File talk:RussianLanguageMap.png

"Spoken in" is so ambiguous as to be meaningless. Russian is spoken in the US, Canada, China, Paraguay, Mozambique: Why aren't they on the map? We have other Russian-language maps where R. is "spoken". This is essentially where it's official (though that was partly wrong) plus where it's a working language, so I fixed the legend to say that, and changed a couple countries to fit, per Ethn. 17. Otherwise we'll need a definition of what "spoken" means, and a ref to back it up. Kwamikagami (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Should not be confused SPOKEN with WORKING. Working means that document-flow, labels, official papers, official meetings are in Russian. And that is not so. Spoken means you can hear it outside, you can turn to someone using this language and get answer. Please, differ it next time. — Alex Khimich (對話) 20:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

So, the US should be green, because Russian is spoken in the US. And practically every other country, plus Antarctica. So the entire world should be green. Kwamikagami (對話) 07:07, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Working means we have it on papers, writing documents on that language. Spoken means that some amount of people speak it and it could be heard and understood within majority. Please, don't play ironic saying of all cosmos should be also green 'cause of 2 people there currently knowing russian. — Alex Khimich (對話) 23:49, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

User WhyHellWhy

@Magog the Ogre: this user WhyHellWhy changing this map without any discussion, and agreement with other users proposals, as we know statuses of secessionist entities are disputed and we can't accept their officiality because it is controversial, and this needs discussion to achive some decisions. So please ask this user to stop his/her willful changes. --g. balaxaZe★ 08:20, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

My edits corresponded strictly to the official status of the language in the countries and states, you can't blame me for putting out the facts on the map. The current version of the map (after your revert of my edits) gives the wrong information! --WhyHellWhy (對話) 20:33, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Giorgi, you confused Ukraine with Belarus. AFAICT, and according to the WP-en articles, Russian is official in Belarus, Transnistria, Abxazia, and S. Ossetia, so I reverted to WhyHellWhy's version. Kwamikagami (對話) 19:06, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Russian is also official in quite a few Ukrainian subdivisions, according to en:Legislation on languages in Ukraine. It may be worth highlighting them in dark blue as well. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 00:17, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

The breakaway regions of Georgia and Moldova are recognized, if only by Russia. If we added recognized regional languages, would any country be affected other than Ukraine? Kwamikagami (對話) 04:51, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Moldova's breakaway region isn't recognised by anyone, but it functionally exists nontheless. The current map already shows recognised regional languages with the inclusion of en:Gagauzia in Moldova. A few other European countries recognise Russian as a minority language, but I'm unaware if they grant any special regional status. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 09:47, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we'd want official status at the provincial level, as we have in Ukraine. Or even at the town level. A recognized minority language is rather different. Kwamikagami (對話) 04:26, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I doubt our list is complete. We don't have Luhansk or Kharkiv for example (just the cities, not the provinces), and they have some of the highest percentages of Russians in the country. Kwamikagami (對話) 04:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

What list are you referring to? The one in prose? If so you're probably right; it notes 15 total bodies. This news article says 13/27 regions have implimented the law for Russian, but has not listed which ones (or noted how it got the informtion). Perhaps someone at the ref desk has access to Kyiv Post, or maybe someone who speaks Ukrainian/Russian could do a search in those languages? Either way, if we don't include Ukrainian regions, I don't think we should include Gaugazia. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 19:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Quite right. Kwamikagami (對話) 06:08, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Well I'd prefer to highlight the Ukrainian areas, but so long as we don't have a list, I'm in favour of removing Gaugazia. The situation may become clearer when (if?) Ukraine gets around to a new language law like they intend to. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 00:54, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I uploaded map, which I think is the best in this situation. We can't say that russian in secessional entities is official because their officiality is disputed, for example in Abkhazia by Georgian government's as well as UN, and other countries (except four of them) view, there is two official languages — Georgian and Abkhazian, but meanwhile by Russian or Nicaraguan goverment there only russian and abkhazian. So in this situation there is a question which official view we must accept. In my opinion the best way is to choise majority's view (because that's also democratic :D) and that will be more neutral, acceptable, and less controversial.--g. balaxaZe★ 10:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Neutrality implies we look at the world as it is, not how we would want it to be. If a reader was to walk into a government office in Sukhumi they'd be able to use Russian. This is quite undisputable. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 19:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Chipmunkdavis I understand your view, but who knows that it will be like that ? I think it's just guesstimate, and what if a reader was to walk into a "government office" in Sukhumi and they'd be able to use English (may be there someone knows English, why not). --g. balaxaZe★ 20:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

That argument makes little sense. If we're relying on individual personal experience, we could ask the same question of literally anywhere in the world. Chipmunkdavis (對話) 00:54, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Chipmunkdavis, you appear to be confusing languages accepted in some regions (contingent on the region) as opposed to the "official language". Try reading the Ukrainian constitution, not the Wikipedia article on the constitution. Ukrainian is still the official language, making allowances for regional acceptance of other languages. The process is extremely convoluted and given to corruption (i.e., councils can 'recognise' another language as being 'official' even if it represents less than 10% of the local population as required). The status of acceptance of regional languages is currently still under dispute and you are using a crystal ball if you imagine for one moment that you can definitively colour any regions based on any form of your 'real world' postulation. If you can show me definitive proof of Russian being 'recognised' in any regions or even towns, by all means produce the reliably sourced evidence. Until such a time, try sticking to known reality, not guesstimates. --Iryna Harpy (對話) 10:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Typo

Hi, there is a typo in the image. It says "Russian in a defacto working language". I think you mean "is". Sincerely, Taketa (對話) 09:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Abkhazia

Also, I was wondering why Abkhazia and some other regions are being deleted by some people. Let us, for argument sake, say they are not independent. Georgia, and every single country in the world, recognises it as an autonomous republic. This autonomous republic has the official language Russian. Should this not be mentioned? -- Taketa (對話) 09:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

By the Georgian Constitution the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia has two official languages — Georgian and Abkhazian ! See source - Article 8 --g. balaxaZe★ 12:11, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Removal of disputed territories

Turnless, please stop slow edit-warring the version of the map eliminating internationally disputed territories back in. The map depicts the borders of countries, ergo your edits end up as misrepresentations of where those borders are making them look as if areas recognised as being part of another sovereign state are all part of one big, happy nation-state known as the RF. As it stands, depicting the whole of Ukraine as if Russian were a de facto working language is OR/SYNTH.

If you believe that the BOLD move of introducing unrecognised states is in need of discussion, follow BRD and join in the discussion on this talk page.

My own evaluation is that, even outside of 'facts on the ground' surrounding states with limited and no international recognition, the depiction of Ukraine alone is SYNTH and a breach of NOR. Yes, there are Russophones in eastern and central Ukraine, but this is a reflection of the institutionalisation of Russian from the period of the Russian Empire, and the post-Soviet 'hanging on' of the use of the Russian language: it does not attest to its being a recognised 'working language'. The map is a fiasco not backed up by reliable sources. These problems have been revisited by editors since 2014, yet no sourced changes have been made other than POV changes claiming that Russian is a de facto 'working' language just about over the majority of 2 continents. 'Working language'? In what reliably sourced sense? --Iryna Harpy (對話) 07:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

This map in no way depicts the disputed territories as "one big, happy nation-state known as the RF". The territories coloured blue are in fact regions with Russian as an official language. If you would read my my upload descriptions then you would see that I called for the issue of colouring disputed region to the talk page, which I am glad you did. By the way, all of the points you brought up - SYNTH, BRD and anything else you pointed out is applied towards Wikipedia not Commons. Commons has a different system not identical to Wikipedia's so none of that is valid. One issue with the change is Transnistria as even by Moldovan constitution - Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian are all the official languages. Also on Commons there is no NPOV as there is on Wikipedia. Please see Disputed territories, maps with issues of disputed territories both have a right to be on Commons. Instead of changing this map Alex Khimich or anyone else interested should upload it as another file and let the different Wikipedia sites decide which one they should use. Once again, this is not Wikipedia, it's Commons. The file should be changed back to its previous form. --Turnless (對話) 21:25, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I know the difference between Wikipedia's policies as opposed to Wiki Commons, however you don't have any form of ownership over the map. If you bother to look at the original version, the creator's legend said nothing of 'working', 'de facto', 'de jure' or d' anything else. It has remained in place on a number of Wikipedias on the assumption that it is a good faith, sourced representation of the use of Russian. Instead, it has been turned into a a highly politicised edit warring map which no longer has anything to do with what it was originally intended to represent, so I applaud Alex Khimich's attempts to rectify the situation and turn it back into a sourced, relevant and easily comprehended map for readers of the articles it is used on again.

My suggestion is that, if you are so attached to the misleading map, that you upload your preferred version into another name space as it will make it easier not to have to go through the various articles and substitute them with a usable map (or simply remove them as OR). Reverting it to some previous form of unsourced, incomprehensible piece of nonsense is not an option. --Iryna Harpy (對話) 22:52, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

The issue that Alex Khimich brought up is not about the wording, it is about the colour of Crimea and other disputed regions. I myself find the wording 'de facto working language' quite confusing and odd. Instead of 'applauding' a user for changing maps simply because of his personal POV, I would suggest you once again review Commons' policies and upload a new version. I am definitely not in any way 'attached' to the map as I am not its uploader, I just don't want the information presented on the file to be changed unfairly, which is why I encourage you or Alex Khimich to upload a version of your own. --Turnless (對話) 23:10, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Why are you suddenly confused by the term de facto? The version you have been reverting to uses "de facto working language". The only thing confusing about that descriptor is 'working language'. What does 'working language' mean? I've never encountered a descriptor of this ilk before. Please take a look at the "Official languages" in the infobox for Australia as an example. Australia does not have an official language: English is the de facto language because it doesn't have de jure status per this section. See, also United States (read this section).

Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian, but there are recognised regional languages. Outside of Russian having been an official language, the current map is incorrect in that, by now, in Western Ukraine generations growing up since Independence might be able to understand Russian to enough of a degree to have been able to understand it in as much as is necessary to follow debates, etc., but an ability to speak Russian outside of high school level Russian does not meet with anything except a 'barely working' knowledge. I can live with that because there hasn't been a census since 2001, and it gives people an indication of where Russian kind of/sort of is an understood language. In fact, I suspect that the best representation would be a different shade of blue for where it is a co-official language because, at the moment, the map is confusing due to not distinguishing between the only official language and co-official. However, aside from grammatical tweaks, the current version is a step in the right direction. --Iryna Harpy (對話) 01:06, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I said that I find the term 'de facto working language as a whole' odd not just de facto. Once again, I uploaded the map not because of the wording of the sidebars, but because of the depiction of disputed territories which is what the issue was about in the first place. The user who added the term most likely took it from [1]. You keep bringing up Ukraine as well to which I would just say that the Russian language is very widely used in the country as a whole. Depicting separate regions in this map is quite unnecessary unless they are autonomous. --Turnless (對話) 01:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I've agreed with you about the 'working language' business. If you read my response again carefully, I also agreed that leaving Ukraine as it stands is fine in order to represent how widely Russian is used as lingua franca. Thirdly, I agree that the legend is grammatically unsound, as was the legend on the precursor map. The previous depiction was informationally unsound because it only described all of the areas depicted as having Russian as an official language, but being misleading in that it looks as if it is the one and only official language. Having regions with little to no international recognition (i.e., the use of 'occupied' is POV, therefore I believe it would be better served as official language in a disputed region).

Again, I do believe that 'co-official' is edifying as 'official' also used in a POV manner, implying that all of the territories marked in dark blue only have one official language, being Russian. Reasonable codification as is used for the French language map File:New-Map-Francophone World.PNG and the Spanish language map File:Countries with Spanish as an official language.svg are actually make the status of the language far more clear cut. --Iryna Harpy (對話) 04:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I entirely agree with you here. A map should be uploaded that has your suggested changes with the co-official status and the changed heading for disputed regions. --Turnless (對話) 04:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I also think that the lurid violet is unnecessarily POINTy for disputed regions, distracting from the purpose of the map. The standard for disputed regions is cross-hatching, so those regions should only be a slightly different shade of blue with cross-hatching.

As this isn't an SVG (and I couldn't be bothered going through the learning curve), I might give it a try on photoshop in the next few days. All I really need to do is grab an earlier version and do what's necessary myself. By now, the image has been degraded. Who knows how many generations it is from the original. I'll give you a ping once I've done this so that we can confer on the wording. --Iryna Harpy (對話) 05:06, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Great! Thank you for co-operating on this issue! I will be looking forward to hearing from you in regards to the new file. --Turnless (對話) 05:15, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Iryna, a few days are now almost a year?:) I also agree that violet is distracting from the original purpose of the map, better would be just two colors. Are you still working on that? Jirka.h23 (對話) 14:33, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Jirka.h23 I can make this map in SVG and with hatching for occupied or unrecognized areas, but first I'm asking users for answer to my section below.--g. balaxaZe★ 22:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

"De facto spoken language" is a bizarre phrase. What does it contrast with? Which languages are spoken without being de facto spoken? Apart from Israel, these are all countries where Russian is a de facto working language (i.e., used in government and schools) according to Ethnologue. (For Ukraine they list it as a provincial language, because of Crimea, and "2 Provincial" takes precedent over "3 Working language", but of course both apply.)

We have two choices here: either select countries where a certain percentage of the population speaks Russian, or select countries where Russian is an official, working, etc. language. Or both. But if it's just "spoken", then we need to color in the US, Antarctica, and everywhere else people speak Russian. But then, that's why this map is not used on English WP despite being in English. Kwamikagami (對話) 07:32, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Once again, totally disagree with working because it implies official usage. Provincial status was cancelled 2 years ago for Russian in Ukraine. Most of the countries from former ussr do not use it in documents, far more even in schools. Some countries recognised russian as occupation language used by ussr, some countries of former ussr (whose language was not slavic-bounded with russian) have now children even not understanding russian, even spoken might been doubtful. Of what kinda working do you speak? What does mean working? I live in Ukraine, I do not work with that language but i use it very frequently unofficially, sometimes people speak it but all schools, all universities are ukrainian. Carriers of that language in Ukraine also use it only as home language, sometimes language between colleagues but officially in paperhood, official meetings ukrainian used. We call it ukrainization, opposite to what russia did with russification lots of countries did in this way to fence russia out with their chauvinistic behaviour. We have russian from tv, internet, and from people having come from russia decades ago. Do you live in one of the green countries? Working it may be only for Belorussia where Lukashenko intentionally killed belarusian while targeting to be one of the ussr v2 leaders, he introduced it in universities, schools, etc., but yet, he recognised this was mistake. — Alex Khimich (對話) 00:14, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

@Alex Khimich: Source for "working language" provided above. I understand that this is a fluid situation and Ethnologue may be (and probably is) out of date. However, when people start reverting each other, each claiming to be right but providing no verifiable evidence, then we need to follow sources. Can you find an up-to-date source for the official and unofficial status of Russian in the former USSR? Doesn't need to be in English, but does need to be reliable (i.e. not a partisan screed). A single source would be nice, because then we can expect their definitions to be consistent across the various countries. Failing that, sources for each of the countries would be nice. Or, perhaps a recent source for Ukraine if your broader source is generally good but is out-of-date for Ukraine.

We've been arguing over this for a decade, and the only good solution is to provide data that we can refer to when people try to change the map. I'm intrigued by the legal status of Russian, and would welcome a solution to this conflict. Kwamikagami (對話) 22:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Russian is still regionally official in Ukraine, even discounting Crimea. AFAICT, the bill to repeal the status of Russian was never signed into law. Kwamikagami (對話) 00:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Low quality map

After these years, still I can't understand what means that "de facto spoken language" here? I am from Georgia and I can assure that Russian is not spoken language or second language here. Also does it mean fluent Russian or only "Ti at kuda russkiy" phrase? If one will not provide any reliable source about that "spoken language" (in Georgia or in any other colored country) I will change map to the more realistic face. This file is used in many Wikipedias and it is unacceptable to use such (unsourced) content.--g. balaxaZe★ 21:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Here I provide the most reliable source to prove my words: According to the 2014 Georgian Census out of 3,713,804 people (excluding occupied Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region) Georgian language is native to 3,254,852 (87.6%) and Russian is native to only 45,920 (1.2%).--g. balaxaZe★ 21:52, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Giorgi Balakhadze, it is great to hear that are you're willing to cooperate to improve this map into svg (answer above). I want to firstly highlight, that I am not the creator of this map. As for Georgia, I am not resident, however last year was this country attended by my good friend, and Russian could use with no problem and communicate with it practically anywhere in Tbilisi. You know, I do understand, that it should be more specified what does mean: "de facto spoken language/de facto working language" description. I would suggest, that we could specify that with sources indicating knowledge of Russian in these countries (e.g. countries with official Russian as a language and countries with knowledge of Russian e.g. above 10 %). A clue is for example: here. Sincerely, Jirka.h23 (對話) 09:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Jirka.h23 I understand what you say about your friend, but let's be encyclopedic, Tbilisi is not all Georgia, and also personal experience isn't valid source for a map, we need to prove that (even if we speak only about Tbilisi apart from rest of Georgia). The last part of your comment seems good to me, it could be great if had something similar but more new not 2004 and with data source as well.--g. balaxaZe★ 17:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I could not find one universal source, so I guess we will have to use multiple sources. As for Georgia, we could use this reliable academic source from Timothy K. Blauvelt, professor of Ilia State University in Georgia. Citations:
"Based on data from the Caucasus Research Resource Center’s annual ‘Caucasus Barometer’ (CB) household survey 2008 as well as from their 2009 and 2011 Media Surveys and EUSurveys, the overall level of Russian proficiency among the population of Georgia is quite high. .. The percentage of therespondents in Georgia with high Russian proficiency across all of these surveys is consistentlyaround 70% (in a range from 67 - 76%), which is approximately the same level of USSR-wideRussian proficiency reported in the last Soviet census in 1989. Among residents of the capital city of Tbilisi, who make up nearly a third of the overall popu-lation of the city, the knowledge of Russianis particularly widespread, with nearly 90% claiming fluency. The urban population of other citiesand towns is somewhat less, but still above the national average (around 75 – 80%), while Russianknowledge in the rural areas is consistently much lower (around 50 – 55%). These overall very high percentages, and especially those in the capital, demonstrate that Russian knowledge is still pronounced in contemporary Georgia, especially when compared to the state of English knowledge,which for the same levels of pro-ficiency average only about 19% for the overall population."
Jirka.h23 (對話) 14:21, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

So are you still willing to create a new svg map, without this violet color? This is quite disturbing, as isnt relevant what this map is expressing. I would update this map, however I can not overwrite this file. It looks like somebody lock it to prevent any change, but why? Jirka.h23 (對話) 14:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Jirka.h23 Thanks for cooperation, that is good source, now I'll upload map and will mention you there to discuss other details of the map.--g. balaxaZe★ 22:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Accuracy

Svalbard, Israel, Mongolia, Moldova, and Armenia? Really? Unrelated, what of Artsakh? PrussianOwl (對話) 07:37, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Datasource missing

{{edit request}} Please add {{datasource missing}} to the description, as no source for the visualised data is presented and it is therefore unverifiable how accurate this map is. Nederlandse Leeuw (對話) 06:35, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter: map has been abandoned because it was frozen in the middle of a POV dispute. Kwamikagami (對話) 08:27, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

 完成 The Squirrel Conspiracy (對話) 05:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)