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Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
. It was the ''de facto'' and ''de jure''
official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
of the former
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
. Constitution and Fundamental Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1977: Section II, Chapter 6, Article 36 Russian has remained an
official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
of the Russian Federation,
Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
,
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
,
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...
, and
Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...
, and is still commonly used as a
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
in
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
,
Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
, the Caucasus,
Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. Russian has over 253 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe, the most spoken Slavic language, as well as the most geographically widespread language of
Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...
. It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's ninth-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 a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...
, one of the six
official languages of the United Nations The official languages of the United Nations, are the six languages used in United Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes and publishes all its official documents. In 1946, five languages were chosen as official languages of the UN: Eng ...
, as well as the fourth most widely used language on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. Russian is written using the
Russian alphabet The Russian alphabet (, or , more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), ten vowels (, , , , , , , , , ) ...
of the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic 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, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...
; it distinguishes between consonant
phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
s with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed
vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
s. Stress, 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 alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...
may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. 'lock'and 'castle', or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names.


Classification

Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family.
Old East Slavic Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian) was a language (or a group of dialects) used by the East Slavs from the 7th or 8th century to the 13th or 14th century, until it diverged into the Russian language, Russian and Ruthenian language ...
(or Old Russian) is the parent language of the modern Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. 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'' in Belarus. The Novgorod dialect, a historical variety of Russian with unique northwestern dialectal features, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. 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 languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, Polish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English, and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic, Turkic, Persian,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
. According to the Defense Language Institute in
Monterey, California Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, California, Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a popu ...
, 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.


Standard Russian

Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between the Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from the government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. 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. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the ''modern Russian literary language'' (), or ''Contemporary Standard Russian''. It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter the Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian) dialect substratum under some influence of the Russian chancery language. The Moscow dialect had a northern dialectal base, but after Moscow became the center of a unified state, the attraction of southern dialectal speakers led to the emergence of a transitional dialect group. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. 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, 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, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, 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.


Geographic distribution

In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in the Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S.,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, Australia, and
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
– 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers, after English, Mandarin,
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
-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

In
Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
, Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus. 77% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census, out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in the Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
— 97.2%, for
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
— 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
— 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
, 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, and in 2022, the parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024–2025 school year. In
Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
, 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 18 February 2012, Latvia held a constitutional referendum 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. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in the final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian. From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM) should be only in Latvian or a language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
, Russian has no official or 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, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
'' in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% ). According to the 2011 Lithuanian census, Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In
Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
, Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 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 2014 Moldovan census, Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. 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 Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
, 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 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed a new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to the
Ukrainian language Ukrainian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language, first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of t ...
in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in
public administration Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...
, media, education, science, culture, advertising, services. The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On the other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and
east East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
. But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion, their number dropped by almost half. According to the survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. 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), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
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 former Warsaw Pact countries.


Caucasus

In
Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
, 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 minority rights, rights of minorities. It came into effect in 1998 and by 2009 it had been ratif ...
. 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 Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...
, 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 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 minority rights, rights of minorities. It came into effect in 1998 and by 2009 it had been ratif ...
. 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.


Asia

In
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern
Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...
and the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
, Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language 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 October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...
, Russian is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan. 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 Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...
, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under the Constitution of Tajikistan 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. In
Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...
, 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. Around 1.5million Israelis spoke Russian . The Israeli press 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. See also Russian language in Israel. Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
. In
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
, 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 Russian language was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into
Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
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, 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 (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
,
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
,
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Spokane,
Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
,
Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...
,
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
,
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
, Portland,
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, and
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (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 Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
, the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
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 The United States census (plural censuses or census) is a census that is legally mandated by the Constitution of the United States. It takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790 United States ce ...
, in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States.


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 the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
* International Atomic Energy Agency *
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
* International Civil Aviation Organization *
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
* World Intellectual Property Organization *
International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)In the other common languages of the ITU: * * is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information ...
* World Meteorological Organization *
Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...
* International Fund for Agricultural Development *
International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...
*
International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
* Universal Postal Union *
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
*
Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization, regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an ar ...
*
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the p ...
* Shanghai Cooperation Organisation * Eurasian Economic Community * Collective Security Treaty Organization * Antarctic Treaty Secretariat *
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...
* International Mathematical Olympiad The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
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 exploration, 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 an American Apollo comm ...
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 sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su. 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. On 13 October 2023, the CIS Council of Heads of State signed the Treaty on the Establishment of the International Organization for the Russian Language and adopted the Statement on Support and Promotion of the Russian Language as a Language of Interethnic Communication.


Dialects

Despite leveling 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 (or Middle), and Southern, with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed clearly, a phenomenon called okanye (). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal in place of and in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian and , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature is a post-posed definite article ''-to'', ''-ta'', ''-te'' similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects, instances of unstressed and following 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 fricative , a 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).


Comparison with other Slavic languages

During the 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, and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level.


Derived languages

* Balachka, a Ukrainian dialect spoken in Krasnodar region, Don, Kuban, and Terek, brought by relocated Cossacks in 1793 and is based on the so-called "southwest Russian" dialect (Ukrainian dialect). During the Russification of the aforementioned regions in the 1920s to 1950s, it was replaced by the Russian language. *
Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
has some words of Russian and Slavic origin and some features of its grammar could be derived from Russian. * Fenya, a criminal
argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...
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 A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...
(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 or syntax. * Russenorsk, an extinct
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
language with mostly Russian vocabulary and mostly Norwegian grammar, used for communication between
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
and Norwegian traders in the Pomor trade in
Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...
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, a heavily russified variety of Belarusian used by a large portion of the rural population in Belarus * Taimyr Pidgin Russian, spoken by the Nganasan on the Taimyr Peninsula * Alaskan Russian, a dialect of Russian spoken in some parts of the US state of
Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...


Alphabet

Russian is written using a
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
alphabet. The
early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Chur ...
was adapted to Russian from
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
. The first attempt at reforming Russian orthography was carried out in 1708–1710. The last major reform was carried out in 1917–1918. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with 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 Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical v ...
, which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards.


Computing

The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1, and MESM models were produced in 1951.


Orthography

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 alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...
() may, and sometimes should, be used to mark 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 Russian
syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
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)


Consonants

Russian is notable for its distinction based on palatalization of most of its consonants. The phoneme // is generally considered to be always hard; however, loan words such as Цюрих and some other neologisms contain // through the word-building processes (e.g., фрицёнок фриц" plus diminutive "ёнок" шпицята шпиц" plus diminutive "ята". 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, that is, pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against the alveolar ridge. According to some linguists, the "plain" consonants are velarized as in Irish, something which is most noticeable when it involves a labial before a hard vowel, such as мы, , "we" , or бэ, , "the letter Б".


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 The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
synthetic-
inflection In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
al structure, although considerable leveling has occurred. Russian grammar encompasses: * a highly fusional morphology * a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements: ** a polished
vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
foundation; ** a 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. In terms of actual grammar, there are three tenses in Russian past, present, and future and each verb has two 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 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

The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published during the past two centuries, are as follows:


History and literary language

No single periodization is universally accepted. The history of the Russian language is sometimes divided into ''Old Russian'' from the 11th to 17th centuries, followed by ''Modern Russian''. It is also sometimes divided into the following periods: * ''Old Russian'' (with the earliest form sometimes referred to as
Old East Slavic Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian) was a language (or a group of dialects) used by the East Slavs from the 7th or 8th century to the 13th or 14th century, until it diverged into the Russian language, Russian and Ruthenian language ...
; until the 13th–14th centuries); * ''Middle Russian'' (13th–14th centuries until the 17th–18th centuries); * ''Modern Russian'' (17th–18th centuries to the present). The emergence of writing (and thus Old Russian literature) is dated to around the year 1000, after
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
was introduced as the liturgical language in the late 10th century. At this point, the two languages were mutually intelligible, but there were clear East Slavic and South Slavic forms. The vernacular was considered the "low variety" while Church Slavonic was considered the "high variety". The language found in the birch bark manuscripts of the 11th–15th centuries represents the closest approximation to the vernacular Old Russian language. During the rise of Moscow as the political center of Russia in the 14th–16th centuries, in which the language is sometimes called ''Great Russian'' to distinguish it from the territories where the future Belarusian and Ukrainian languages developed, the attraction of speakers of the southern dialects gave rise to a hybrid dialect and this became the basis of the standard language. The main phonological development during this period was '' akanye''. The political reforms of Peter the Great were accompanied by a reform of the alphabet, and achieved their goal of secularization and modernization, but caused a need for a written language that more closely resembled the spoken vernacular. The polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, in his ''Russian Grammar'' (1755), defined three styles: the "high style" (i.e. Church Slavonic, which would be used for high poetic genres, in addition to religious texts), the "middle style" (for lyric poetry, literary prose, scientific works), and a "low style" (i.e. a pure vernacular, which would be used for personal correspondence and low comedy). The modern standard language is closest to the middle style. 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 19thcentury, e.g. Leo Tolstoy's '' 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 was established by the time of Alexander Pushkin in the first third of the 19thcentury. Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (the "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 19thcentury, in particular Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Aleksander Griboyedov, became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech. : 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 defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
only in 1990. Following the 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 Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
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 " 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 " 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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
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 Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
in the world and total population in Russia.


Sample text

Article 1 of the ''
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...
'' in Russian:
Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства.
The
romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
of the text into
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
:
''Vse lyudi rozhdayutsya svobodnymi i ravnymi v svoyem dostoinstve i pravakh. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'yu i dolzhny postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v dukhe bratstva.''
Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


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 * * * * *
Iliev, Iv. The Russian Genitive of Negation and Its Japanese Counterpart. International Journal of Russian Stidies. 1, 2018 (In Print)
* * O'Brien, M.A., New English–Russian and Russian–English Dictionary (New Orthography), New York, The Language Library 1944, Dover Publications. * * * * * * * * * * ; 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


Further reading

*


External links


Russian Enthusiast
- Prominent Russian language resource for English speakers
Национальный корпус русского языка
National Corpus of the Russian Language
Russian Language Institute
Language regulator of the Russian language {{Authority control East Slavic languages Languages of Russia Languages written in Cyrillic script Lingua francas Culture of the Soviet Union Stress-timed languages Subject–verb–object languages