About the Russian language
Fact sheet
Quick facts about the Russian language
| Countries where Russian is spoken: | Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Transnistria, Abchazia, South Ossetia and Turkmenistan . |
| Countries and regions where Russian is an official language: | Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Transnistria, Abchazia, South Ossetia. |
| Number of native speakers: | Around 175 million people. |
| Russians call their language : | Русский язык Russky yezik (The Russian language) |
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Alphabet: |
Cyrillic |
| Number of letters in the alphabet: | 33 (from А to Я) |
| Regulation: | Росси́йская Акаде́мия Нау́к Rossijskaja Akademia Nauk The Russian Academy of Sciences |
| Classification: (Language family) |
Indo-European --------> Slavic ----------> East-Slavic ---------------------> Russian |
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Russian is very similar to:. |
Belarussian and Ukrainian |
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Russian is also similar to: |
Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovak, Czech en Polish. |
| Russian is a distant relative of: | English, Latin, Greek, Irish, Persian, Hindi, Armenian, Lithuanian. |
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Introduction
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 The Russian alphabet Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, a writing system that was developed in the 9th century by Byzantine missionaries who preached the gospel to the slavic tribes. Cyrillic is based on the Greek alphabet (with which it still shares many similarities) with additional letters to accomodate for the specific sounds of the Slavic languages. There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet and it is read from left to right, just like the Latin alphabet. Some of these 33 letters are identical to the letters of the Latin alphabet (with the difference that uppercase and lowercase letters often have the exact same shape), others are false friends (resemble Latin letters, yet are pronounced differently) while others look exotic at first glance. Handwritten Russian and print letters in italics differ greatly from non-cursive printed letters. Read more about the alphabet.... |
| Geographic distribution Russia: The Russian language is the most widely spoken and sole official language of Russia. Russian is spoken hroughout Russia, even in those regions where indigenous languages (Mostly Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages) are spoken, people will still speak Russian because it is the language of government, education and trade. The Russian language dominates public life throughout Russia. Ukraine and Belarus: Russian is also spoken in the former soviet republics Ukraine and Belarus. In these now independent states Russian is still spoken, especially in the larger cities. During the communist era, Moscow enforced a policy of russification. The Russian language had to be the standard for government, science, trade and education, also in Belarus and Ukraine. So it became the Russian language and not Ukrainian and Belarusian which dominated public life. The effects of that policy are still present today. For example Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, is infamous for hardly speaking Belarusian, he speaks mostly Russian. In the borderlands between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus transitional dialects are spoken, which are for example half Russian and half Ukrainian. Baltic states: In the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, many people speak Russian. Almost everyone speaks Russian as a second language, although the popularity of Russian is declining among the younger generation, who prefers to speak English or German as a second language. Surprisingly, a third of the population of these countries speaks Russian as a first language. These people migrated tot the Baltic states during the communist era as part of the policy of russification. The communist leaders believed that if people from the Baltic states were stimulated to migrate to other parts of the Soviet union and Russians were stimulated to migrate to the Baltic states, the population became more mixed, which might surpress nationalist and separatist tendencies. After Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia became independent countries, most of the Russians stayed. They live mostly in the eastern part of the countries. There are entire cities which are predominantly Russian. For example, in the Latvian city of Daugavpils, 54% compared to only 19% Latvians. The Caucasus: During the 19th century, Russia firmly established her hegemony over the Caucasus region. Today, many Russian still live in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, just like in the Baltic states. Russian is widely spoken as a second language. For example, according to a 2010 census, 70% of people in Armenia could speak Russian (either as a first or second language). Central-Asia: Centuries ago the czars established Russian presence in Central-Asia. If you travel today through the now independent states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, you can make yourself understood in Russian. Eastern Europe: Russia's influence on Eastern Europe was never as strong as in the aforementioned countries. For most of their history, these countries were more oriented towards the west than to Russia. During the communist period, these countries became satellite states of the Soviet Union. They had strong ties with Russia, but they were not integrated in the soviet Union and did not undergo russification. In most Eastern European states, Russia was a compulsory subject in secondary education. As a result, many people (at least those who went to high school before 1989) speak Russian as a second language. Among the younger generations knowledge of Russian is declining. They rather speak English or German as a second language. For example Angela Merkel, the German prime minister, who was born and raised in the former GDR, is fluent in Russian. If you travel through Poland, Czechia (Czech Republic), Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, there is a good chance you will meet people who speak Russian. |
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Language family
Russian compared with other Slavic languages.
Russian compared with other Indo-European languages
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| Grammar Russian belongs to the nominative-accusative languages. This means that words indicating the subject of a sentence have a neutral uninflected form. As soon as that same word is given another function in the sentence, it will have to be inflected. This phenomenon is called inflection or declension. The English language also has inflection, for example with personal pronouns. You don't say ‘I see he’, but you say ‘I see him’. Him is the inflected form of he when he is the direct object. But other word forms such as nouns or adjectives are not subject to inflection in English. You say ‘I see the black cat’. Neither the word black nor the word cat now changes, despite the black cat being the direct object. In Russian however, the words black and cat in this semtence would change under the influence of their function in the sentence Russian is a highly inflected language, which means that many word types are subject to inflection. Much more so than in English. Nouns and adjectives are also subject to inflection. Even your own name has to be inflected. Russian has six types of declensions or cases. |
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The shortest Russian words and the longest word
The longest Russian word |
"Oog om oog maakt de hele wereld blind.
Принцип «око за око» сделает весь мир слепым.
"
