knots , black-bellied plovers , thick-billed murres and black guillemots . Passerine birds, though few, include Arctic warblers , Lapland longspurs and snow buntings . Wrangel Island
9922-478: The island. Blossom Point is the westernmost point and Waring Point (Mys Uering) the easternmost point of the island. Despite its mountainous terrain and high latitude, Wrangel Island is not glaciated . Wrangel Island belongs administratively to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation. The island has a weather station at Blossom Point and, formerly, two Chukchi fishing settlements on
10043-458: The island. Cetaceans , such as Arctic bowhead whales , migratory gray whales and belugas can be seen close to shore. Woolly mammoths survived on the island until around 2500–2000 BC, the most recent survival of any known mammoth populations; for perspective, these mammoths were living during the times of ancient Bronze Age civilizations such as Sumer , Elam and the Indus Valley . This
10164-745: The local populace and his own staff through open extortion and murder. He forbade the local Yupik Eskimos (recruited from Provideniya Bay in 1926) to hunt walrus , which put them in danger of starvation, while collecting food for himself. He was then implicated in the mysterious deaths of some of his opponents, including the local doctor. Allegedly, he ordered his subordinate, the sledge driver Stepan Startsev, to murder Dr. Nikolai Vulfson, who had attempted to stand up to Semenchuk, on 27 December 1934 (though there were also rumours that Startsev had fallen in love with Vulfson's wife, Dr. Gita Feldman, and killed him out of jealousy). The subsequent trial in May–June 1936, at
10285-462: The mammoth population was experiencing a genetic meltdown in the DNA of the last animals, a difference when compared with examples about 40,000 years earlier, when populations were plentiful. The research suggests the signature of a genomic meltdown in small populations, consistent with nearly neutral genome evolution. It also suggests large numbers of detrimental variants collecting in pre-extinction genomes,
10406-571: The memory of a man who spent three consecutive years north of latitude 68° , and demonstrated the problem of this open polar sea forty-five years ago, although others of much later date have endeavored to claim the merit of this discovery." An account appeared in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , 1868 (17th Meeting, at Chicago), published in 1869, under
10527-548: The merit of this discovery. Baron von Wrangel never managed to visit the island. Wrangel had noticed swarms of birds flying north, and, questioning the native population, determined that there must be an island undiscovered by Europeans existing in the Arctic Ocean . He searched for it during his Kolymskaya expedition (1823–1824) , but failed to find it. Wrangel Island is about 150 km (93 mi) long from east to west and 80 km (50 mi) wide from north to south, with an area of 7,600 km (2,900 sq mi). It
10648-580: The military radar installation at Cape Hawaii (on the southeast coast) was closed, and only the settlement of Ushakovskoye remained occupied. According to some American activists and government officials, at least eight Arctic islands currently controlled by Russia, including Wrangel Island, are claimed or should be claimed by the United States. However, according to the United States Department of State no such claim exists. The USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement , which has yet to be approved by
10769-466: The most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and 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
10890-605: The most recent surviving population known to science. Initially, it was assumed that this was a specific insular dwarf variant of the species originating from Siberia. However, after further evaluation, while their body size is relatively small, it falls within the size range known for woolly mammoths in mainland Siberia, and thus these Wrangel Island mammoths are no longer considered to have been true dwarves (though true dwarf mammoths and other dwarf elephants are known from other islands, some considerably smaller than Wrangel Island mammoths). Research published in 2017 suggested that
11011-507: The northern, central and southern parts of the island. The central and southern portions are warmer, with some of their valleys having semi-continental climates that support a number of sub-Arctic steppe-like meadow species. This area has been described as perhaps being a relict of the Ice Age mammoth steppe , along with certain areas along the northwestern border between Mongolia and Russia. The short summers are cool but comparatively mild as
11132-516: 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
11253-515: 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
11374-455: 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,
11495-446: 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
11616-453: 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
11737-455: 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
11858-418: 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
11979-567: The possessions of Stefansson and had acquired explicit support ("go and hold it") from US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to claim the island for the United States, a goal about which the Russian expedition got to hear during their trip. Lomen dispatched the MS Herman , commanded by captain Louis L. Lane . Due to unfavorable ice conditions, the Herman could not get any further than Herald Island, where
12100-475: 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
12221-466: 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 ,
12342-485: The protagonists float past Wrangel Island on an iceberg. In Verne's description, a live volcano is located on the island: "Between the two capes on its southern coast, Cape Hawan and Cape Thomas, it is surmounted by a live volcano, which is marked on the recent maps." In Chukchi author Yuri Rytkheu 's historical novel A Dream in Polar Fog , set in the early 20th century, the Chukchi knew of Wrangel Island and referred to it as
12463-491: 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
12584-734: The schooner Teddy Bear under Captain Joe Bernard became stuck in the ice. In 1923, the sole survivor of the Wrangel Island expedition, Ada Blackjack, was rescued by a ship that left another party of 13 (American Charles Wells and 12 Inuit). In 1924, the Soviet Union removed the American and 13 Inuit (one was born on the island) of this settlement aboard the Krasny Oktyabr ( Red October ). Wells subsequently died of pneumonia in Vladivostok during
12705-693: The southern coast. In 1911, the Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition on icebreakers Vaygach and Taymyr under Boris Vilkitsky , landed on the island. In 1916 the Tsarist government declared that the island belonged to the Russian Empire. In 1914, members of the Canadian Arctic Expedition , organized by Vilhjalmur Stefansson , were marooned on Wrangel Island for nine months after their ship, Karluk ,
12826-647: The southern side of the island ( Ushakovskoye and Zvyozdny on the shore of Somnitelnaya Bay). Wrangel Island consists of folded, faulted, and metamorphosed volcanic , intrusive , and sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Upper Precambrian to Lower Mesozoic . The Precambrian rocks, which are about 2 km (6,600 ft) thick, consist of Upper Proterozoic sericite and chlorite slate and schist that contain minor amounts of metavolcanic rocks , metaconglomerates , and quartzite . These rocks are intruded by metamorphosed gabbro , diabase , and felsic dikes and sills and granite intrusions . Overlying
12947-638: The summer months. Wrangel Island was home to the last surviving population of woolly mammoths , with radiocarbon dating suggesting the species persisted on the island until around 4,000 years ago (2000 BC). Part of the reserve of the same name. The natural complex of the Wrangel Island Reserve has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2004. Captain Thomas Long named Wrangel Island for Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel , who
13068-675: 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
13189-459: 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
13310-602: The title "The New Arctic Continent, or Wrangell's Land, discovered 14 August 1867, by Captain Long, of the American Ship Nile, and seen by Captains Raynor, Bliven and others, with a brief Notice of Baron Wrangell 's Exploration in 1823". George W. DeLong , commanding USS Jeannette , led an expedition in 1879 attempting to reach the North Pole , expecting to go by the "east side of Kellett land", which he thought extended far into
13431-770: 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
13552-506: 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
13673-406: The west, which he called Plover Island; thereafter it was indicated on British admiralty charts as Kellett Land. Eduard Dallmann , a German whaler , reported in 1881 that he had landed on the island in 1866. In August 1867, Thomas Long , an American whaling captain, "approached it as near as fifteen miles. I have named this northern land Wrangell [sic] Land ... as an appropriate tribute to
13794-558: Was a Baltic German explorer and Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy . Captain Long, published in The Honolulu Advertiser , November 1867: I have named this northern land Wrangell Land as an appropriate tribute to the memory of a man who spent three consecutive years north of latitude 68°, and demonstrated the problem of this open polar sea forty-five years ago, although others of much later date have endeavored to claim
13915-603: Was a way station on a trade route linking the Inuit settlement at Point Hope, Alaska with the north Siberian coast, and that the coast was colonized in late prehistoric and early historic times by Inuit settlers from North America. Krauss suggests that the departure of these colonists was related to the Krachai legend. In 1764, the Cossack Sergeant Stepan Andreyev claimed to have sighted this island. Calling it Tikegen Land, Andreyev found evidence of its inhabitants,
14036-520: Was also the time of the fourth dynasty of Ancient Egypt . Mammoths, apparently, died out and subsequently disappeared from mainland Eurasia and North America around 10,000 years ago; however, about 500–1,000 mammoths were isolated on Wrangel Island and thus continued to survive for another 6,000 years. Domestic reindeer were introduced in the 1950s, and their feral numbers are managed at around 1,000 in an effort to reduce their impact on nesting bird grounds. In 1975, musk oxen were also introduced, with
14157-535: Was crushed in the ice pack. The survivors were rescued by the American motorized fishing schooner King & Winge after Captain Robert Bartlett walked across the Chukchi Sea to Siberia to summon help. In 1921, Stefansson sent five settlers (the Canadian Allan Crawford, three Americans: Fred Maurer, Lorne Knight and Milton Galle, and Iñupiat seamstress and cook Ada Blackjack ) to the island in
14278-548: Was feared that the team would not survive their fourth winter. In 1929, the icebreaker Fyodor Litke was chosen for a rescue operation. It sailed from Sevastopol , commanded by captain Konstantin Dublitsky . On 4 July, it reached Vladivostok where all Black Sea sailors were replaced by local crew members. Ten days later Litke sailed north; it passed the Bering Strait , and tried to pass Long Strait and approach
14399-405: 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
14520-421: 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
14641-402: 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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