Sadly, even positive things turn into negative ones with the Russians. They are very proud of their language, for instance, and keep saying that it’s the richest, most beautiful language in the world. That’s obviously not true, since Russian has a very limited vocabulary, is very monotonous, and is not in the least melodic but who cares, these things are never reasonable.
This could be a good thing: taking pride in the language, working to preserve the literature in the language, funding scholarship, supporting libraries, etc. The nation could unite around this shared project and foster good, positive feelings of cultivating the language together. This is one of the really great things that a nation-state can offer. And there are examples of this happening in other places. The Jews got together and recovered the dead Hebrew. Ukrainians are relearning their language with joy and excitement. Quechua scholars bring the language of their ancestors to students around the world. How hard can it be to do something like that with Russian?
But what do the Russians do with their linguistic pride? They become aggrieved that not everybody in the world wants to speak their language and start invading countries to force them to speak it. Once again, an intrinsically good thing degenerated into gloomy suspiciousness and a carefully cultivated sense of moral outrage.
Gosh, if the Russians could only get over being upset with the rest of the world for two seconds, maybe they could even do something good for a change.
Clarissa's Blog 
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