During the Soviet period, language studies were considerably widened to include specific language characteristics, the connection of language with the process of thinking, and other linguistic topics such as comparative linguistics. 

There are over 100 minority languages spoken in Russia today, the most popular of which is Tartar, spoken by more than 3 percent of the country's population. Other minority languages include Ukrainian, Chuvash, Bashkir, Mordvin and Chechen. Although few of these populations make up even 1 percent of the Russian population, these languages are prominent in key regional areas. 

Although Russian is the lingua franca of the Russian Federation, Article 26 of the 1993 constitution stipulates that "each person has the right to use his native language and to the free choice of language of communication, education, instruction, and creativity." Article 68 affirms the right of all peoples in the Russian Federation "to retain their mother tongue and to create conditions for its study and development." Although such constitutional provisions often prove meaningless, the non-Slavic tongues of Russia have retained their vitality, and they even have grown more prevalent in some regions. This trend is especially visible as autonomy of language becomes an important symbol of the struggle to preserve distinct ethnic identities. 

In the 1990s, many non-Russian ethnic groups have issued laws or decrees giving their native languages equal status with Russian in their respective regions of the Russian Federation. In the mid-1990s, some 80 percent of the non-Slavic nationalities — or 12 percent of the population of the Russian Federation — did not speak Russian as their first language.

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