Russian has lost more ground than any other language over the past 20 years as newly independent former Soviet states have attempted to assert their linguistic sovereignty.過去20年裡俄語使用人群的減少幅度超過了其他任何語言，主因是獨立後的前蘇聯加盟共和國試圖確立各自的語言主權。
The fading influence of the tongue highlights the fading influence of Moscow amid efforts by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to reassert the former superpower’s importance on the world stage with its military interventions in Ukraine and Syria.俄語影響力的下降凸顯出莫斯科的影響力走下坡路，而其背景是俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)付出種種努力，欲憑藉其對烏克蘭和敘利亞的軍事幹預，來重新確立這個前超級大國在世界舞臺上的重要性。
The use of Russian has retreated fastest in Kazakhstan, where in 2016 just 20.7 per cent of people said they typically spoke Russian at home, compared with 33.7 per cent in 1994, according to data from national censuses and the UN, collated by Euromonitor International, a research group.由研究集團歐睿國際(Euromonitor International)整理的來自各國人口普查和聯合國的數據顯示，俄語使用人數在哈薩克斯坦下降最快。2016年該國只有20.7%的人表示在家裡通常會說俄語，而1994年這一比例為33.7%。
The findings come in the week that Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, said the central Asian country would convert the Kazakh alphabet to Latin script, arguing that the transition to a Russian-style Cyrillic script in 1940 was motivated by “political reasons”.就在這一研究發現公佈的同一周，哈薩克斯坦總統努爾蘇丹•納扎爾巴耶夫(Nursultan Nazarbayev)表示，這個中亞國家將把哈薩克字母表改為拉丁字母。他辯稱，1940年哈薩克語改用俄式西里爾文字是出於“政治原因”。
Estonia and Latvia, two of the three former Soviet Baltic states, have each seen drops of about 10 percentage points in the proportion of their population citing Russian as their first language since 1994, with Russian speakers in Latvia falling from 40.5 per cent to 29.8 per cent, and those in Estonia from 33.3 per cent to 23.4 per cent, as the first chart shows.如圖表一所示，在前蘇聯的三個波羅的海國家中，愛沙尼亞和拉脫維亞自1994年以來稱俄語是其第一語言的人口比例均已減少約10個百分點。其中，拉脫維亞講俄語的人群從40.5%跌落至29.8%，愛沙尼亞的比例從33.3%降至23.4%。
Ukraine has seen a similar slide in Russian speakers, from 33.9 per cent in 1994 to 24.4 per cent last year, while Russian-speaking minorities have also declined in Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.烏克蘭講俄語人群的比例也出現了類似下滑，從1994年的33.9%跌至去年的24.4%。而在阿塞拜疆、立陶宛、土庫曼斯坦和烏茲別克斯坦，講俄語的少數人群比例也出現了下滑。
In Georgia, which went to war with Russia in 2008, Russian speakers have declined from 6.4 per cent of the population to just 1.1 per cent. Mikheil Saakashvili, the country’s president between 2008 and 2013, announced a plan for English to replace Russian as its second language in the wake of the conflict. 在2008年曾與俄羅斯發生戰爭的格魯吉亞，講俄語的人口比例已從6.4%降至只有1.1%。在那場衝突之後，2008年至2013年期間擔任格魯吉亞總統的米哈伊爾•薩卡什維利(Mikheil Saakashvili)，曾宣佈一個用英語取代俄語作為該國第二語言的計劃。
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Chris Weafer, senior partner at Macro-Advisory, a Moscow-based consultancy specialising in the former Soviet states, said the decline of Russian and the rise of local tongues such as Kazakh, Latvian and Ukrainian was driven by the political forces unleashed by the break-up of the USSR. 總部位於莫斯科、專業研究前蘇聯國家的宏觀諮詢(Macro-Advisory)的高級合夥人克里斯•威弗(Chris Weafer)表示，俄語的衰落和哈薩克語、拉脫維亞語及烏克蘭語等地方語種的崛起，都受到了蘇聯解體所釋放的政治力量推動。
“Countries were held captive under Soviet rule and when they broke free they wanted to start shedding the trappings of captivity, including language,” he said.“[This was] partly to distance them from Russian influence, both cultural and especially political, [amid a] fear that keeping the Russian language would make it easier for Moscow to exert influence on their politics [with] the threat of Russian propaganda and news broadcasts influencing the domestic agenda.”他說：“當年在蘇聯統治下，這些國家被挾持了。當它們掙脫束縛後，它們希望擺脫被挾持的外在標誌，包括語言在內。” “（此舉）部分是為了從文化上、尤其是政治上擺脫俄羅斯的影響。這些國家擔心保留俄語將會讓莫斯科更容易對其政治施加影響，它們面對著俄語宣傳和新聞廣播影響國內議程的威脅。”
More positively, some countries turned away from Russian as part of a strategy to create political alliances with the West and Asia and attract investment, he added. 他還表示，從積極的方向說，一些國家疏遠俄語是整體戰略的一部分，目的是與西方及亞洲打造政治同盟，並吸引投資。
Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital, a Moscow-based investment bank, agreed, saying: “Where Russian was the lingua franca of the Soviet Union, since 1991 there has been a desire on the part of the new national leaders to develop their nationalism in order to give their states more stability. The Baltics hated the Russification that had been forced on them.”總部位於莫斯科的投行晉新資本(Renaissance Capital)的全球首席經濟學家查爾斯•羅伯遜(Charles Robertson)認同這一看法，他說：“俄語曾是蘇聯的通用語言，但是自1991年以來，獨立後的各國領導人一直有一個渴望，那就是發展各自的民族認同，以加強自己國家的穩定。波羅的海國家尤其憎恨當年強加在他們身上的俄羅斯化。”
Mr Robertson also pointed to the “significant flow” of ethnic Russians, particularly from central Asia, back to Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s as a factor in the decline of Russian in some states. 羅伯遜還指出，上世紀90年代和本世紀初俄羅斯族裔迴流俄羅斯的“大規模流動”——尤其是從中亞迴流，也是導致部分國家俄語衰落的因素。
One country, Belarus, has defiantly moved in the opposite direction, however. Whereas in 1994 just under half of the population cited Russian as their main language, by last year 71 per cent did.不過，有一個國家——白俄羅斯——出現了完全相反的動向。1994年白俄羅斯只有半數人口自稱俄語是主要語言，而到了去年有71%的人這麼說。
Mr Weafer believes that the “push and pull effect” worked the opposite way in Belarus compared with the other post-Soviet states, with the West largely opposing Alexander Lukashenko, president since 1994 who, a year later, oversaw a referendum that put the Russian language on an equal footing with Belarusian. 宏觀諮詢的威弗認為，與其他前蘇聯國家相比，白俄羅斯的“推拉效應”是反向的。西方基本上反對從1994年起掌權至今的白俄羅斯總統亞歷山大•盧卡申科(Alexander Lukashenko)。後者在1995年舉行了一次公投，將俄語置於和白俄羅斯語同樣的地位。
“Unlike the Baltics, Georgia and Ukraine, no effort was made by the EU or US to engage with Belarus. Instead the attitude in the West was one of ‘last dictator in Europe’ and they shunned him and the country, hence Minsk had to stay close to Moscow,” Mr Weafer said.威弗表示：“與波羅的海國家、格魯吉亞及烏克蘭不同，歐盟和美國從未試圖與白俄羅斯打交道。相反，西方的態度是他是‘歐洲最後的獨裁者’之一，他們對他和白俄羅斯不屑一顧。因此，明斯克不得不靠攏莫斯科。”
Mr Robertson cited the “extremely close” links between the two countries, such as the easy access Belarusians have had to Russia’s labour market, as well as a lack of the nationalism seen in other post-Soviet states, as factors behind the increasing dominance of the Russian language. 羅伯遜提到，俄語在白俄羅斯主導地位上升的幕後因素，除了兩國間“極為密切”的聯繫（白俄羅斯人可以輕而易舉地進入俄羅斯就業市場），還由於白俄羅斯沒有出現其他前蘇聯國家的那種民族認同。
“There wasn’t the same nationalism in Belarus. They had never even had a year of independence [before the break-up of the USSR]. They are called white Russians, they weren’t really seen as something else,” Mr Robertson said. 羅伯遜表示：“白俄羅斯沒有出現同樣的民族認同。（在蘇聯解體以前，）他們從來沒有獨立過。他們被稱為‘白’俄羅斯人，他們從未被真正視為其他民族。”
Elsewhere, the Euromonitor data point to Spanish increasing its stranglehold in much of Latin America at the expense of indigenous languages. 在其他地區，歐睿國際的數據顯示，西班牙語在拉美許多地區加強了主宰地位，取代了多種本土語言。
Although most countries in the region have long been viewed as Spanish speaking, minorities have continued to cite local tongues as their main language spoken at home. However, since 1994, these minorities have become smaller still. 儘管拉美多數國家長期被視為講西班牙語的地區，但少數族群一直稱，他們在家裡說的主要語言是本土語言。然而，自1994年以來，這些少數族群的規模已進一步縮小。
In Bolivia, the proportion of people citing Aymara as their first language has almost halved from 23.2 per cent to 12.4 per cent in that period. With Quechua, an indigenous language now favoured by 17 per cent of Bolivians, also in decline, the proportion of the population speaking Spanish as their first language has risen from 55.3 per cent to 65.3 per cent, as shown in the second chart.在玻利維亞，將艾馬拉語(Aymara)作為第一語言的人的比例在此期間幾乎腰斬，從23.2%降至12.4%。說凱楚阿語(Quechua)的人數也出現下降——這是一種現在受到17%的玻利維亞人青睞的本土語言。其結果是把西班牙語作為第一語言的人口比例從55.3%升至65.3%，如圖表二所示。
In neighbouring Peru the use of Quechua as a first language has declined from 16.2 to 11.6 per cent of the population, while in Guatemala Spanish is now almost as widely spoken as a first language as the various local tongues. 在鄰國祕魯，將凱楚阿語作為第一語言的人口比例從16.2%下降至11.6%，而在危地馬拉，將西班牙語作為第一語言的人口幾乎和說各種本土語言的人口一樣多。
In some countries indigenous languages are in danger of being squeezed out altogether. In Chile, for instance, they are now favoured by just 0.4 per cent of the population, down from 1.7 per cent in 1994, while in Ecuador indigenous tongues other than Quechua are now preferred by just 0.2 per cent of people, from 2.4 per cent in 1994. 在一些國家，本土語言面臨整體消亡的風險。例如，在智利，只有0.4%的人口在說本土語言，而1994年的該比例是1.7%，而在厄瓜多爾，只有0.2%的人口在說除了凱楚阿語以外的本土語言，低於1994年的2.4%。
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Mr Robertson believed the increasing dominance of Spanish was being partly driven by businesses, which favour a common language to facilitate cross-border trade across the Americas. 羅伯遜認為，西班牙語越來越占主導地位在一定程度上受到企業的推動，後者青睞一種通用語言以促進美洲各國的跨境貿易。
This trend is strengthened further by the rise of Spanish as the second language of the US, he added: as of last year, the language was preferred by 13.4 per cent of people in the US, up from 8.9 per cent in 1994.他補充稱，美國將西班牙作為第二語言的人數增多，進一步增強了上述趨勢。截至去年，美國有13.4%的人口首選西班牙語，高於1994年的8.9%。
The Spanish language’s tightening grip on Latin America is in contrast to the pattern in much of the world, where heightened levels of migration have chipped away at the ubiquity of national tongues.西班牙語在拉美日益佔據主導地位與世界許多地區的情況形成反差——較高的移民水平使這些地區的官方語言不再無處不在。
This has been particularly notable in many English-speaking countries, such as the UK, Australia and Canada, as well as the US.這在英國、澳大利亞和加拿大以及美國等說英語國家體現得尤為明顯。
English has, though, made headway as a first language in Singapore, where it is now favoured by 36.1 per cent of the population, up from 19.8 per cent in 1994, with Chinese declining in popularity. 然而，新加坡將英語作為第一語言的人口比例從1994年的19.8%大幅上升至36.1%，與此同時華語的使用人數下降。
Mr Robertson attributed this to the efforts of Lee Kwan Yew, the city-state’s founding father, who ruled for three decades until 1990, to promote English as a common language in order to facilitate the integration of its ethnically mixed population.羅伯遜將這歸因於新加坡國父李光耀(Lee Kwan Yew)推動英語成為通用語、以促進各族群人口融合的努力。李光耀統治新加坡30年，直至1990年退休。