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Russian

ROO-skee yi-ZIK
Also Known As русский язык (russkiy yazyk)
Slavic Languages

Russian is an East Slavic language and the most widely spoken Slavic language, serving as the primary language of Russia and a widely used second language across much of the former Soviet Union. It is written in a Cyrillic alphabet distinct in some letterforms from Bulgarian, reflecting reforms carried out under Peter the Great and again after the 1917 revolution.

Facts
ISO 639-3 Code
ru 6
Speaker Count
154,000,000 6
Figure is for first-language speakers. Ethnologues total figure including second-language speakers across the former Soviet Union runs well over 250 million; sources differ on how many former-Soviet second-language speakers to count as fluent.
Status
Living 6
Attested From (Year)
from 901 7
Region
Russia and the wider Russian-speaking world: former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia; diaspora communities in North America and Israel 2
Browse and compare
Word Order
SVO 3
Tone
Not Tonal 4
Difficulty for an English Speaker
Category III 5
Classification
Language Kind
Safe 1
Official Status
Official Language 2
Connections

Ancestor Of

Central Russian Dialects, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Central Russian Dialects
Northern Russian dialect, Dialects and Varieties

The Northern Russian dialect group is one of the two principal geographic dialect divisions of Russian.

Source Wikipedia: Russian Dialects
Southern Russian dialect, Dialects and Varieties

The Southern Russian dialect group is one of the two principal geographic dialect divisions of Russian.

Source Wikipedia: Russian Dialects

Associated With

Bulgarian, Languages

This source names Bulgarian directly: "distinct in some letterforms from Bulgarian, reflecting reforms carried out under Peter the Great and again after the 1917 revolution."

Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Roman Jakobson, Linguists
Source Fundamentals of LanguageRoman Jakobson And Morris Halle

In Family

East Slavic, Language Families
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Slavic, Language Families
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)

Written In

Cyrillic Script, Scripts
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
In the Other Atlases

Cases Where Used

Hope Channel

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Antarctic Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Charter of the United Nations

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

German Instrument of Surrender

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Kyoto Protocol

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Lacy-Zarubin Agreement

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Outer Space Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Paris Agreement

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Rome Statute

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Treaty of Aigun

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Treaty of Tlatelolco

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Treaty of Turkmenchay

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Source Treaty of Turkmenchay, WikipediaLead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
It was second of the series of treaties (the first was the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the last, the 1881 Treaty of Akhal) signed between Qajar Iran and Imperial Russia that forced Iran to cede or recognize Russian influence over the territories that formerly were part of Iran.
Cossacks

Also in Society and Culture Atlas: used in this subject.

Original Language Of

2001: A Space Odyssey

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Andrei Rublev

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Battleship Potemkin

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Close to Eden

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Come and See

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Coraline

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Earth

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

First Orbit

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Man with a Movie Camera

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

October: Ten Days That Shook the World

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Second Life

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Solaris

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Stalker

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Storm Over Asia

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Strike

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Tetris

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Ascent (1977 film)

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Colour of Pomegranates

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Cranes Are Flying

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Return

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Theme

Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.

A Confession

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Alexander Fadeyev

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Alexander Pushkin

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

And Quiet Flows the Don

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Andrey Kurkov

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Anna Karenina

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Anton Chekhov

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Boris Akunin

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Crime and Punishment

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Dead Souls

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Diary of a Madman (Gogol)

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Elsa Triolet

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Source Elsa Triolet (Wikipedia)Article text
Quote, Article text
written in Russian and published in Leningrad
Eugene Onegin

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Franz Kafka

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Ilya Ilf

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Ivan Turgenev

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Jaroslav Hašek

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Joseph Brodsky

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Source Joseph Brodsky (Wikipedia)Section on writing in English
Quote, Section on writing in English
Throughout his career he wrote in Russian and English
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Leo Tolstoy

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Mikhail Sholokhov

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Nikolai Gogol

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Nikolai Leskov

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Notes from Underground

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Roadside Picnic

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

S. An-sky

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Sergei Lukyanenko

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Source Sergei Lukyanenko (Wikipedia)Lead section
Quote, Lead section
writing in Russian

Showing 1 to 50 of 67 in Original Language Of, page 1 of 2.

Found In

Asia

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Central Asia

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Eastern Europe

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Europe

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

North America

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

The Caucasus

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Sources
1. Glottolog: Russian (Glottolog languoid russ1263)
GlottologEndangerment, AES status
Quote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
View the Source
2. Wikipedia: Russian Language
Wikipedia
  • infobox
    русский (russkiy)
  • lead section
    the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia
  • Pronunciation
    [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]
  • Official status, Russian entity page
    It has remained an official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, has constitutional status as the language of inter-ethnic communication in Tajikistan, and is still used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.
View the Source
3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Russian / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint page
Quote, Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SVO
View the Source
4. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Russian / Tone (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint page
Quote, Datapoint page
Feature: Tone by Ian Maddieson Value: No tones
View the Source
5. Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center: Languages Offered - Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
Defense Language Institute Foreign Language CenterLanguages Offered
Quote, Languages Offered
Category III languages, 48 week-long courses: Persian Farsi Russian
View the Source
6. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024
  • ISO 639-3 Code: ru
  • Speaker Count: 154,000,000
  • Status: Living
View the Source
7. Omniglot: Russian language, alphabet and pronunciation
OmniglotLanguage at a glance
Quote, Language at a glance
First written : 10th century AD
View the Source
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Written In: Cyrillic ScriptView the Source
Fundamentals of Language
Roman Jakobson And Morris Halle, 1956Associated With: Roman Jakobson
Encyclopaedia Britannica
In Family: East SlavicView the Source
Wikipedia: Russian Dialects
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Ancestor Of: Southern Russian dialect, Article text
    Southern, in the western and southern parts of European Russia; this has various types of vowel reduction and fricative /ɣ/; this group makes up a dialect continuum with Belarusian, although it differs significantly from the Ukrainian dialects to the further south, sharing only a few isoglosses (namely the fricative pronunciation of Proto-Slavic *g).
  • Ancestor Of: Northern Russian dialect, Article text
    Depending on the presence or the absence of vowel reduction (akanye and/or ikanye) and the pronunciation of Proto-Slavic *g, Russian is divided into two main dialectical divisions and the intermediate one: Northern, in the northern and north-eastern parts of European Russia, from Veliky Novgorod to the Perm and northern Ural regions; this has no or little vowel reduction in unstressed positions and stop /ɡ/.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Central Russian Dialects
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Central Russian Dialects, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Central Russian Dialects, Lead sentence
Russian: Среднерусские говоры) is one of the main groups of Russian dialects.
View the Source
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