Russian Русский язык Russkiy yazyk
Pronunciation:	[ˈruskʲɪj]
Spoken in:	Commonwealth of Independent States, Poland, Uruguay, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Israel, Japan, China, Baltic States, Romania, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES The Baltic states (Balti riigid Baltijas valstis Baltijos valstybės or Baltic countries are three countries in Northern Europe, all members of the Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and
Total speakers:	primary language: about 164 million secondary language: 114 million (2006)[1] total: 300 - 350 million
Ranking:	8 (native)
Language family:	Indo-European  Satem   Balto-Slavic    Slavic     East Slavic      Russian
Writing system:	Cyrillic (Russian variant)
Official status
Official language in:	Belarus  Commonwealth of Independent States (working)  Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) International Atomic Energy Agency  Kazakhstan  Kyrgyzstan  Moldova (Gagauzia and Transnistria)  Russia  Ukraine (de facto; Crimea)  United Nations
Regulated by:	Russian Language Institute[2] at the Russian Academy of Sciences
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	ru
ISO 639-2:	rus
ISO 639-3:	rus
Countries of the world where Russian is spoken. This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Balto-Slavic language group consists of the Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The modern Russian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto South Ossetia ( or; Хуссар Ирыстон Xussar Iryston; Южная Осетия Yuzhnaya Osetiya; სამხრეთი ოსეთი Samxreti The International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Gagauzia ( Gagauz: Gagauziya or Gagauz-Yeri; Moldovan/Romanian: Găgăuzia Гагаузия formally known as the Autonomous Territorial Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Crimea (kraɪˈmiːə or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Крим Автономна Республіка Крим Avtonomna Respublika Krym; Крым The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Russian Academy of Sciences (Российская Академия Наук Rossi'iskaya Akade'miya Nau'k, shortened to PAH RAN) consists of the National ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Russian (русский язык (help•info), transliteration: russkiy yazyk, Russian pronunciation: [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. The Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet and For the superstate in George Orwell 's novel see Nations of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the East Slavic languages, the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian). The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. Rusyn (ry русинськый язык) is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, with which it shares It is also spoken by the countries of the Russophone. See also Russophone (novel A Russophone (or russophone; русскоговорящий русскоязычный russkogovoryashchy

Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards. Today Russian is widely used outside Russia. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Over a quarter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian. ^[3] It is also applied as a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge — 60–70% of all world information is published in English and Russian languages. ^[3] Russian also is a necessary accessory of world communications systems (broadcasts, air- and space communication, etc). ^[3] Due to the status of the Soviet Union as a superpower, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 A superpower is a State with a leading position in the international system and the ability to Influence events and project power on a worldwide scale Hence, the language is one of the official languages of the United Nations. The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security

Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process Secondary articulation refers to Co-articulated consonants where the two articulations are not of the same manner. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels, which is somewhat similar to that of English. Vowel reduction is the term in Phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of Vowels which are related to changes in stress In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract See also Vowel reduction In English, vowel reduction is the centralization and weakening of an Unstressed vowel, such as the characteristic Stress in Russian is neither indicated orthographically, nor governed by phonological rules.

Contents 1 Classification 2 Geographic distribution 2.1 Official status 2.2 Dialects 2.3 Derived languages 3 Writing system 3.1 Alphabet 3.2 Orthography 4 Sounds 4.1 Consonants 5 Grammar 6 Vocabulary 6.1 Proverbs and sayings 7 History and examples 8 See also 8.1 Language description 8.2 Related languages 8.3 Other 9 References 9.1 In English 9.2 In Russian 10 External links 10.1 Dictionaries 10.2 Other resources

Classification

Russian is a Slavic language in the Indo-European family. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages From the point of view of the spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian and Belarusian, the other two national languages in the East Slavic group. A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth. Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. In many places in eastern Ukraine and Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixture, e. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east g. Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. Surzhyk (суржик originally meaning ‘flour or bread made from mixed grains’ e Trasianka or trasyanka (трасянка is a Belarusian &ndash Russian Patois or a kind of Interlanguage (from the linguistic point An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the fifteenth or sixteenth century, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in formation of the modern Russian language. Old Novgorod dialect ( Russian древненовгородский диалект also translated as Old Novgorodian or Ancient Novgorod dialect) is a

The vocabulary (mainly abstract and literary words), principles of word formation, and, to some extent, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a developed and partly adopted form of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic language used by the Russian Orthodox Church. Church Slavonic (also Church Slavic, Old Bulgarian) is the Liturgical language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox South Slavic languages comprise one of the three geographical groups of Slavic languages (besides West and East Slavic) to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ See also Eastern Orthodox Church Structure and organization The Slavic Orthodox Church is organized in a hierarchical structure 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 slightly different meanings. The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. Church Slavonic (also Church Slavic, Old Bulgarian) is the Liturgical language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language. See also Russian language For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Russian for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA for Russian This article discusses

Russian phonology and syntax (especially in northern dialects) have also been influenced to some extent by the numerous Finnic languages of the Finno-Ugric subfamily: Merya, Moksha, Muromian, the language of the Meshchera, Veps, et cetera. Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and The Merya language was the Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Merya tribe which lived in what is today the Yaroslavl region northwest to Moscow (near The Moksha language (мокшень кяль is a Volga-Finnic language with about 500000 native speakers Muromian was a Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Muromian tribe in what is today the Murom region in Russia. The Meshchera (Мещёра Meshchyora) were a Finno-Ugric tribe which lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma river The Veps language (also known as Vepsian) spoken by the Vepsians (also known as Veps) belongs to the Baltic-Finnic group of the Finno-Ugric These languages, some of them now extinct, used to be spoken in the center and in the north of what is now the European part of Russia. They came in contact with Eastern Slavic as far back as the early Middle Ages and eventually served as substratum for the modern Russian language. The Russian dialects spoken north, north-east and north-west of Moscow have a considerable number of words of Finno-Ugric origin. Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of ^[4][5] Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Turkic/Caucasian/Central Asian languages, as well as Western/Central European languages such as Polish, Latin, Dutch, German, French, and English. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States ^[6]

According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers,^[7] requiring approximately 780 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. The Defense Language Institute ( DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD educational and research institution which provides linguistic and cultural It is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a "hard target" language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers as well as due to its critical role in American world policy. The United States Intelligence Community (IC is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work together to conduct intelligence

Geographic distribution

Russian is primarily spoken in Russia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics of the USSR. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Until 1917, it was the sole official language of the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya 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. Following the break-up of 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 intercourse throughout the region has continued.

In Latvia, notably, its official recognition and legality in the classroom have been a topic of considerable debate in a country where more than one-third of the population is Russian-speaking, consisting mostly of post-World War II immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former USSR (Belarus, Ukraine). Latvia ( Latvija officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvijas Republika is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Similarly, in Estonia, the Soviet-era immigrants and their Russian-speaking descendants constitute 25,6% of the country's current population and 58,6% of the native Estonian population is also able to speak Russian. Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia ( Eesti or Eesti Vabariik) is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region ^[8] In all, 67,8% of Estonia's population can speak Russian.

In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Russian remains a co-official language with Kazakh and Kyrgyz respectively. Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Kazakh (also Qazaq and variants natively kk Qazaq tili, kk Қазақ тілі; pronounced tˈlə is a Turkic language closely related to Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Кыргыз тили Kyrgyz tili, قىرعىز ٴتىلى is a Turkic language, and together with Russian, an official Large Russian-speaking communities still exist in northern Kazakhstan, and ethnic Russians comprise 25. 6 % of Kazakhstan's population. ^[9]

A much smaller Russian-speaking minority in Lithuania has largely been assimilated during the decade of independence and currently represent less than 1/10 of the country's overall population. Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Nevertheless more than half of the population of the Baltic states are able to hold a conversation in Russian and almost all have at least some familiarity with the most basic spoken and written phrases. The Baltic states (Balti riigid Baltijas valstis Baltijos valstybės or Baltic countries are three countries in Northern Europe, all members of the The Russian control of Finland in 1809–1918, however, has left few Russian speakers in Finland. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. There are 33,400 Russian speakers in Finland, amounting to 0. 6% of the population. 5000 (0. 1%) of them are late 19th century and 20th century immigrants, and the rest are recent immigrants, who have arrived in the 90's and later.

In the twentieth century, Russian was widely taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be allies of the USSR. The Warsaw Pact (see Nomenclature) was an organization of Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. Communist state is a term used by many Political scientists to describe a Form of government in which the State operates under a one-party system In particular, these countries include Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania and Cuba. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania This article is about the country in southern Europe For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Albania topics. The Republic of Cuba (ˈkjuːbə or) consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles) Isla de la However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system. It is currently the most widely-taught foreign language in Mongolia. Mongolia (mɒŋˈɡoʊliə, literally Mongol country/nation,) is a Landlocked Country in East ^[10]

Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (1999 census). For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian. "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press" A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages

Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the U.S. and Canada such as New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Baltimore, Miami, Chicago, Denver, and the Cleveland suburb of Richmond Heights. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The City of New York Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city Toronto (təˈrɒntoʊ colloquially pronounced or) is the largest city in Canada and is the provincial capital of Ontario Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. The City and County of Denver (pronounced /ˈdɛnvɚ/ is the Capital and the most populous city of Colorado, in the United States Cleveland is a City in the US state of Ohio and the County seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state Richmond Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. In the former two, Russian-speaking groups total over half a million. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in their self-sufficient neighborhoods (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early sixties). Only about a quarter of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Russophones in North America were Russian-speaking Jews. The Soviet Union 's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985 See also Russophone (novel A Russophone (or russophone; русскоговорящий русскоязычный russkogovoryashchy PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Afterwards the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian is the primary language spoken in the homes of over 700,000 individuals living in the United States.

Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe ' These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the twentieth century, each with its own flavor of language. Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Brazil, Norway, Austria, and Turkey have significant Russian-speaking communities totaling 3 million people. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches

Two thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, or Ukrainians who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed or are just looking for temporary employment. The German people (Deutsche are an Ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent and speaking the German language as The Greeks ( Greek: Έλληνες) are a Nation and Ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ The Armenians (Հայեր Hayer) are a Nation and Ethnic group originating in the Caucasus and in the Armenian Highlands A large Ukrainians (Українці Ukrayintsi,) are an East Slavic Ethnic group primarily living in Ukraine, or more broadly— Citizens The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

Recent estimates of the total number of speakers of Russian:

Source	Native speakers	Native Rank	Total speakers	Total rank
G. Weber, "Top Languages", Language Monthly, 3: 12–18, 1997, ISSN 1369-9733	160,000,000	8	285,000,000	5
World Almanac (1999)	145,000,000	8          (2005)	275,000,000	5
SIL (2000 WCD)	145,000,000	8	255,000,000	5–6 (tied with Arabic)
CIA World Factbook (2005)	160,000,000	8

Official status

Russian is the official language of Russia. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending It is also an official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the de facto official language of unrecognized Transnistria, Ukraine, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан ||}These lists of unrecognized or partially recognized countries give an overview of contemporary geopolitical entities that wish to be recognized as Sovereign Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. South Ossetia ( or; Хуссар Ирыстон Xussar Iryston; Южная Осетия Yuzhnaya Osetiya; სამხრეთი ოსეთი Samxreti Abkhazia (Аҧсны Apsny აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti or Abkhazeti Абха́зия Abhazia) is a De facto Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics.

97% of the public school students of Russia, 75% in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan, 25% in Ukraine, 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in Georgia and 2% in Armenia and Tajikistan receive their education only or mostly in Russian. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Azerbaijan ( English; Azərbaycan officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan Respublikası is the largest and most populous country in the South Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Armenia (Հայաստան transliterated: Hayastan,) officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Hayastani Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان‎ taajikestaan officially the Republic of Although the corresponding percentage of ethnic Russians is 78% in Russia, 10% in Belarus, 26% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in Kyrgyzstan, 6% in Moldova, 2% in Azerbaijan, 1. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Azerbaijan ( English; Azərbaycan officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan Respublikası is the largest and most populous country in the South 5% in Georgia and less than 1% in both Armenia and Tajikistan. Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Armenia (Հայաստան transliterated: Hayastan,) officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Hayastani Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان‎ taajikestaan officially the Republic of

Russian-language schooling is also available in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, but due to education reforms, a number of subjects taught in Russian are reduced at the high school level. The language has a co-official status alongside Moldovan in the autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria in Moldova, and in seven Romanian communes in Tulcea and Constanţa counties. History and politics Gagauzia ( Gagauz: Gagauziya or Gagauz-Yeri; Moldovan/Romanian: Găgăuzia Гагаузия formally known as the Autonomous Territorial Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania A commune ( comună in Romanian) is the lowest level of administrative subdivision in Romania Tulcea (tulʧa is a county ( Judeţ) of Romania, in the historical region Dobruja, with the capital city at Tulcea. Constanţa (kon'stanʦa is a county ( Judeţ) of Romania, in Dobruja, with the capital city at Constanţa. In these localities, Russian-speaking Lipovans, who are a recognized ethnic minority, make up more than 20% of the population. Lipovans or Lippovans (Lipoveni Липовани Липоване липованци are the Old Believers, mostly of Russian ethnic origin who settled Thus, according to Romania's minority rights law, education, signage, and access to public administration and the justice system are provided in Russian alongside Romanian. In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine, Russian is an officially recognized language alongside with Crimean Tatar, but in reality, is the only language used by the government, thus being a de facto official language. Crimea (kraɪˈmiːə or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Крим Автономна Республіка Крим Avtonomna Respublika Krym; Крым The Crimean Tatar language (Qırımtatar tili Qırımtatarca also known as Crimean (Qırım tili Qırımca and Crimean Turkish (Qırım Türkçesi is the language

Dialects

Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary, a number of dialects exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of the Russian language into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between the two. Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern, Central and Southern, with Moscow lying in the Central region. Dialectology within Russia recognizes dozens of smaller-scale variants. Dialectology (from Greek grc διάλεκτος dialektos, "talk dialect" and grc -λογία -logia) is a sub-field of Historical

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 /o/ clearly (the phenomenon called okanye/оканье). Northern Russian dialects are a group of Dialects of the Russian language. See also Russian phonology Vowel reduction in Russian differs in the Standard language and in Dialects Several ways of reduction East of Moscow, particularly in Ryazan Region, unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (like in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced as /a/ in such positions (e. Ryazan Oblast (Ряза́нская о́бласть Ryazanskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an Oblast) Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process g. несли is pronounced as [nʲasˈlʲi], not as [nʲɪsˈlʲi]) - this is called yakanye/ яканье;^[11] many southern dialects have a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the standard dialect) and a fricative [ɣ] where the standard dialect has [g]. See also Russian phonology Vowel reduction in Russian differs in the Standard language and in Dialects Several ways of reduction However, in certain areas south of Moscow, e. g. in and around Tula, /g/ is pronounced as in the Moscow and northern dialects unless it precedes a voiceless plosive or a pause. Tula (Ту́ла is an industrial city in the European part of Russia, located 193 km south of Moscow, on the river Upa. In this position /g/ is lenited and devoiced to the fricative [x], e. g. друг [drux] (in Moscow's dialect, only Бог [box], лёгкий [lʲɵxʲkʲɪj], мягкий [ˈmʲæxʲkʲɪj] and some derivatives follow this rule). Some of these features (e. g. a debuccalized or lenited /g/ and palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs) are also present in modern Ukrainian, indicating either a linguistic continuum or strong influence one way or the other. Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages.

The city of Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye/tsokanye (чоканье/цоканье), where /ʨ/ and /ʦ/ were confused (this is thought to be due to influence from Finnish, which doesn't distinguish these sounds). Veliky Novgorod (Вели́кий Но́вгород is the foremost historic city of North-Western Russia and the administrative center of Novgorod Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside So, цапля ("heron") has been recorded as 'чапля'. Also, the second palatalization of velars did not occur there, so the so-called ě² (from the Proto-Slavonic diphthong *ai) did not cause /k, g, x/ to shift to /ʦ, ʣ, s/; therefore where Standard Russian has цепь ("chain"), the form кепь [kʲepʲ] is attested in earlier texts. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

Among the first to study Russian dialects was Lomonosov in the eighteenth century. Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (Михаи́л Васи́льевич Ломоно́сов () was a Russian Polymath, scientist In the nineteenth, Vladimir Dal compiled the first dictionary that included dialectal vocabulary. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (also Dahl, Владимир Иванович Даль ( November 10, 1801 &ndash September 22 1872 Detailed mapping of Russian dialects began at the turn of the twentieth century. In modern times, the monumental Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language (Диалектологический атлас русского языка [dʲɪɐˌlʲɛktəlɐˈgʲiʨɪskʲɪj ˈatləs ˈruskəvə jɪzɨˈka]), was published in 3 folio volumes 1986–1989, after four decades of preparatory work.

The standard language is based on (but not identical to) the Moscow dialect.

Derived languages

• Balachka a dialect, spoken primarily by Cossacks, in the regions of Don, Kuban and Terek. Balachka ( Russian and Ukrainian: балачка is a term used to label the present dialects spoken by Cossacks in Russia The Cossacks (Каза́ки́ Kazaki; Козаки́ Kozaki; Kozacy are a group of martial people living in the southern Steppe regions of Eastern Kuban ( Кубáнь) is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe The Terek River (Терек თერგი Tergi; Терек Terek, Chechen, Терк Terk) is a major River in the
• Fenya, a criminal argot of ancient origin, with Russian grammar, but with distinct vocabulary. Fenya, феня or Fenka is a Russian cant language used among criminals Argot ( French, Spanish and Catalan for " Slang " is a Secret language used by various groups—including but not limited
• Nadsat, the fictional language spoken in 'A Clockwork Orange' uses a lot of Russian words and Russian slang. Nadsat is a constructed Language used by the teenage subculture also called Nadsat in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange
• Surzhyk is a language with Russian and Ukrainian features, spoken in some areas of Ukraine
• Trasianka is a language with Russian and Belarusian features used by a large portion of the rural population in Belarus. Surzhyk (суржик originally meaning ‘flour or bread made from mixed grains’ e Trasianka or trasyanka (трасянка is a Belarusian &ndash Russian Patois or a kind of Interlanguage (from the linguistic point Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east
• Quelia, a pseudo pidgin of German and Russian. A mixed language or Pidgin that appears to have arisen in the early 1990s
• Runglish, Russian-English pidgin. Runglish (Ruglish Russlish Рунглийский язык is a Neologism increasingly used to denote at least three different interferences of Russian and 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 is an extinct pidgin language with mostly Russian vocabulary and mostly Norwegian grammar, used for communication between Russians and Norwegian traders in the Pomor trade in Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula. Russenorsk (Norwegian for "Russo-Norwegian" was a dual-source Pidgin language in the Arctic combining elements of Russian and Norwegian, created A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common in situations such as Trade Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language The Russian people (Русские— Russkie) are an East Slavic Ethnic group, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional or Finnmárku ( Sami language) is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. The Kola Peninsula (from Sami language Guoládat) (Кольский полуостров Kol'skij poluostrov) is a Peninsula in the far

Writing system

Alphabet

Main article: Russian alphabet

Russian is written using a modified version of the Cyrillic (кириллица) alphabet. The modern Russian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their upper case forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound:

А /a/	Б /b/	В /v/	Г /g/	Д /d/	Е /je/	Ё /jo/	Ж /ʐ/	З /z/	И /i/	Й /j/
К /k/	Л /l/	М /m/	Н /n/	О /o/	П /p/	Р /r/	С /s/	Т /t/	У /u/	Ф /f/
Х /x/	Ц /t͡s/	Ч /t͡ɕ/	Ш /ʂ/	Щ /ɕː/	Ъ /-/	Ы [ɨ]	Ь /◌ʲ/	Э /e/	Ю /ju/	Я /ja/

Older letters of the Russian alphabet include <ѣ>, which merged to <е> (/e/); <і> and <ѵ>, which both merged to <и>(/i/); <ѳ>, which merged to <ф> (/f/); and <ѧ>, which merged to <я> (/ja/ or /ʲa/). A (А а is the first letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It arose directly from the Greek letter alpha. Ve (В в is the third letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the sound /v/ Ge or He (Г г italics Г, г) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing /g/ or /ɦ/ in different languages De (Д д italics Д д) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. For the Ukrainian alphabet letter Ye (Є є see Ukrainian Ye. Yo (Ё ё is the seventh letter of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, invented in 1783 by Yekaterina Dashkova, and first used among others in 1797 by the Russian Zhe (Ж ж is the letter of Cyrillic alphabet which represents the Voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ ( listen) similar to the s Ze (З з is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /z/ I or Y (И и italics И, и) is a letter of almost all ancient and modern Cyrillic alphabets representing typically /i/ (in Old Slavonic Ka (К к is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It is derived from the Greek letter kappa (Κ κ El (Л л is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /l/ unless it comes before a palatalizing vowel when it represents /lʲ/ except in Serbian Em (М м is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing a Bilabial nasal consonant /m/ unless it is before a palatalizing vowel when it represents En (Н н is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It represents the consonant /n/ unless followed by ь or any of the Palatalizing vowels when it represents /nʲ/ O (О о is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the vowel /o/ word-initially and after hard consonants Pe (П п (formerly referred to by the mnemonic name pokoy) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /p/ unless followed Er (Р р is the eighteenth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It was developed from the Greek letter Rho. Es (С с is the eighteenth letter in the Bulgarian the nineteenth letter in the Russian and the twenty-first letter in Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. Te (Т т italics Т, т) is the letter in the Cyrillic alphabet corresponding to T in the Latin alphabet U (У у is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the vowel /u/ after non-palatalized (hard consonants Ef (Ф ф is the twenty-second letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Kha, (Х х is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the Voiceless velar fricative /x/ in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian Tse (Ц ц is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks somewhat like U with square corners and a "pig tail" on the bottom right Che or Cha (Ч ч italics Ч ч) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Sha (Ш ш italics Ш ш) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant sound /ʃ/ or /ʂ/ Shcha or Shta (Щ щ italics Щ щ) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, historically representing The letter Yer or Jer ( Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак znak in the modern Yery or Yeru (Ы ы usually called ы in modern Russian) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. The soft sign (Ь ь is a symbol in the Cyrillic alphabet. In the Old Slavic language, it represented a short -like vowel but in modern Slavic Cyrillic writing For the letter E (Е е of the Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and Ukrainian alphabets see Ye (Cyrillic Yu (Ю ю is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing either the combination /ju/ (a so-called iotated vowel or /u/ after a palatalized consonant Ya (Я я is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing either the combination /ja/ (a so-called Iotated vowel) or /a/ after a palatalized consonant The yers <ъ> and <ь> originally indicated the pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/, /ĭ/. The letter Yer or Jer ( Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак znak in the modern While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles.

The Russian alphabet has many systems of character encoding. A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page KOI8-R was designed by the government and was intended to serve as the standard encoding. KOI8-R is an 8-bit Character encoding, designed to cover Russian, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet This encoding is still used in UNIX-like operating systems. Nevertheless, the spread of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows created chaos and ended by establishing different encodings as de-facto standards. MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. For communication purposes, a number of conversion applications were developed. \ "iconv" is an example that is supported by most versions of Linux, Macintosh and some other operating systems. iconv is a Computer program and a standardized API used to convert between different Character encodings iconv API The iconv API is the Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Macintosh, commonly nicknamed Mac is a Brand name which covers several lines of Personal computers designed developed and marketed by Apple Inc An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination Most implementations (especially old ones) of the character encoding for the Russian language are aimed at simultaneous use of English and Russian characters only and do not include support for any other language. Certain hopes for a unification of the character encoding for the Russian alphabet are related to the Unicode standard, specifically designed for peaceful coexistence of various languages, including even dead languages. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken Unicode also supports the letters of the Early Cyrillic alphabet, which have many similarities with the Greek alphabet. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's The original Cyrillic alphabet was a writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century to write the Old Church Slavonic Liturgical The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early

Further information: Romanization of Russian and Informal romanizations of Russian

Orthography

Main article: Russian orthography

Russian spelling is reasonably phonemic in practice. The Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet and Informal or ad hoc Romanizations of Russian have been in use since the early days of Electronic communications starting from early E-mail and Russian orthography (правописание ˈpravəpʲɪˈsanʲjə is formally considered to encompass Spelling (орфография jə and Punctuation (пунктуация It is in fact a balance among phonemics, morphology, etymology, and grammar; and, like that of most living languages, has its share of inconsistencies and controversial points. A number of rigid spelling rules introduced between the 1880s and 1910s have been responsible for the latter whilst trying to eliminate the former. In Russian, the term spelling rule is used to describe a number of rules relating to the spelling of words in the language that would appear in most cases to deviate from a strictly

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 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reformulated on the French and German models.

Sounds

Main article: Russian phonology

The phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic, but underwent considerable modification in the early historical period, before being largely settled by about 1400. See also Russian language For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Russian for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA for Russian This article discusses Proto-Slavic is the Proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged

The language possesses five vowels, which are written with different letters depending on whether or not the preceding consonant is palatalized. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process The consonants typically come in plain vs. palatalized pairs, which are traditionally called hard and soft. (The hard consonants are often velarized, especially before back vowels, although in some dialects the velarization is limited to hard /l/). Velarization is a Secondary articulation of Consonants by which the back of the Tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the 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. In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral (See also: vowel reduction in Russian. See also Russian phonology Vowel reduction in Russian differs in the Standard language and in Dialects Several ways of reduction )

The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to 4 consecutive sounds. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds Using a formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant the structure can be described as follows:

(C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C)

Clusters of four consonants are not very common, however, especially within a morpheme.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental & Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	hard	/m/		/n/
	soft	/mʲ/		/nʲ/
Plosive	hard	/p/   /b/		/t/   /d/			/k/   /g/
	soft	/pʲ/   /bʲ/		/tʲ/   /dʲ/			/kʲ/*   [gʲ]
Affricate	hard			/ʦ/
	soft				/tɕ/
Fricative	hard		/f/   /v/	/s/   /z/	/ʂ/   /ʐ/		/x/
	soft		/fʲ/   /vʲ/	/sʲ/   /zʲ/	/ɕː/*   /ʑː/*		[xʲ]
Trill	hard			/r/
	soft			/rʲ/
Approximant	hard			/l/
	soft			/lʲ/		/j/

Russian is notable for its distinction based on palatalization of most of the consonants. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process While /k/, /g/, /x/ do have palatalized allophones [kʲ, gʲ, xʲ], only /kʲ/ might be considered a phoneme, though it is marginal and generally not considered distinctive (the only native minimal pair which argues for /kʲ/ to be a separate phoneme is "это ткёт"/"этот кот"). In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. In Phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of Words or phrases in a particular Language, which differ in only one phonological element such as a Phone Palatalization means that the center of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. In the case of /tʲ/ and /dʲ/, the tongue is raised enough to produce slight frication (affricate sounds). These sounds: /t, d, ʦ, s, z, n and rʲ/ are dental, that is pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against the alveolar ridge. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and An alveolar ridge (also known as the alveolar margin) is one of the two Jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the Hard palate

Grammar

Main article: Russian grammar

Russian has preserved an Indo-European synthetic-inflectional structure, although considerable leveling has taken place. Russian grammar encompasses a highly synthetic morphology a syntax that for the literary language is the conscious fusion of three elements A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice

Russian grammar encompasses

• a highly synthetic morphology
• a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements:
  • a polished vernacular foundation;
  • a Church Slavonic inheritance;
  • a Western European style. A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality Church Slavonic (also Church Slavic, Old Bulgarian) is the Liturgical language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe '

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.

Vocabulary

See History of the Russian language for an account of the successive foreign influences on the Russian language.

The total number of words in Russian is difficult to reckon because of the ability to agglutinate and create manifold compounds, diminutives, etc. (see Word Formation under Russian grammar). Russian grammar encompasses a highly synthetic morphology a syntax that for the literary language is the conscious fusion of three elements Russian grammar encompasses a highly synthetic morphology a syntax that for the literary language is the conscious fusion of three elements

The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published during the last two centuries, and the total vocabulary of Pushkin (who is credited with greatly augmenting and codifying literary Russian), are as follows:

Work	Year	Words	Notes
Academic dictionary, I Ed.	1789–1794	43,257	Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old Russian vocabulary
Academic dictionary, II Ed	1806–1822	51,388	Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old Russian vocabulary
Pushkin opus	1810–1837	21,197	-
Academic dictionary, III Ed.	1847	114,749	Russian and Church Slavonic with Old Russian vocabulary
Dahl's dictionary	1880–1882	195,844	44,000 entries lexically grouped; attempt to catalogue the full vernacular language, includes some properly Ukrainian and Belarusian words
Ushakov's dictionary	1934–1940	85,289	Current language with some archaisms
Academic dictionary	1950–1965	120,480	full dictionary of the "Modern language"
Ozhegov's dictionary	1950s–1960s	61,458	More or less then-current language
Lopatin's dictionary	2000	c. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (also Dahl, Владимир Иванович Даль ( November 10, 1801 &ndash September 22 1872 Dmitry Nikolayevich Ushakov (Дмитрий Николаевич Ушаков January 24, 1873 &mdash April 17, 1942) was a Russian Sergei Ivanovich Ozhegov (Russian Сергей Иванович Ожегов 22 August 1900 - 15 December 1964) was a Russian 160,000	Orthographic, current language

(As a historical aside, Dahl was, in the second half of the nineteenth century, still insisting that the proper spelling of the adjective русский, which was at that time applied uniformly to all the Orthodox Eastern Slavic subjects of the Empire, as well as to its one official language, be spelled руский with one s, in accordance with ancient tradition and what he termed the "spirit of the language". Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (also Dahl, Владимир Иванович Даль ( November 10, 1801 &ndash September 22 1872 He was contradicted by the philologist Grot, who distinctly heard the s lengthened or doubled).

Proverbs and sayings

Main articles: Russian proverbs and Russian sayings

The Russian language is replete with many hundreds of proverbs (пословица [pɐˈslo. Russian proverbs give an insight into many aspects of Russian History, Culture, and National character. Russian sayings give an insight into many aspects of Russian History, Culture, and National character. vʲɪ. ʦə]) and sayings (поговоркa [pə. gɐˈvo. rkə]). These were already tabulated by the seventeenth century, and collected and studied in the nineteenth and twentieth, with the folk-tales being an especially fertile source.

History and examples

Main article: History of the Russian language

See also: Reforms of Russian orthography

The history of Russian language may be divided into the following periods. The Old Russian language adopted the Cyrillic alphabet, approximately during the tenth century and at about the same time as the introduction of Eastern Christianity

• Kievan period and feudal breakup
• The Tatar yoke and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
• The Moscovite period (15th–17th centuries)
• Empire (18th–19th centuries)
• Soviet period and beyond (20th century)

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 Slavs, speaking a closely related group of dialects. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east The political unification of this region into Kievan Rus' in about 880, from which modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus trace their origins, established Old East Slavic as a literary and commercial language. Kievan Rus′ (Ки́евская Русь romanised: Kievskaya Rus', rusʲ also written as Kyivan Rus′ (Ки́ївська Русь or Kievan Old East Slavic, also known as Old Russian (древнерусский or Old Ruthenian, was a vernacular literary language used from the 10th to the 14th centuries It was soon followed by the adoption of Christianity in 988 and the introduction of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic as the liturgical and official language. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ 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. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Old East Slavic, also known as Old Russian (древнерусский or Old Ruthenian, was a vernacular literary language used from the 10th to the 14th centuries to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ

Dialectal differentiation accelerated after the breakup of Kievan Rus in approximately 1100. Kievan Rus′ (Ки́евская Русь romanised: Kievskaya Rus', rusʲ also written as Kyivan Rus′ (Ки́ївська Русь or Kievan On the territories of modern Belarus and Ukraine emerged Ruthenian and in modern Russia medieval Russian. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Ruthenian (also Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending They definitely became distinct in 13th century by the time of division of that land between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the west and independent Novgorod Feudal Republic plus small duchies which were vassals of the Tatars on the east. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė old literary Lithuanian Didi Kunigiste Letuvos, Ruthenian: Wialikaje Kniastwa Litowskaje

The official language in Moscow and Novgorod, and later, in the growing Moscow Rus’, was Church Slavonic which evolved from Old Church Slavonic and remained the literary language until the Petrine age, when its usage shrank drastically to biblical and liturgical texts. Church Slavonic (also Church Slavic, Old Bulgarian) is the Liturgical language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ In Linguistics, diglossia is a situation where in a given society there are two (often closely-related languages one of high prestige, which is generally used Russian developed under a strong influence of the Church Slavonic until the close of the seventeenth century; the influence reversed afterwards leading to corruption of liturgical texts.

The political reforms of Peter the Great 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, less often German, on an everyday basis. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Many Russian novels of the 19th century, e. g. Lev Tolstoy’s "War and Peace", contain entire paragraphs and even pages in French with no translation given, with an assumption that educated readers won't need one.

The modern literary language is usually considered to date from the time of Aleksandr Pushkin in the first third of the nineteenth century. Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (so called "высокий стиль" — "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 only few words used by Pushkin became archaic or changed meaning. On the other hand, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19th century, in particular Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Griboiädov, became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in the modern Russian colloquial speech. Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов) ( –) a Russian Romantic Writer and Poet, sometimes Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Никола́й Васи́льевич Го́голь Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol;; Микола Васильович Гоголь

The political upheavals of the early twentieth century and the wholesale changes of political ideology gave written Russian its modern appearance after the spelling reform of 1918. Political circumstances and Soviet accomplishments in military, scientific, and technological matters (especially cosmonautics), gave Russian a world-wide prestige, especially during the middle third of the twentieth century.

See also

Language description

• Russian alphabet
• Russian grammar
• Russian orthography
• Russian phonology
• History of the Russian language
• List of Russian language topics

Related languages

• East Slavic languages
• Slavic languages
• Church Slavonic language
• Great Russian language
• Old Church Slavonic
• Old Russian language

Other

• List of English words of Russian origin
• Russian literature
• Russian humour
• Russian proverbs
• Reforms of Russian orthography
• Romanization of Russian
• Volapuk encoding
• Non-native pronunciations of English
• Runglish
• Computer russification

References

The following serve as references for both this article and the related articles listed below that describe the Russian language:

In English

• Comrie, Bernard, Gerald Stone, Maria Polinsky (1996). Bernard Comrie (ˈbɝːnɚd ˈkɒmri born May 23, 1947 in Sunderland, UK) is a British-born linguist The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. , Oxford: Oxford University Press. 019824066X.  
• Timberlake, Alan (2003). A Reference Grammar of Russian. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP is a Publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534 0521772923.  
• Carleton, T. R. (1991). Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Press.  
• Cubberley, P. (2002). Russian: A Linguistic Introduction, 1st ed. , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  
• Halle, Morris (1959). Morris Halle, né Pinkowitz is a Latvian-American Jewish linguist and an Institute Professor and professor Emeritus of linguistics Sound Pattern of Russian. MIT Press.  
• Ladefoged, Peter and Maddieson, Ian (1996). Peter Nielsen Ladefoged ( September 17, 1925 – January 24, 2006) was an English-American linguist and phonetician Ian Maddieson is a linguist at UC Berkeley, and vice-president of the International Phonetic Association. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell Publishers.  
• Matthews, W. K. (1960). Russian Historical Grammar. London: University of London, Athlone Press.  
• Stender-Petersen, A. (1954). Anthology of old Russian literature. New York: Columbia University Press.  
• Wade, Terrence (2000). A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, 2nd ed. , Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Blackwell Publishing Ltd was a Learned society publishing company based in Oxford, England. 0631207570.  

In Russian

• Востриков О. В. , Финно-угорский субстрат в русском языке: Учебное пособие по спецкурсу. - Свердловск, 1990. – 99c. – В надзаг. : Уральский гос. ун-т им. А. М. Горького.
• 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.
• Михельсон Т. Н. Рассказы русских летописей XV–XVII веков. М. , 1978. ?
• Новиков Л. А. Современный русский язык: для высшей школы. - Москва: Лань, 2003.
• Филин Ф. П. , О словарном составе языка Великорусского народа; Вопросы языкознания. - М. , 1982, № 5. - С. 18–28
• Цыганенко Г. П. Этимологический словарь русского языка, Киев, 1970.
• Шанский Н. М. , Иванов В. В. , Шанская Т. В. Краткий этимологический словарь русского языка. М. 1961.
• Шицгал А. , Русский гражданский шрифт, М. , «Исскуство», 1958, 2-e изд. 1983.

External links

Dictionaries

• English to Russian Dictionary
• Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary of Russian language

Other resources

• ODP Russian Language category
• Site about different Russian language topics

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