According to article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan, Russian is recognized as the second official language of Tajikistan; the official language of inter-ethnic communication (; ) in the country. Russian had previously lost its official status after Tajikistan's independence in late 1991, which was then restored with the Constitution. Approximately 90% of the population of Tajikistan speaks Russian at various levels. The varieties of Russian spoken in Tajikistan are referred to by scholars as ''Tajik(istani) Russian''  and it shares some similarities with ''Uzbek(istani) Russian'', such as morphological differences and the lexical differences like the use of words ''урюк'' for a wild apricot or ''кислушка'' for rhubarb. Previously, from the creation of the Tajikistan SSR until Tajik became the official language of the Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic on July 22, 1989, the only official language of the republic was the Russian language, and the Tajik language had only the status of the “national language”.