Russian language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russian
[1] (russky yazyk)
Pronunciation

[ruskj jzk]

Native to

Russia, other post-Soviet states

Native speakers

150 million (2010)[2]

260 million (L1 plus L2
speakers) (2012)[3]
Indo-European

Balto-Slavic
Slavic

o
Language family

East

Slavic

ussian
Old East Slavic
Early forms

Writing system
Signed forms

Russian

Cyrillic (Russian alphabet)

Russian Braille
Russian Sign Language
Official status

Official language in List[show]

Recognised minority
List[show]
language in
Regulated by

Russian Language Institute[22]

at the Russian Academy of
Sciences
Language codes

ISO 639-1

ru

ISO 639-2

rus

ISO 639-3

rus

Glottolog

russ1263[23]
53-AAA-ea < 53-AAA-e

Linguasphere

(varieties: 53-AAA-eaa to
53-AAA-eat)

Russian-speaking world
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.
Without proper rendering support, you may see
question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of
Unicode characters.
Russian ( , russky yazyk, pronounced [ruskj jzk]) is an East Slavic language
and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but
widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and to a lesser extent,
the other countries that were once constituent republics of the Soviet Union and former
participants of the Eastern Bloc.[24][25] Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages
and is one of the three living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old
East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards.
It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the
Slavic languages. It is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native
speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the
world by number of native speakers and the seventh by total number of speakers.[26] The
language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those
without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. 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. Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally
indicated orthographically[27] though an optional acute accent ( , znak udareniya)
may be used to mark stress, such as to distinguish between homographic words, for example
(zamok, meaning lock) and (zamok, meaning castle), or to indicate the proper
pronunciation of uncommon words or names.

Contents

1 Classification

2 Standard Russian

3 Geographic distribution
o 3.1 Official status
o 3.2 Russian as an international language
o 3.3 Dialects
o 3.4 Derived languages

4 Alphabet
o 4.1 Transliteration
o 4.2 Computing
o 4.3 Orthography

5 Phonology
o 5.1 Consonants

6 Grammar

7 Vocabulary
o 7.1 Number of words in Russian
o 7.2 Proverbs and sayings

8 History and examples

9 See also

10 Notes and references

11 Bibliography

o 11.1 In English
o 11.2 In Russian

12 External links

Classification
Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family. It is a lineal descendant of the
language used in Kievan Rus'. From the point of view of the spoken language, its closest
relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn, the other three languages in the East Slavic
group. 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, e.g. Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old
Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is sometimes considered to
have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also Russian has notable
lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both
languages, as well as because of later interaction in the 19th20th centuries, although Bulgarian
grammar differs markedly from Russian.[28] In the 19th century, the language was often called
"Great Russian" to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called "White Russian" and Ukrainian,
then called "Little Russian".
The vocabulary (mainly abstract and literary words), principles of word formations, and, to some
extent, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a
developed and partly russified form of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic language used by
the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used
exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the
East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with many different meanings. For
details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language.
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, Polish, Dutch,
German, French, Italian and English,[29] and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the
east: Uralic, Turkic, Persian, Arabic.[citation needed] as well as Hebrew, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, and
numerous other Asian Languages.
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, requiring
approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency.[30] 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 and its critical role in American world policy.

Standard Russian

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section
by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and
removed. (June 2013)
Main article: Moscow dialect

Russian language street sign in Russia.

The standard well-known form of Russian is generally called the modern Russian literary
language ( ). It arose in 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 the
influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancellery language.
Mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755; in 1783 the Russian
Academy's first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. During the end of the 18th and 19th
centuries, during a period known as the "Golden Age", the grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation of the Russian language was stabilized and standardized, and it became the
nationwide literary language; meanwhile, Russia's world-famous literature flourished.
Until the 20th century, the language's spoken form was the language of only the upper noble
classes and urban population, as Russian peasants from the countryside continued to speak in
their own dialects. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction
of the compulsory education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the
formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features (such as fricative [] in
Southern Russian dialects) are still observed in colloquial speech.

Geographic distribution

Worldwide geographic distribution[clarification needed]

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 only in 1990.[31] 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.
In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia - 137.5, in the CIS
and Baltic countries - 93.7, in Eastern Europe and the Balkans - 12.9, Western Europe - 7.3, Asia
- 2.7, Middle East and North Africa - 1.3, Sub-Saharan Africa - 0.1, Latin America - 0.2, USA,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand - 4.1. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the
world by number of native speakers, after English, Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish and Arabic.[32]
According to the census of 2010 in Russia Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million
people (99.4% population), while according to the 2002 census - 142.6 million people (99.2%
population). Among the urban residents 101 million people (99.8% population) had Russian
language skills, while in rural areas - 37 million people (98.7% population).[33]
In Latvia its official recognition and legality in the classroom have been a topic of considerable
debate in a country where more than one-third[citation needed] of the population is Russian-speaking
(see Russians in Latvia). Similarly, in Estonia, ethnic Russians constitute 25.5% of the country's
current population[34] and 58.6% of the native Estonian population is also able to speak Russian.
[35]
In all, 67.8% of Estonia's population can speak Russian.[35] Command of Russian language,
however, is rapidly decreasing among younger Estonians (primarily being replaced by the
command of English). For example, if 53% of ethnic Estonians between 15 and 19 claim to
speak some Russian, then among the 1014 year old group, command of Russian has fallen to
19% (which is about one-third the percentage of those who claim to have command of English in
the same age group).[35]
In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Russian remains a co-official language with Kazakh and Kyrgyz,
respectively. Large Russian-speaking communities still exist in northern Kazakhstan, and ethnic
Russians comprise 25.6% of Kazakhstan's population.[36]
Those who speak Russian as a mother or secondary language in Lithuania represent
approximately 60% of the population of Lithuania. Also, more than half of the population of the
Baltic states speak Russian either as a foreign language or as a mother tongue.[35][37][38] As the
Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1918, a number of
Russian speakers have remained in Finland. There are 33,400 Russian-speaking Finns,
amounting to 0.6% of the population. Five thousand (0.1%) of them are late 19th century and
20th century immigrants or their descendants, and the remaining majority are recent immigrants
who moved there in the 1990s and later.[citation needed]
In the 20th century, Russian was mandatorily taught in the schools of the members of the old
Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. In particular, these
countries include Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, former

East Germany and Cuba. However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because
Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system. According to the Eurobarometer 2005
survey,[39] though, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (2040%) in some countries, in
particular those where the people speak a Slavic language and thereby have an edge in learning
Russian (namely, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria). In 2005, it was the most
widely taught foreign language in Mongolia,[40] and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a
second foreign language in 2006.[41]

Competence of Russian in the countries of the former USSR, 2004

Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former
Soviet Union, according to the 1999 census. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish
material in Russian.[citation needed] Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of
people in Afghanistan (Awde and Sarwan, 2003).
The language was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into
Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 1700s. Although most 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.[42] 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, Nashville, San
Francisco, Seattle, Spokane, Toronto, Baltimore, Miami, Chicago, Denver and Cleveland. 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 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 changed the statistics
somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian
Jews and Central Asians. According to the United States Census, in 2007 Russian was the
primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States.[43]

Moscow, Russia, the city with greatest number of Russian speakers.

Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by
several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the 20th century, each with its own flavor of
language. The United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Brazil,
Norway, and Austria have significant Russian-speaking communities. Germany has the highest
Russian-speaking population outside the former Soviet Union with approximately 3 million
people.[44] They are split into three groups, from largest to smallest: Russian-speaking ethnic
Germans (Aussiedler), ethnic Russians, and Jews. Australian cities Melbourne and Sydney also
have Russian-speaking populations, with the most Russians living in southeast Melbourne,
particularly the suburbs of Carnegie and Caulfield. Two-thirds of them are actually Russianspeaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Azerbaijanis, Armenians or Ukrainians, who
either repatriated after the USSR collapsed, or are just looking for temporary employment.[citation
needed]

According to the 2011 Census of Ireland, there were 21,639 people in the nation who use
Russian as a home language. However, of this only 13% were Russian nationals. 20% held Irish
citizenship, while 27% and 14% were holding the passports of Latvia and Lithuania respectively.
[45]
Some are Russian speakers from Latvia and Lithuania who were unable to obtain Latvian or
Lithuanian citizenship. There were 20,984 Russian speakers in Cyprus according to the Census
of 2011, accounting for 2.5% of the population.[46] The Russian language in the world is reduced
due to the decrease in the number of Russians in the world and diminution of the total population
in Russia (where Russian is an official language). The collapse of the Soviet Union and reduction
in influence of Russia also has reduced the popularity of the Russian language in the rest of the
world.[32][47][48]
Russians in China form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by mainland China.
Recent estimates of the total number of speakers of Russian

Source

Native

Native rank

Total

Total rank

speakers

speakers

G. Weber, "Top Languages",

Language Monthly,
160,000,000
3: 1218, 1997, ISSN 13699733

285,000,000

World Almanac (1999)

145,000,000

(2005) 275,000,000

SIL (2000 WCD)

145,000,000

255,000,000

CIA World Factbook (2005) 160,000,000

56 (tied with
Arabic)

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.,[49] the Russian language is gradually losing its position in the world in
general, and in Russia in particular.[47][50][51][52] 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 further weakening of the Russian language in all regions of the world (findings
published in 2013 in the journal "Demoskop Weekly").[32][53][54][55] In the countries of the former
Soviet Union the Russian language is gradually being replaced by local languages.[32][56]
Currently the number speakers of Russian language in the world depends on the number of
Russians in the world (as the main sources distribution Russian language) and total population
Russia (where Russian is an official language).[32][47][48]
The changing proportion of Russian speakers in the world (assessment Aref'eva 2012)[32][55]

worldwide
Year population,
million

1900 1 650

population Russian
Empire, Soviet
Union and Russian
Federation, million

138.0

total number
share in world of speakers of share in world
population, %
Russian,
population, %
million

8.4

105

6.4

1914 1 782

182.2

10.2

140

7.9

1940 2 342

205.0

8.8

200

7.6

1980 4 434

265.0

6.0

280

6.3

1990 5 263

286.0

5.4

312

5.9

2004 6 400

146.0

2.3

278

4.3

2010 6 820

142.7

2.1

260

3.8

Official status
See also: List of countries where Russian is an official language
Russian is the official language of Russia, although it shares the official status at regional level
with other languages in the numerous ethnic autonomies within Russia, such as Chuvashia,
Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and Yakutia. It is also a co-official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and a co-official language of the unrecognized country of Transnistria and partially
recognized countries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In Ukraine the Russian language lacks the
status of a state language, but still enjoys an extensive protection as a regional and minority
language with some official functions.[57] The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees "free
development, use and protection"[58] of the Russian language. 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 as well as many of the former Soviet
republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the
former Soviet republics.[59]
While 94% of school students in Russia receive their education primarily in Russian,[60] this
number is lower in other countries: 75% in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, 20% in
Ukraine,[61] 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in Georgia, and 2% in
Armenia and Tajikistan. The percentage of ethnic Russians is 80% in Russia, 10% in Belarus,
36% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in Kyrgyzstan, 6% in Moldova, 2% in Azerbaijan,
1.5% in Georgia and less than 1% in both Armenia and Tajikistan.[citation needed]
Russian-language schooling is also available in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. However, due to
recent high school reforms in Latvia (whereby the government pays a substantial sum to a school

to teach in the national language), the number of subjects taught in Russian has been reduced in
the country.[62][63] The language has a co-official status alongside Romanian in the autonomies of
Gagauzia and Transnistria in Moldova. In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine,
Russian is recognized as a regional language alongside Crimean Tatar. According to a poll by
FOM-Ukraine, Russian is the most widely spoken language in Ukraine understood by everyone.
[64][65][need quotation to verify]
However, despite its widespread usage, pro-Russian Crimean activists
complain about the (mandatory) use of Ukrainian in schools, movie theaters, courts, on drug
prescriptions and its use in the media and for government paperwork.[66][67]
The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space
Station - NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian
language courses. This practice goes back to the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975.

Russian as an international language

See also: Russophone, List of official languages by institution and Internet in Russian
Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided
into Russian) of the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, World Health
Organization, International Civil Aviation Organization, UNESCO, World Intellectual Property
Organization, International Telecommunication Union, World Meteorological Organization,
Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development,
International Criminal Court, International Monetary Fund, International Olympic Committee,
Universal Postal Union, World Bank, Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Eurasian Economic
Community, Collective Security Treaty Organization, Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, International
Organization for Standardization, GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic
Development, International Mathematical Olympiad.
In March 2013 it was announced that Russian is now the second-most used language on the
Internet after English. People use the Russian language on 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of
German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian is used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also
on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su. The websites of former Soviet Union
nations also use 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 is the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French,
German and Japanese.[68]

Dialects
Main articles: Russian dialects and Moscow dialect

Russian dialects in 1915

Northern dialects
1. Arkhangelsk dialect
2. Olonets dialect
3. Novgorod dialect
4. Viatka dialect
5. Vladimir dialect

Central dialects
6. Moscow dialect
7. Tver dialect
Southern dialects
8. Orel (Don) dialect
9. Ryazan dialect
10. Tula dialect
11. Smolensk dialect

Other
12. Northern Russian dialect with Belarusian influences
13. Sloboda and Steppe dialects of Ukrainian
14. Steppe dialect of Ukrainian with Russian influences
Russian is a rather homogeneous language, in terms of dialectal variation, due to the early
political centralization under the Moscow rule, compulsory education, mass migration from rural
to urban areas in the 20th century, as well as other factors. The standard language is used in
written and spoken form almost everywhere in the country, from Kaliningrad and Saint
Petersburg in the West to Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the East,
notwithstanding the enormous distance in between.
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.[69][70] All dialects also divided in two

main chronological categories: the dialects of primary formation (the territory of the Eastern Rus'
or Muscovy, roughly consists of the modern Central and Northwestern Federal districts); and
secondary formation (other territory). Dialectology within Russia recognizes dozens of smallerscale variants. The dialects often show distinct and non-standard features of pronunciation and
intonation, vocabulary and grammar. Some of these are relics of ancient usage now completely
discarded by the standard language.
The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce
unstressed /o/ clearly (the phenomenon called okanye/).[70] Besides the absence of vowel
reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e~ii / in the place of Proto-Slavic * and
/o~ui/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian
/e/ and /o/.[70] An interesting morphological feature is a post-posed definite article -to, -ta, -te
similarly to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.[70]
In the Southern Russian dialects, instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized
consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [] (as occurs in the Moscow
dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. is pronounced [nasli],
not [nsli]) this is called
yakanye/.[70][71] Consonants include a fricative //, a
semivowel /w~ui/ and /x~xv~xw/, whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the
consonants //, /v/, and final /l/ and /f/, respectively. [70] The morphology features a palatalized
final /t/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern
dialects).[70][72] Some of these features such as akanye/yakanye, a debuccalized or lenited //, a
semivowel /w~ui/ and palatalized final /t/ in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in
modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian (Eastern Polesian), indicating a linguistic
continuum.
The city of Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye/tsokanye
(/), where /t/ and /ts/ were switched or merged. So, ('heron') has been
recorded as ''. Also, the second palatalization of velars did not occur there, so the so-called
(from the Proto-Slavic diphthong *ai) did not cause /k, , x/ to shift to /ts, dz, s/; therefore,
where Standard Russian has ('chain'), the form [kep] is attested in earlier texts.
Among the first to study Russian dialects was Lomonosov in the 18th century. In the 19th,
Vladimir Dal compiled the first dictionary that included dialectal vocabulary. Detailed mapping
of Russian dialects began at the turn of the 20th century. In modern times, the monumental
Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language (
[dlktlitskj atls ruskv jzka]), was published in three folio volumes 19861989,
after four decades of preparatory work.

Derived languages

Balachka, a dialect, spoken primarily by Cossacks, in the regions of Don, Kuban and
Terek, which uses Russian grammar but borrows a lot of Ukrainian vocabulary.[citation needed]

Fenya, a criminal argot of ancient origin, with Russian grammar, but with distinct
vocabulary

Medny Aleut language, a nearly extinct mixed language spoken on Bering Island that is
characterized by its Aleut nouns and Russian verbs

Padonkaffsky jargon, a slang language developed by padonki of Runet

Quelia, a macaronic language with Russian-derived basic structure and part of the lexicon
(mainly nouns and verbs) borrowed from German

Runglish, a Russian-English pidgin. This word is also used by English speakers to

describe the way in which Russians attempt to speak English using Russian morphology
and/or syntax.

Russenorsk, 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

Surzhyk, a variety of Ukrainian, which uses Ukrainian grammar and syntax, but borrows
a lot of Russian vocabulary. It is used by a large portion of the rural population of
Ukraine, especially in the eastern and central areas of the country.

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

Alphabet
Main articles: Russian alphabet and Russian Braille

A page from Azbuka (Alphabet book), the first Russian printed textbook. Printed by Ivan
Fyodorov in 1574. This page features the Cyrillic script.
Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. 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:

/a/

/b/

/v/

//

/d/

/je/

/jo/

//

/z/

/i/

/j/

/k/

/l/

/m/

/n/

/o/

/p/

/r/

/s/

/t/

/u/

/f/

/x/

/ts/

/t/

//

//

/-/

//

//

/e/

/ju/

/ja/

Older letters of the Russian alphabet include , which merged to (/je/ or /e/); and ,
which both merged to (/i/); , which merged to (/f/); , which merged to (/u/);
, which merged to (/ju/ or /u/); and / , which later were graphically reshaped
into and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /a/. 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
Further information: Romanization of Russian and Informal romanizations of Russian
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 my'. Once commonly used
by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration is being used less frequently by
Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding, which fully
incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs leveraging this Unicode extension are available
which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards.[73]

Computing
The Russian alphabet has many systems of character encoding. KOI8-R was designed by the
Soviet government and was intended to serve as the standard encoding. This encoding was and
still is widely used in UNIX-like operating systems. Nevertheless, the spread of MS-DOS and
OS/2 (IBM866), traditional Macintosh (ISO/IEC 8859-5) and Microsoft Windows (CP1251)

created chaos and ended by establishing different encodings as de facto standards, with
Windows-1251 becoming a de facto standard in Russian Internet and e-mail communication
during the period of roughly 19952005.
All the obsolete 8-bit encodings are rarely used in the communication protocols and textexchange data formats, being mostly replaced with UTF-8. A number of encoding conversion
applications were developed. "iconv" is an example that is supported by most versions of Linux,
Macintosh and some other operating systems; but converters are rarely needed unless accessing
texts created more than a few years ago.
In addition to the modern Russian alphabet, Unicode (and thus UTF-8) encodes the Early
Cyrillic alphabet (which is very similar to the Greek alphabet), as well as all other Slavic and
non-Slavic but Cyrillic-based alphabets.

Orthography
Main article: Russian orthography
Russian spelling is reasonably phonemic in practice. 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 former whilst trying to eliminate the latter.
The current spelling follows the major reform of 1918, and the final codification of 1956. An
update proposed in the late 1990s has met a hostile reception, and has not been formally adopted.
The punctuation, originally based on Byzantine Greek, was in the 17th and 18th centuries
reformulated on the French and German models.
According to the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional
acute accent ( ) 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: / (lock/castle), / (worthwhile/standing),
/ (this is odd/this is marvelous), / (attaboy/fine young man),
/ (I shall learn it/I recognize it), / (to be cutting/to have cut); to
indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names
(, , , , ), and to show which is the stressed word in a sentence
( ?/ ?/ ? Was it you who ate the cookie?/Did
you eat the cookie?/Was it the cookie that you ate?). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical
dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners.

Phonology
Main article: Russian phonology

The phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic; it underwent

considerable modification in the early historical period before being largely settled around the
year 1400.
The language possesses five vowels (or six, under the St. Petersburg Phonological School),
which are written with different letters depending on whether or not the preceding consonant is
palatalized. The consonants typically come in plain vs. palatalized pairs, which are traditionally
called hard and soft. (The hard consonants are often velarized, especially before front vowels, as
in Irish). The standard language, based on the Moscow dialect, possesses heavy stress and
moderate variation in pitch. Stressed vowels are somewhat lengthened, while unstressed vowels
tend to be reduced to near-close vowels or an unclear schwa. (See also: vowel reduction in
Russian.)
The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex with both initial and final consonant clusters
of up to 4 consecutive 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.
Examples: (/vzlat/, "glance"), ([gsdarstv], 'state'),
([stritlstv], 'construction').

Consonants
Consonant phonemes
Alveolar
/Dental

Labial
Nasal
Stop

plain

pala.

plain

pala.

m
p
b

m
p
b

n
t
d
ts
s
z

n
t
d

Affricate
Fricative
Approximant
(Lateral)
Trill

f
v

f
v

s
z

Postalveolar
plain

Velar

Palatal

pala.

plain

pala.

k
g

k
[g]

x
[]

[x]
[]

j
l
r

l
r

Russian is notable for its distinction based on palatalization of most of the consonants. While /k/,
//, /x/ do have palatalized allophones [k, , x], only /k/ might be considered a
phoneme, though it is marginal and generally not considered distinctive (the only native minimal
pair which argues for /k/ to be a separate phoneme is " " ([t tkt], 'it
weaves')/" " ([tt kot], 'this cat')). Palatalization means that the center of the tongue is
raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. In the case of /t/ and /d/, the tongue

is raised enough to produce slight frication (affricate sounds). These sounds: /t, d, ts, s, z, n and
r/ are dental, that is pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against
the alveolar ridge.

Grammar
This section requires expansion. (August 2014)
Main article: Russian grammar
Russian has preserved an Indo-European synthetic-inflectional structure, although considerable
levelling has taken place. Russian grammar encompasses:

a highly fusional morphology

a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements:[citation
needed]

o a polished vernacular foundation;[clarification needed]

o a Church Slavonic inheritance;
o a Western European style.[clarification needed]
The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one but continues to preserve
characteristic forms. The dialects show various non-standard grammatical features,[citation needed]
some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms since discarded by the literary
language.

Vocabulary

This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter .

Number of words in Russian

See History of the Russian language for an account of the successive foreign influences on
Russian.
The total number of words in Russian is difficult to ascertain because of the ability to agglutinate
and create manifold compounds, diminutives, etc. (see Word Formation under Russian
grammar). The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published
during the past two centuries, and the total vocabulary of Alexander Pushkin (who is credited
with greatly augmenting and codifying literary Russian), are as follows:[74][75]
Work

Year

Words

Notes

Academic dictionary, I
Ed.

17891794

43,257

Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old

Russian vocabulary.

Academic dictionary, II
Ed

18061822

51,388

Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old

Russian vocabulary.

Dictionary of Pushkin's

18101837

>21,000 The dictionary of virtually all words from his

works was published in 19561961. Some

consider his works to contain 101,105.[76]

language

Academic dictionary, III

1847
Ed.

114,749

Explanatory Dictionary
of the Living Great
Russian Language
(Dahl's)

44,000 entries lexically grouped; attempt to

catalogue the full vernacular language.
195,844
Contains many dialectal, local and obsolete
words.

18801882

Explanatory Dictionary
of the Russian Language 19341940
(Ushakov's)

85,289

Russian and Church Slavonic with Old

Russian vocabulary.

Current language with some archaisms.

"Full" 17-volumed dictionary of the

Academic Dictionary of
19501965
contemporary language. The second 20the Russian Language
120,480
1991 (2nd ed.)
volumed edition was begun in 1991, but not
(Ozhegov's)
all volumes have been finished.

Lopatin's dictionary

19992013

Great Explanatory
Dictionary of the Russian 19982009
Language

200,000

Orthographic, current language, several

editions

Current language, the dictionary has many

130,000 subsequent editions from the first one of
1998.

Note: The above numbers do not properly show the real quantity of words in Russian, as Russian
dictionaries do not have a goal to collect all words of the language, but to establish normalized
vocabulary of standard neutral style. They do not contain special technical and scientific terms,
many lexical derivatives, colloquial and dialectical words, and slang.

Proverbs and sayings

Main article: Russian proverbs

The Russian language is replete with many hundreds of proverbs ( [pslovts]) and
sayings (a [pvork]). These were already tabulated by the 17th century and
collected and studied in the 19th and 20th centuries, with folk tales being especially fertile
sources.

History and examples

Main article: History of the Russian language
See also: Reforms of Russian orthography

Russian minimarket in Limassol, Cyprus; translation: "Teremok market. Russian goods. Phone
number: 96 74 19 63"
The history of Russian language may be divided into the following periods.

Kievan period and feudal breakup

The Moscow period (15th17th centuries)

Empire (18th19th 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. 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. 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. 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.

The Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest East Slavic book known, one of many
medieval illuminated manuscripts preserved in the Russian National Library.
Dialectal differentiation accelerated after the breakup of Kievan Rus' in approximately 1100. On
the territories of modern Belarus and Ukraine emerged Ruthenian and in modern Russia
medieval Russian. They became distinct since the 13th century, i.e. following the division of that
land between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland and Hungary in the west and independent
Novgorod and Pskov feudal republics plus numerous small duchies (which came to be vassals of
the Tatars) in the east.
The official language in Moscow and Novgorod, and later, in the growing Muscovy, was Church
Slavonic, which evolved from Old Church Slavonic and remained the literary language for
centuries, until the Petrine age, when its usage became limited to biblical and liturgical texts.
Russian developed under a strong influence of Church Slavonic until the close of the 17th
century; afterward the influence reversed, leading to corruption of liturgical texts.
The political reforms of Peter the Great ( , Pytr Velkiy) were accompanied by a
reform of the alphabet, and achieved their goal of secularization and Westernization. Blocks of
specialized vocabulary were adopted from the languages of Western Europe. By 1800, a
significant portion of the gentry spoke French daily, and German sometimes. Many Russian
novels of the 19th century, e.g. Leo Tolstoy's ( ) War and Peace, contain entire
paragraphs and even pages in French with no translation given, with an assumption that educated
readers would not need one.
The modern literary language is usually considered to date from the time of Alexander Pushkin
( ) in the first third of the 19th century. Pushkin revolutionized Russian
literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (so-called " " "high
style") in favor of grammar and vocabulary found in the spoken language of the time. Even
modern readers of younger age may only experience slight difficulties understanding some
words in Pushkin's texts, since relatively few words used by Pushkin have become archaic or
changed meaning. In fact, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19th century, in
particular Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov ( ), Nikolai Gogol (
), Aleksander Griboyedov ( ), became proverbs or sayings which
can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech.
Winter Evening

Menu
0:00
Reading of excerpt of Pushkins "Winter Evening" ( ), 1825.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
IPA: [zimnj vetr]
, [bur mloju nb krot]
; [vixr snn krta]
, , , [to ka zver na zvot]
, , [to zplatt, ka dta]
[to pkrovl bvtalj]
, [vdruk slomj zmit]
, , [to kak putn zpzdlj]
. [knam vkok zsttit]
The political upheavals of the early 20th 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 worldwide prestige, especially during the mid-20th
century.

See also
Russia portal
Language portal

Computer Russification

List of English words of Russian origin

List of Russian language topics

Non-native pronunciations of English

Russian humour

Slavic Voice of America

Volapuk encoding

Notes and references

1.
On the history of using "" ("russky") and "" ("rossiysky") as the Russian
adjectives denoting "Russian", see: Oleg Trubachyov. 2005. . ,
, (pp 216227). .
. .: , 2005.
http://krotov.info/libr_min/19_t/ru/bachev.htm . On the 1830s change in the Russian name of the
Russian language and its causes, see: Tomasz Kamusella. 2012. The Change of the Name of the
Russian Language in Russian from Rossiiskii to Russkii: Did Politics Have Anything to Do with
It?(pp 7396). Acta Slavica Iaponica. Vol 32, http://srch.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/32/04Kamusella.pdf
"Vrldens 100 strsta sprk 2010" [The world's 100 largest languages in 2010].
Nationalencyklopedin (in Swedish). 2010. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
Russian language. University of Leicester. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
"Article 68. Constitution of the Russian Federation". Constitution.ru. Retrieved 2013-0618.
"Article 17. Constitution of the Republic of Belarus". President.gov.by. 1998-05-11.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
N. Nazarbaev (2005-12-04). "Article 7. Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan".
Constcouncil.kz. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
(Russian) 10.
"Article 2. Constitution of Tajikistan". Unpan1.un.org. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
http://www.gagauzia.md/ (2008-08-05). "Article 16. Legal code of Gagauzia (GagauzYeri)". Gagauzia.md. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia are only partially recognized countries
(Russian) 6.
(Russian) 4.
"Article 12. Constitution of the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica". Mfa-pmr.org.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
"Law "On Principles of State Language Policy", Article 7". Zakon2.rada.gov.ua. Retrieved
2013-06-18.
The Constitution of Ukraine. Article 10.

 The status of Crimea and of the city of Sevastopol is under dispute between Russia and
Ukraine since March 2014; Ukraine and the majority of the international community consider
Crimea to be an autonomous republic of Ukraine and Sevastopol to be one of Ukraine's cities
with special status, whereas Russia, on the other hand, considers Crimea to be a federal subject
of Russia and Sevastopol to be one of Russia's three federal cities.
" , .".
RosBusinessConsulting. 16 August 2012. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
" ". Ukrinform
(Russian)
" ".
(Russian)
(2013-06-01). "
" "
". Oblrada.odessa.gov.ua. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
"New York State Legislature".
"Russian Language Institute". Ruslang.ru. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds.
(2013). "Russian". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
"Russian Language Enjoying a Boost in Post-Soviet States". Gallup.com. August 1, 2008.
Retrieved 2010-05-16.
, (2006).
. Weekly (in Russian) (251).
"The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages". Saint Ignatius High School. Cleveland,
Ohio. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
Timberlake 2004, p. 17.
Sussex & Cubberley 2006, pp. 477478, 480.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911".
Thompson, Irene. "Language Learning Difficulty". Retrieved 25 May 2014.
" 24.04.1990 " (The 1990 USSR Law about the
Languages of the USSR) (Russian)
" - ". Demoscope.ru.
Retrieved 2014-04-23.
" Weekly. 2010 .
". Demoscope.ru. 2011-11-08. Retrieved 2014-04-23.
"Diagram". Pub.stat.ee. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
"Population census of Estonia 2000. Population by mother tongue, command of foreign
languages and citizenship". Statistics Estonia. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
"Kazakhstan's News Bulletin, April 20, 2007". Kazakhstan News Bulletin. April 20, 2007.
Retrieved May 16, 2009.
"Population by other languages, which they know, by county and municipality". Statistics
Lithuania. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
"Population by mother tongue and more widespread language skills in 2000". Statistics
Latvia. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc631_en.pdf
Brooke, James (February 15, 2005). "For Mongolians, E Is for English, F Is for Future".
The New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved May 16, 2009.

 (in Russian). . September

21, 2006. Retrieved May 16, 2009.
"Ninilchik". languagehat.com. 2009-01-01. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
"Language Use in the United States: 2007, census.gov" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-06-18.
Vgl. Bernhard Brehmer: Sprechen Sie Qwelja? Formen und Folgen russisch-deutscher
Zweisprachigkeit in Deutschland. In: Tanja Anstatt (Hrsg.): Mehrsprachigkeit bei Kindern und
Erwachsenen. Tbingen 2007, S. 163185, hier: 166 f., basierend auf dem Migrationsbericht
2005 des Bundesamtes fr Migration und Flchtlinge. (PDF)
"Ten Facts from Ireland's Census 2011". WorldIrish. 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- - - , 2011 (in Greek). Demoscope.ru.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
". . ". Demoscope.ru.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
" "". ". Mof.gov.cy.
2012-05-23. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
" , . ". Socioprognoz.ru. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
". . ,
". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
". . ?". Demoscope.ru.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
". . ".
Demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
" ". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved
2014-04-23.
" Xx-i ". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2014-04-23.
XX-I .:
, 2012. 482 .
" "". ?". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved
2013-06-18.
"Law of Ukraine "On Principles of State Language Policy"". Zakon2.rada.gov.ua.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.
"Constitution of Ukraine, Article 10". President.gov.ua. 2013-06-12. Retrieved 2013-0618.
Russia's Language Could Be Ticket in for Migrants Gallup Retrieved on May 26, 2010

. . (Doc) (in Russian). MINELRES.
p. 80. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
2006/2007 figures (Russian) ?
"Russia to raise language concerns". BBC. September 4, 2003. Retrieved May 15, 2009.

(in Russian). NEWSru.com. March 10, 2004. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
2009 FOM-Ukraine Retrieved on 08-032009
The language situation in Ukraine Retrieved on 08-03-2009
After Georgia, Crimea? Some fear Russia's goals, Kyiv Post (September 29, 2008)

 Ukraine-Russia tensions rise in Crimea, Los Angeles Times (September 28, 2008)
Matthias Gelbmann (19 March 2013). "Russian is now the second most used language on
the web". W3Techs. Q-Success. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
David Dalby. 1999-2000. The Linguasphere Register of the World's Languages and
Speech Communities. Linguasphere Press. Pg. 442.
Sussex & Cubberley 2006, pp. 521526.
"The Language of the Russian Village" (in Russian). Retrieved 2011-11-10.
"The Language of the Russian Village" (in Russian). Retrieved 2011-11-10.
Caloni, Wanderley (2007-02-15). "RusKey: mapping the Russian keyboard layout into the
Latin alphabets". The Code Project. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
What types of dictionaries exist? from www.gramota.ru (Russian)
A catalogue of Russian explanatory dictionaries (Russian)
1.

" ... ( ) / /
. - ". Stihi.ru. 2010-03-24.
Retrieved 2013-06-18.

Bibliography
In English

Comrie, Bernard, Gerald Stone, Maria Polinsky (1996). The Russian Language in the
Twentieth Century (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-824066-X.

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. ISBN 0-521-79641-5.

Sussex, Roland; Cubberley, Paul (2006). The Slavic languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22315-7.

Timberlake, Alan (2004). A Reference Grammar of Russian. New York: Cambridge

University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77292-1.

Timberlake, Alan (1993). "Russian". In Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G. The

Slavonic languages. London, New York: Routledge. pp. 827886. ISBN 0-415-04755-2.

Wade, Terence (2000). Holman, Michael, ed. A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (2nd
ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-20757-0.

In Russian

Weekly 571 - 572 14 - 31 2013. . .

: . -

XX-I .:
, 2012. 482 .
XX-I

Weekly 329 - 330 14 - 27 2008. . . .

. . . : .

Weekly 251 - 252 19 - 20 2006. . .

: -?
?

. . (. .)
. .: , 1987.

. . . .: ,
1990.

. . : . - .: , 2003.

. . . //
. ., 1982, 5. . 1828

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