Ex 47 Read the following carefully, consulting the dictionary, if necessary. Locate the main idea in each paragraph as you go along. Write a summary of the article

LANGUAGE OF COMMUNICATION

The Soviet Union has no official language. All the languages are equal, irrespective of how many people use them. Historically, the situation is the following: Russian — as the language spoken by the country's largest nation, the language of a people with long years of statehood, with rich revolutionary traditions, and with a high degree of economic, scientific and cultural development, and highly developed social relations—has become the language of communication in the USSR.

The great popularity of the Russian language has made classical and Soviet Russian literature accessible to everyone living in the USSR. It has also made works by people of other nationalities in the country and abroad accessible through Russian translations. All the great literature of the world has been translated into Russian. A quarter of the world's scientific literature appears in Russian. The Chukchi writer Yuri Rytheu says this about the Russian language: "Russian has allowed those of us writing in different languages to know one another well. The reciprocal enrichment of our literary experience flows through the Russian language and through books in Russian. The publication of any book in our country in Russian means access to the general readership."

The importance of the Russian language in the USSR is not limited •to culture. It plays a tremendously important role in the political and economic spheres of international cooperation. Comprehensive economic and cultural cooperation between nations and the exchange of political and technical knowledge leads to the enrichment of languages, and brings them up to the current level of social progress.

The Constitution of the USSR grants the people the right to use their own mother tongue and languages spoken by other Soviet peoples. Official correspondence and legal proceedings are conducted in the languages of the respective Union or Autonomous Republic, Autonomous Region, Autonomous Area or in the language spoken by the majority of the local population.

SPEECH AND COMPOSITION