Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an
East Slavic language
The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siber ...
mainly spoken in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. It is the
native language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
of the
Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
, and belongs to the
Indo-European language family
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic languages, Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits ...
. Besides Russia itself, Russian is an
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
in
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
,
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, and
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...
, and is used widely as a
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
throughout
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
,
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, and to some extent in the
Baltic states
The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...
.
It was the
''de facto'' language of the former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
,
[ Constitution and Fundamental Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1977: Section II, Chapter 6, Article 36] and continues to be used in public life with varying proficiency in all of the
post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
.
Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken
Slavic language
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto ...
,
and the most spoken
native language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
in Europe, as well as the most geographically widespread language of
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
.
It is the world's
seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's
eighth-most spoken language by total number of speakers. Russian is one of two official languages aboard the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
, as well as one of the six
official languages of the United Nations
The Official Languages of the United Nations are the six languages that are used in UN meetings and in which all official UN documents are written. In the six languages, four are the official language or national language of permanent members ...
.
Russian is written using the
Russian alphabet
The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. I ...
of the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
; it distinguishes between
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s with
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
secondary articulation
In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant. The secondary articulation of such co-articul ...
and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language. Another important aspect is the
reduction of
unstressed
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s.
Stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
, which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated
orthographically, though an optional
acute accent
The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...
may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between
homograph
A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
ic words (e.g.
– a 'lock'and
– a 'castle', or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names.
Classification
Russian is an
East Slavic language
The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siber ...
of the wider
Indo-European family
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
. It is a descendant of
Old East Slavic
Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian; be, старажытнаруская мова; russian: древнерусский язык; uk, давньоруська мова) was a language used during the 9th–15th centuries by East ...
, a language used in
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...
, which was a loose conglomerate of
East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid 13th centuries. From the point of view of
spoken language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
, its closest relatives are
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
,
Belarusian, and
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn l ...
, the other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as
Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and
Trasianka
Trasianka ( be, трасянка, ) refers to a mixed form of speech in which Belarusian and Russian elements and structures alternate arbitrarily.Hentschel, Gerd Belarusian and Russian in the Mixed Speech of Belarus. In Besters-Dilger, J. et a ...
in Belarus. An East Slavic
Old Novgorod dialect
Old Novgorod dialect (russian: древненовгородский диалект, translit=drevnenovgorodskij dialekt; also translated as Old Novgorodian or Ancient Novgorod dialect) is a term introduced by Andrey Zaliznyak to describe the dia ...
, although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
due to a common
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. In the 19th century (in Russia until 1917), the language was often called "
Great Russian" to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called "White Russian" and Ukrainian, then called "Little Russian".
The
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
(mainly abstract and literary words), principles of
word formation
In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term that can refer to either:
* the processes through which words can change (i.e. morphology), or
* the creation of new lexemes in a particular language
Morphological
A common method of word for ...
s, and, to some extent, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a developed and partly Russified form of the
South Slavic Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language.
Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...
language used by the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
. However, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with many different meanings. For details, see
Russian phonology
This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For an overview of dialects in the Russian language, see Russian dialects. Most descriptions of Russian describe it as hav ...
and
History of the Russian language
Russian is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European family. All Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Although no written rec ...
.
Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
,
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, German, French, Italian, and English, and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the east:
Uralic
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
,
Turkic,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, Arabic, and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
.
According to the
Defense Language Institute
The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution consisting of two separate entities which provide linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other f ...
in
Monterey, California
Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...
, Russian is classified as a
level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. It is also regarded by the
United States Intelligence Community
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
as a "hard target" language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in
U.S. world policy.
Standard Russian
Feudal divisions and conflicts between rival polities created obstacles to the exchange of goods and ideas between the
early medieval
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
Rus' principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences and for centuries prevented the establishment of any standardized "national" language. The gradual but steady emergence of the
Grand Principality of Moscow
The Grand Duchy of Moscow, Muscovite Russia, Muscovite Rus' or Grand Principality of Moscow (russian: Великое княжество Московское, Velikoye knyazhestvo Moskovskoye; also known in English simply as Muscovy from the Lati ...
(1263–1547) – later the
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I i ...
from 1547 – as the dominant and ever-expanding polity of the
Rus', necessitated the earliest attempts at standardization of the
East Slavic language
The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siber ...
based on the Moscow dialect.
Since then the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and the broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages that exist within the borders of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, and the later
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and Russian Federation.
The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the ''modern Russian literary language'' ( – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose in the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
and developed from the Moscow (
Middle or Central Russian) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language.
This occurred in spite of the fact that
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, the Western-oriented capital created by the "
Westernizing
Westernization (or Westernisation), also Europeanisation or occidentalization (from the ''Occident''), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, economi ...
" Tsar
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
, being the capital of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
for over 200 years.
Mikhail Lomonosov compiled the first book of
Russian grammar
Russian grammar employs an Indo-European inflexional structure, with considerable adaptation.
Russian has a highly inflectional morphology, particularly in nominals (nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals). Russian literary syntax is a combina ...
aimed at standardization in 1755. The
Russian Academy
The Russian Academy or Imperial Russian Academy (russian: Академия Российская, Императорская Российская академия) was established in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1783 by Empress Catherine II of Russia ...
's first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared in 1783. In the 18th and the late 19th centuries, a period known as the "Golden Age" of
Russian Literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
, the grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of the Russian language in a standardized literary form emerged.
Prior to the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was ...
, the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoise. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However, the peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky (1873–1935), who toward the end of his life wrote: “Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries.... We have almost no studies of lexical material or the syntax of Russian dialects.”
After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930:
The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism.... On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to the factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar and vocabulary... the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingua, in the context of developing heavy industry, a qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society.
By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the compulsory education system that was established by the
Soviet government
The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...
. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features (such as fricative in
Southern Russian dialects
Southern Russian is one of the main groups of Russian dialects.
Territory
* The territory of the ''primary formation'' (i.e. that consists of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is entirely 11 modern regions ( ...
) are still observed in colloquial speech.
Geographic distribution
file:Ruština_ve_světě.svg, Hemisphere view of countries where Russian is an official language and countries where it is spoken as a first or second language by at least 30% of the population but is not an official language
![Russian ex-USSR 2004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Russian_ex-USSR_2004.PNG)
In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the
CIS
Cis or cis- may refer to:
Places
* Cis, Trentino, in Italy
* In Poland:
** Cis, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central
** Cis, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, north
Math, science and biology
* cis (mathematics) (cis(''θ'')), a trigonome ...
and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the
seventh-largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese.
Russian is one of the
six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics.
Europe
![Ukraine census 2001 Russian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Ukraine_census_2001_Russian.svg)
In Belarus, Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the
Constitution of Belarus
The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus ( be, Канстытуцыя Рэспублікі Беларусь, russian: Конституция Республики Беларусь) is the ultimate law of Belarus. The Constitution is composed o ...
.
77% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.
In Estonia, Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook,
[ and is officially considered a foreign language.] School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, but as of 2019 promises have been given that such schools will remain open in the near future.
In Latvia, Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On February 18, 2012, Latvia held a constitutional referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools.
In Lithuania, Russian has no official or any legal status, but the use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as ''lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as the first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008).
In Moldova, Russian is considered to be the language of inter-ethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. 50% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.
According to the 2010 census in Russia, Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of the respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents).
In Ukraine, Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On September 5, 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed a new education law which bars primary education to all students in any language but Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia.
In the 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular those where the people speak a Slavic language
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto ...
and thereby have an edge in learning Russian (namely, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria).
Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the 20th century, each with its own flavor of language. The United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Norway, and Austria have significant Russian-speaking communities.
Asia
In Armenia, Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) is a multilateral treaty of the Council of Europe aimed at protecting the rights of minorities. It came into effect in 1998 and by 2009 it had been ratified by 39 member ...
. 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.
In Azerbaijan, Russian has no official status, but is a ''lingua franca'' of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.
In China, Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
and the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
.
In Georgia, Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) is a multilateral treaty of the Council of Europe aimed at protecting the rights of minorities. It came into effect in 1998 and by 2009 it had been ratified by 39 member ...
. Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language.
In Kazakhstan, Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan
The Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan ( kk, Қазақстан Республикасының Конституциясы, Qazaqstan Respublikasynyñ Konstitutsiasy, ) is the highest law of Kazakhstan, as stated in Article 4. The Constit ...
its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language
The Kazakh or simply Qazaq (Latin: or , Cyrillic: or , Arabic Script: or , , ) is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official lan ...
in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of the population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language.
In Kyrgyzstan, Russian is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan
The Constitution of Kyrgyzstan is the supreme law of the Kyrgyz Republic. Kyrgyzstan first got a constitution in 1993, a year and a half after the country had gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It has gone through a few constituti ...
. The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group.[
In Tajikistan, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under the ]Constitution of Tajikistan
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these prin ...
and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business.
In Turkmenistan, Russian lost its status as the official ''lingua franca'' in 1996. Among 12%[ of the population who grew up in the Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. Nevertheless, the Turkmen state press and newspaper ]Neytralny Turkmenistan
''Neytralny Turkmenistan'' (russian: Нейтральный Туркменистан) is the daily official Russian-language newspaper in Turkmenistan. The daily newspaper serves as the official government gazette of the Cabinet of Ministers of ...
regularly publish material version in Russian-language, and there are schools like Joint Turkmen-Russian Secondary School.
In Uzbekistan, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the ''lingua franca'' of the country and the language of the elite. Russian is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook.[
In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006.]
Russian is also spoken in Israel. The number of native Russian-speaking Israelis numbers around 1.5 million Israelis, 15% of the population. The Israeli press
Press may refer to:
Media
* Print media or news media, commonly called "the press"
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
People
* Press (surname), a fam ...
and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in the country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus
Channel 9 ( rus, 9 канал, p=ˈdʲevʲɪtʲ kɐˈnaɫ) is a television station in Israel, formerly known as Israel Plus (russian: Израиль Плюс). It primarily broadcasts in the Russian language, with or without Hebrew subtitles, but ...
. See also Russian language in Israel
The Russian language is spoken natively by a considerable proportion of the population of Israel, mostly by immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union from 1989 onwards. It is a major foreign language in the country, and is used in man ...
.
Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan.
In Vietnam, Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English.
North America
The language was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers
The history of exploration by citizens or subjects of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Russia and other Russian predecessor states forms a significant part of the history of Russia as well as the his ...
voyaged into Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska
Nikolaevsk ( rus, Никола́евск, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫa(j)ɪfsk) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population of the CDP is 328, up from 318 in 2010. Nikolaev ...
, Russian is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Los Angeles, Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
, San Francisco, Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
, Toronto, Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
, Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, Miami, Chicago, Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, and Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclave
In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration ...
s (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the overwhelming majority of Russophone
This article details the geographical distribution of Russian-speakers. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the status of the Russian language often became a matter of controversy. Some Post-Soviet states adopted policies of derussi ...
s in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway to ...
in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to the United States Census, in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States.
In the second half of the 20th century, Russian was the most popular foreign language in Cuba. Besides being taught at universities and schools, there were also educational programs on the radio and TV. However, starting January 2019 Cuban television opened an educational program devoted to the Russian language. This project is fully entitled to be called an anticipated one, because the Russian – Cuban collaboration is a strategic direction actively developed as more and more young people are interested in the Russian language, the Education navigator informs. The Havana State University
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. has started a bachelor's specialization called the Russian Language and the Second Foreign Language. There is also the Russian language department, where students can scrutinize e-books without internet connection. Additional courses on the Russian language are open at two schools of the Cuban capital city. An estimated 200,000 people speak the Russian language in Cuba, on the account that more than 23,000 Cubans who took higher studies in the former Soviet Union and later in Russia, and another important group of people who studied at military schools and technologists, plus the nearly 2,000 Russians residing in Cuba and their descendants.
As an international language
Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following:
* United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
* International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...
* World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
* International Civil Aviation Organization
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sc ...
* UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
* World Intellectual Property Organization
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishi ...
* International Telecommunication Union
The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...
* World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
The WMO originated from the Internati ...
* Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...
* International Fund for Agricultural Development
* International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
* International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
* Universal Postal Union
The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to t ...
* World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
* Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. ...
* Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...
* Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian politics, political, economy, economic and security organization. It is the world's largest regional organization in terms of geography, geographic scope and world population, population, c ...
* Eurasian Economic Community
The Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC or EurAsEC) was a regional organisation between 2000 and 2014 which aimed for the economic integration of its member states.
The organisation originated from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on ...
* Collective Security Treaty Organization
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is an intergovernmental military alliance in Eurasia consisting of six post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics ...
* Antarctic Treaty Secretariat
__NOTOC__
The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat (ATS) is a subsidiary body of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) and, as such, performs its duties under the ATCM's direction. The ATCM is the forum that brings together the Antarctic T ...
* International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
* International Mathematical Olympiad
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...
The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
– NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to the Apollo–Soyuz
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked ...
mission, which first flew in 1975.
In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru
.ru is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Russia introduced on 7 April 1994. The Russian alphabet internationalized country code is .рф.
Control of .ru is assigned to the Coordination Center for TLD ...
sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su
.su is an Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was designated for the Soviet Union (USSR) on 19 September 1990. Even though the Soviet Union itself was dissolved a mere 15 months later, the .su top-level domain remains in use to ...
. Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese.
Dialects
Russian is a rather homogeneous language, in dialectal variation, due to the early political centralization under Moscow's rule, compulsory education, mass migration from rural to urban areas in the 20th century, and other factors. The standard language is used in written and spoken form almost everywhere in the country, from Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...
and Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
in the West to Vladivostok
Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...
and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky ( rus, Петропавловск-Камчатский, a=Петропавловск-Камчатский.ogg, p=pʲɪtrɐˈpavləfsk kɐmˈtɕatskʲɪj) is a city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultu ...
in the East, the enormous distance between notwithstanding.
Despite leveling
Levelling or leveling (American English; see spelling differences) is a branch of surveying, the object of which is to establish or verify or measure the height of specified points relative to a datum. It is widely used in geodesy and cartogra ...
after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between the two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern, Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
(or Middle), and Southern, with Moscow lying in the Central region. All dialects are also divided into two main chronological categories: the dialects of ''primary formation'' (the territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow
The Grand Duchy of Moscow, Muscovite Russia, Muscovite Rus' or Grand Principality of Moscow (russian: Великое княжество Московское, Velikoye knyazhestvo Moskovskoye; also known in English simply as Muscovy from the Lati ...
roughly consists of the modern Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and Northwestern Federal districts) and ''secondary formation'' (other territories where Russian was brought by migrants from primary formation territories or adopted by the local population). Dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their ass ...
within Russia recognizes dozens of smaller-scale variants. The dialects often show distinct and non-standard features of pronunciation and intonation, vocabulary, and grammar. Some of these are relics of ancient usage now completely discarded by the standard language.
The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed clearly, a phenomenon called vowel reduction in Russian#Back vowels, okanye (). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high vowel, high or diphthongal in place of and in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian and . Another Northern dialectal morphological feature is a post-posed definite article ''-to'', ''-ta'', ''-te'' similarly to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.
In the Southern Russian dialects
Southern Russian is one of the main groups of Russian dialects.
Territory
* The territory of the ''primary formation'' (i.e. that consists of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is entirely 11 modern regions ( ...
, instances of unstressed and following Palatalization (phonetics), palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced in such positions (e.g. is pronounced , not ) – this is called yakanye (). Consonants include a Voiced velar fricative, fricative , a semivowel, semivowel and , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants , , and final and , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). Some of these features such as akanye and yakanye, a debuccalized or lenited , a semivowel, semivowel and palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
(Eastern Polesian), indicating a linguistic continuum.
The city of Old Novgorod dialect, Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye or tsokanye ( or ), in which and were switched or merged. So, (tsaplya, 'heron') has been recorded as (chaplya). Also, the Slavic second palatalization, second palatalization of Velar consonant, velars did not occur there, so the so-called ě² (from the Proto-Slavic diphthong *ai) did not cause to shift to ; therefore, where Standard Russian has ('chain'), the form is attested in earlier texts.
Among the first to study Russian dialects was Mikhail Lomonosov, Lomonosov in the 18th century. In the 19th, Vladimir Dal compiled the first dictionary that included dialectal vocabulary. Detailed mapping of Russian dialects began at the turn of the 20th century. In modern times, the monumental ''Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language'' ( – ''Dialektologichesky atlas russkogo yazyka''), was published in three folio volumes 1986–1989, after four decades of preparatory work.
Comparison with other Slavic languages
During the Proto-Slavic language, Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level.
Derived languages
* Balachka, a dialect spoken in Krasnodar region, Don, Kuban, and Terek River, Terek, brought by relocated Cossacks in 1793 and is based on the southwest Ukrainian dialect. During the Russification of the aforementioned regions in the 1920s to 1950s, it was replaced by the Russian language.
* Esperanto etymology, Esperanto has some words of Russian and Slavic origin and some features of its grammar could be derived from Russian.
* Fenya, a criminal argot of ancient origin, with Russian grammar, but with distinct vocabulary
* Lojban, Russian is one of its six source languages, weighed for the number of Russian speakers in 1985.
* Medny Aleut language, an extinct mixed language that was spoken on Bering Island and is characterized by its Aleut nouns and Russian verbs
* Padonkaffsky jargon, a slang language developed by padonki of Runet
* Quelia, a macaronic language with Russian-derived basic structure and part of the lexicon (mainly nouns and verbs) borrowed from German
* Runglish, a Russian-English pidgin. This word is also used by English speakers to describe the way in which Russians attempt to speak English using Russian morphology and/or syntax.
* Russenorsk language, Russenorsk, an extinct pidgin language with mostly Russian vocabulary and mostly Norwegian language, Norwegian grammar, used for communication between Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
and Norwegian traders in the Pomor trade in Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula
* Surzhyk, a range of mixed (macaronic) sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages used in certain regions of Ukraine and adjacent lands.
* Trasianka
Trasianka ( be, трасянка, ) refers to a mixed form of speech in which Belarusian and Russian elements and structures alternate arbitrarily.Hentschel, Gerd Belarusian and Russian in the Mixed Speech of Belarus. In Besters-Dilger, J. et a ...
, a heavily russified variety of Belarusian used by a large portion of the rural population in Belarus
* Taimyr Pidgin Russian, spoken by the Nganasan people, Nganasan on the Taymyr Peninsula, Taimyr Peninsula
Alphabet
Russian is written using a Cyrillic script, Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their upper case forms, along with help:IPA, IPA values for each letter's typical sound:
Older letters of the Russian alphabet include , which merged to ( or ); and , which both merged to (); , which merged to (); , which merged to (); , which merged to ( or ); and and , which later were graphically reshaped into and merged phonetically to or . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers and originally indicated the pronunciation of ''ultra-short'' or ''reduced'' , .
Transliteration
Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, ('frost') is transliterated ''moroz'', and ('mouse'), ''mysh'' or ''myš. Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding, which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards.
Computing
The Russian alphabet has many systems of character encoding. KOI8-R was designed by the Soviet government and was intended to serve as the standard encoding. This encoding was and still is widely used in UNIX-like operating systems. Nevertheless, the spread of MS-DOS and OS/2 (Code page 866, IBM866), traditional Macintosh (ISO/IEC 8859-5) and Microsoft Windows (CP1251) meant the proliferation of many different encodings as de facto standards, with Windows-1251 becoming a de facto standard in Russian Internet and e-mail communication during the period of roughly 1995–2005.
All the obsolete 8-bit encodings are rarely used in the communication protocols and text-exchange data formats, having been mostly replaced with UTF-8. A number of encoding conversion applications were developed. "iconv" is an example that is supported by most versions of Linux, Macintosh and some other operating systems; but converters are rarely needed unless accessing texts created more than a few years ago.
In addition to the modern Russian alphabet, Unicode (and thus UTF-8) encodes the Early Cyrillic alphabet (which is very similar to the Greek alphabet), and all other Slavic and non-Slavic but Cyrillic-based alphabets.
Orthography
The current spelling follows the major reform of 1918, and the final codification of 1956. An update proposed in the late 1990s has met a hostile reception, and has not been formally adopted. The punctuation, originally based on Byzantine Greek, was in the 17th and 18th centuries reformulated on the French and German models.
According to the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent
The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...
() may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress (linguistics), stress. For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: (''zamók'' – "lock") – (''zámok'' – "castle"), (''stóyashchy'' – "worthwhile") – (''stoyáshchy'' – "standing"), (''chudnó'' – "this is odd") – (''chúdno'' – "this is marvellous"), (''molodéts'' – "well done!") – (''mólodets'' – "fine young man"), (''uznáyu'' – "I shall learn it") – (''uznayú'' – "I recognize it"), (''otrezát'' – "to be cutting") – (''otrézat'' – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like (''aféra'', "scandal, affair"), (''gúru'', "guru"), (''García''), (''Olésha''), (''Fermi''), and to show which is the stressed word in a sentence, for example (''Tý syel pechenye?'' – "Was it ''you'' who ate the cookie?") – (''Ty syél pechenye?'' – "Did you ''eat'' the cookie?) – (''Ty syel pechénye?'' "Was it the ''cookie'' you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners.
Phonology
The phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic; it underwent considerable modification in the early historical period before being largely settled around the year 1400.
The language possesses five vowels (or six, under the St.Petersburg Phonological School), which are written with different letters depending on whether the preceding consonant is Palatalization (phonetics), palatalized. The consonants typically come in plain vs. palatalized pairs, which are traditionally called ''hard'' and ''soft.'' The hard consonants are often velarization, velarized, especially before front vowels, as in Irish phonology#Consonants, Irish and Marshallese language#Phonology, Marshallese. The standard language, based on the Moscow dialect, possesses heavy stress and moderate variation in pitch. Stressed vowels are somewhat lengthened, while unstressed vowels tend to be reduced to near-close vowels or an unclear schwa. (See also: vowel reduction in Russian.)
The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using a formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows:
(C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C)
However, Russian has a constraint on syllabification such that syllables cannot span multiple morphemes.
Clusters of four consonants are not very common, especially within a morpheme. Some examples are: ( ''vzglyad'', 'glance'), ( ''gosudarstv'', 'of the states'), ( ''stroitelstv'', 'of the constructions').
Consonants
Russian is notable for its distinction based on Palatalization (phonetics), palatalization of most of its consonants. While do have true palatalized allophones , only might be considered a phoneme, though it is marginal and generally not considered distinctive. The only native minimal pair that argues for being a separate phoneme is ( ''eto tkyot'' – "it weaves") (, ''etot kot'' – "this cat"). The phoneme // is generally considered to be always hard; however, loan words such as Zürich, Цюрих and some other neologisms contain // through the word-building processes (e.g. фрицёнок, шпицята). Palatalization means that the center of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. In the case of and , the tongue is raised enough to produce slight frication (affricate sounds; cf. Belarusian ць, дзь, or Polish ć, dź). The sounds are dental consonant, dental, that is, pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against the alveolar ridge.
Vowels
Russian has five or six vowels in stressed syllables, , and in some analyses , but in most cases these vowels have merged to only two to four vowels when unstressed: (or ) after hard consonants and after soft ones. These vowels have several allophones, which are displayed on the diagram to the right.
Grammar
Russian has preserved an Indo-European languages, Indo-European Synthetic language, synthetic-inflectional structure, although considerable Morphological levelling, levelling has occurred.
Russian grammar encompasses:
* a highly Fusional language, fusional morphology
* a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements:
** a polished vernacular foundation;
** a Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic inheritance;
** a Western European style.
The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one but continues to preserve characteristic forms. The dialects show various non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms since discarded by the literary language.
In terms of actual grammar, there are three tenses in Russian past, present, and future and each verb has two Grammatical aspect in Slavic languages, aspects (perfective and imperfective). Russian nouns each have a gender either feminine, masculine, or neuter, chiefly indicated by spelling at the end of the word. Words change depending on both their gender and function in the sentence. Russian has six Grammatical case, cases: Nominative (for the grammatical subject), Accusative (for direct objects), Dative (for indirect objects), Genitive (to indicate possession or relation), Instrumental (to indicate 'with' or 'by means of'), and Prepositional (used after the locative prepositions в "in", на "on", о "about", при "in the presence of"). Verbs of motion in Russian such as 'go', 'walk', 'run', 'swim', and 'fly' use the imperfective or perfective form to indicate a single or return trip, and also use a multitude of prefixes to add shades of meaning to the verb. Such verbs also take on different forms to distinguish between concrete and abstract motion.
Vocabulary
See History of the Russian language
Russian is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European family. All Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Although no written rec ...
for an account of the successive foreign influences on Russian.
The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published during the past two centuries, are as follows:
History and examples
The history of the Russian language may be divided into the following periods:
* History of the Russian language#Kievan period and feudal breakup, Kievan period and feudal breakup
* Early Modern Russian, The Moscow period (15th–17th centuries)
* Standard national language
Judging by the historical records, by approximately 1000 AD the predominant ethnic group over much of modern European Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus was the Eastern branch of the Slavic peoples, Slavs, speaking a closely related group of dialects. The political unification of this region into Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...
in about 880, from which modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus trace their origins, established Old East Slavic
Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian; be, старажытнаруская мова; russian: древнерусский язык; uk, давньоруська мова) was a language used during the 9th–15th centuries by East ...
as a literary and commercial language. It was soon followed by the adoption of Christianity in 988 and the introduction of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language.
Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...
as the liturgical and official language. Borrowings and calques from Byzantine Greek began to enter the Old East Slavic and spoken dialects at this time, which in their turn modified the Old Church Slavonic as well.
Dialectal differentiation accelerated after the breakup of Kievan Rus' in approximately 1100. On the territories of modern Belarus and Ukraine emerged Ruthenian language, Ruthenian and in modern Russia History of the Russian language, medieval Russian. They became distinct since the 13th century, i.e. following the division of the land between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385), Poland in the west and independent Novgorod Republic, Novgorod and Pskov Republic, Pskov feudal republics plus numerous small duchies (which came to be vassals of the Tatars) in the east.
The official language in Moscow and Novgorod, and later, in the growing Muscovy, was Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
, which evolved from Old Church Slavonic and remained Diglossia, the literary language for centuries, until the Peter I of Russia#Early reign, Petrine age, when its usage became limited to biblical and liturgical texts. Russian developed under a strong influence of Church Slavonic until the close of the 17th century; afterward the influence reversed, leading to corruption of liturgical texts.
The political reforms of Peter I of Russia, Peter the Great (Пётр Вели́кий, ''Pyótr Velíky'') were accompanied by a reform of the alphabet, and achieved their goal of secularization and Westernization. Blocks of specialized vocabulary were adopted from the languages of Western Europe. By 1800, a significant portion of the gentry spoke French daily, and German sometimes. Many Russian novels of the 19th century, e.g. Leo Tolstoy's (Лев Толсто́й) ''War and Peace'', contain entire paragraphs and even pages in French with no translation given, with an assumption that educated readers would not need one.
The modern literary language is usually considered to date from the time of Alexander Pushkin () in the first third of the 19th century. Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (so-called — "high style") in favor of grammar and vocabulary found in the spoken language of the time. Even modern readers of younger age may only experience slight difficulties understanding some words in Pushkin's texts, since relatively few words used by Pushkin have become archaic or changed meaning. In fact, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19th century, in particular Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov (), Nikolai Gogol (), Aleksander Griboyedov (), became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech.
The political upheavals of the early 20th century and the wholesale changes of political ideology gave written Russian its modern appearance after the Reforms of Russian orthography, spelling reform of 1918. Political circumstances and Soviet accomplishments in military, scientific, and technological matters (especially cosmonautics), gave Russian a worldwide prestige, especially during the mid-20th century.
During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian, although it was declared the official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
only in 1990. Following the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, break-up of the USSR in 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national discourse throughout the region has continued.
The Russian language in the world declined after 1991 due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and decrease in the number of Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
in the world and diminution of the total population in Russia (where Russian is an official language), however has since been reversed.
According to figures published in 2006 in the journal ":ru:Демоскоп Weekly, Demoskop Weekly" research deputy director of Research Center for Sociological Research of the Ministry of Education and Science (Russia) Arefyev A. L., the Russian language is gradually losing its position in the world in general, and in Russia in particular. In 2012, A. L. Arefyev published a new study "Russian language at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries", in which he confirmed his conclusion about the trend of weakening of the Russian language after the Soviet Union's collapse in various regions of the world (findings published in 2013 in the journal ":ru:Демоскоп Weekly, Demoskop Weekly").[Русский язык на рубеже XX-XXI веков]
— М.: Центр социального прогнозирования и маркетинга, 2012. — 482 стр. In the countries of the former Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
the Russian language was being replaced or used in conjunction with local languages. Currently, the number of speakers of Russian in the world depends on the number of Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
in the world and total population in Russia.
See also
* List of English words of Russian origin
* List of Russian language topics
* List of countries and territories where Russian is an official language
* Computer Russification
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
; In English
* M.A. O'Brien, New English–Russian and Russian–English Dictionary (New Orthography), New York, The Language Library 1944, Dover Publications.
*
*
*
Iliev, Iv. The Russian Genitive of Negation and Its Japanese Counterpart. International Journal of Russian Stidies. 1, 2018 (In Print)
*
*
*
*
*
; In Russian
журнал «Демоскоп Weekly» № 571 – 572 14 – 31 октября 2013. А. Арефьев. Тема номера: сжимающееся русскоязычие. Демографические изменения - не на пользу русскому языку
Русский язык на рубеже XX-XXI веков
— М.: Центр социального прогнозирования и маркетинга, 2012. — 482 стр. Аннотация книги
РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК НА РУБЕЖЕ XX-XXI ВЕКОВ
журнал «Демоскоп Weekly» № 329 – 330 14 – 27 апреля 2008. К. Гаврилов. Е. Козиевская. Е. Яценко. Тема номера: русский язык на постсоветских просторах. Где есть потребность в изучении русского языка
журнал «Демоскоп Weekly» № 251 – 252 19 июня – 20 августа 2006. А. Арефьев. Тема номера: сколько людей говорят и будут говорить по-русски? Будет ли русский в числе мировых языков в будущем?
* Жуковская Л. П. (отв. ред.) Древнерусский литературный язык и его отношение к старославянскому. — М.: «Наука», 1987.
* Иванов В. В. Историческая грамматика русского языка. — М.: «Просвещение», 1990.
* Новиков Л. А. Современный русский язык: для высшей школы. — М.: Лань, 2003.
* Филин Ф. П
// Вопросы языкознания. — М., 1982, No. 5. — С. 18—28
External links
*
* Oxford Dictionarie
Russian Dictionary
*
USA Foreign Service Institute Russian basic course
Национальный корпус русского языка
National Corpus of the Russian Language
Russian Language Institute
Language regulator of the Russian language
{{Authority control
Russian language,
East Slavic languages
Soviet culture
Languages of Russia
Lingua francas
Stress-timed languages
Subject–verb–object languages
Languages written in Cyrillic script