Russian is written using theRussian alphabet of theCyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonantphonemes withpalatalsecondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost everyconsonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is thereduction of unstressedvowels.Stress, which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicatedorthographically,[32] though an optionalacute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish betweenhomographic words (e.g.замо́к [zamók, 'lock'] andза́мок [zámok, 'castle']), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or proper nouns.
Classification
Russian is anEast Slavic language of the widerIndo-European family.[33]Old East Slavic (or Old Russian) is the parent language of the modern Russian,Belarusian andUkrainian languages.[33][34][35] In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such assurzhyk in eastern Ukraine andtrasianka in Belarus. TheNovgorod dialect, a historical variety of Russian with unique northwestern dialectal features, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian.[36][37] Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities withBulgarian due to a commonChurch Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian.[38]
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,[39] and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the east:Uralic,Turkic,[40][41]Persian,[42][43]Arabic, andHebrew.[44]
Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between the Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from the government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries.[46] Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and the broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages.[46]
The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as themodern Russian literary language (современный русский литературный язык,sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk), orContemporary Standard Russian.[47] It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule ofPeter the Great and developed from the Moscow (Middle or Central Russian) dialect substratum under some influence of the Russian chancery language.[46] The Moscow dialect had a northern dialectal base, but after Moscow became the center of a unified state, the attraction of southern dialectal speakers led to the emergence of a transitional dialect group.[48]
Prior to theBolshevik Revolution, the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However, the peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity.[49] This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologistNikolai Karinsky, who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or the syntax of Russian dialects."[50]
After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930:
The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to the factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry, a qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society.[51]
Hemisphere view of countries where Russian is an official language and countries where it is spoken as a first or second language by at least 30% of the population but is not an official languageCompetence of Russian in countries of the former Soviet Union (except Russia), 2004
In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in theCIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in the Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S.,Canada, Australia, andNew Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is theseventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers, after English, Mandarin,Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese.[52][53][54]
Russian is one of thesix official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics.[55]
Europe
Languages spoken at home inBelarus (according to the2009 Belarusian census) (green — Belarusian, blue — Russian) (by raion)Percentage of Russian speakers inEstonia (according to the 2000 Estonian census)Percentage of Russian speakers in different regions ofLatvia (according to the2011 census [lv])Percentage of people inUkraine with Russian as their native language (according to the2001 Ukrainian census)
InBelarus, Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per theConstitution of Belarus.[56] 77% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[57] According to the2019 Belarusian census, out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% ofethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in the Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, forRussians — 97.2%, forUkrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and forJews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%.[58]
InEstonia, Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook,[59] and is officially considered a foreign language.[56] School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022, the parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024–2025 school year.[60][61]
InLatvia, Russian is officially considered a foreign language.[56] 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[57] On 18 February 2012, Latvia held aconstitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language.[62] According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%.[63] Starting in 2019,instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools.[64][65] On 29 September 2022,Saeima passed in the final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education inLatvian. From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only.[66][67] On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (includingLSM) should be only in Latvian or a language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service.[68]
InLithuania, Russian has no official or legal status, but the use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language.[69] However, English has replaced Russian as a second language in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language.[70] In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008[update]).[71] According to the2011 Lithuanian census, Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population.[72]
InMoldova, Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law.[56] On 21 January 2021, theConstitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication.[73][74] 50% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[57] According to the2014 Moldovan census, Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian.[75]
According to the2010 census in Russia, Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of the respondents), while according to the2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents).[76]
InUkraine, Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers.[77] 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[57] On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed anew education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language.[78] The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary.[79][80] The 2019Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to theUkrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular inpublic administration, media, education, science, culture, advertising,services. The law does not regulate private communication.[81][82] A poll conducted in March 2022 byRATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On the other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of thesouth andeast. But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and afterRussia's full-scale invasion, their number dropped by almost half.[83] According to the survey carried out byRATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue.IDPs andrefugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language.[84]
In the 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the oldWarsaw Pact and in othercountries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey,[85] fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries.
InAzerbaijan, Russian has no official status, but is alingua franca of the country.[56] 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[57]
InKazakhstan, Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of theConstitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of theKazakh language in state and local administration.[56] The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of the population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language.[88] In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025.[89]
InKyrgyzstan, Russian is a co-official language per article 5 of theConstitution of Kyrgyzstan.[56] The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population.[90] Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group.[90]
InTajikistan, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under theConstitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation.[56] 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work.[57] The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business.[59]
InTurkmenistan, Russian lost its status as the officiallingua franca in 1996.[56] Among 12%[59] of the population who grew up in the Soviet era can speak Russian; other generations of citizens do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent.[91]
InUzbekistan, Russian is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook.[59]
In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia,[92] and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006.[93]
Around 1.5million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017[update].[94] The Israelipress and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in the country.[95] There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian withIsrael Plus. See alsoRussian language in Israel.
Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people inAfghanistan.[96]
InVietnam, Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English.[97]
The Russian language was first introduced in North America whenRussian explorers voyaged intoAlaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left.[98] InNikolaevsk, Alaska, Russian is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such asNew York City,Philadelphia,Boston,Los Angeles,Nashville,San Francisco,Seattle,Spokane,Toronto,Calgary,Baltimore,Miami,Portland,Chicago,Denver, andCleveland. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live inethnic enclaves (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before thedissolution of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority ofRussophones inBrighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the formerSoviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to theUnited States Census, in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States.[99]
The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard theInternational Space Station –NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to theApollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975.[100]
In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of.ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain.su. Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese.[101]
On 13 October 2023, theCIS Council of Heads of State signed the Treaty on the Establishment of the International Organization for the Russian Language and adopted the Statement on Support and Promotion of the Russian Language as a Language of Interethnic Communication.[102]
14. Steppe dialect of Ukrainian with Russian influences (Balachka)
Despiteleveling 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), andSouthern, with Moscow lying in the Central region.[103][104][105]
TheNorthern Russian dialects and those spoken along theVolga River typically pronounce unstressed/o/ clearly, a phenomenon calledokanye (оканье).[104] Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects havehigh ordiphthongal/e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place ofProto-Slavic *ě and/o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian/e/ and/o/, respectively.[104] Another Northern dialectal morphological feature is a post-posed definite article-to,-ta,-te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.[104]
In theSouthern Russian dialects, instances of unstressed/e/ and/a/ followingpalatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to[ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced[a] in such positions (e.g.несли is pronounced[nʲaˈslʲi], not[nʲɪsˈlʲi]) – this is calledyakanye (яканье).[104][106] Consonants include africative/ɣ/, asemivowel/w⁓u̯/ and/x⁓xv⁓xw/, whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants/ɡ/,/v/, and final/l/ and/f/, respectively.[104] The morphology features a palatalized final/tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects).[104][107]
Comparison with other Slavic languages
During theProto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects.[108] There is a high degree ofmutual intelligibility between Russian,Belarusian andUkrainian, and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level.[109][110]
Derived languages
Balachka, a Ukrainian dialect spoken in Krasnodar region, Don,Kuban, andTerek, brought by relocatedCossacks in 1793 and is based on the so-called "southwest Russian" dialect (Ukrainian dialect). During the Russification of the aforementioned regions in the 1920s to 1950s, it was replaced by the Russian language.
Esperanto has some words of Russian and Slavic origin and some features of its grammar could be derived from Russian.[111]
Fenya, a criminalargot of ancient origin, with Russian grammar, but with distinct vocabulary
Lojban, Russian is one of its six source languages, weighed for the number of Russian speakers in 1985.[112]
Quelia, amacaronic language with Russian-derived basic structure and part of thelexicon (mainly nouns and verbs) borrowed from German
Runglish, a Russian-English pidgin. This word is also used by English speakers to describe the way in which Russians attempt to speak English using Russian morphology or syntax.
Older letters of the Russian alphabet include⟨ѣ⟩, which merged to⟨е⟩ (/je/ or/ʲe/);⟨і⟩ and⟨ѵ⟩, which both merged to⟨и⟩ (/i/);⟨ѳ⟩, which merged to⟨ф⟩ (/f/);⟨ѫ⟩, which merged to⟨у⟩ (/u/);⟨ѭ⟩, which merged to⟨ю⟩ (/ju/ or/ʲu/); and⟨ѧ⟩ and⟨ѩ⟩, which later were graphically reshaped into⟨я⟩ and merged phonetically to/ja/ or/ʲa/. While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. Theyers⟨ъ⟩ and⟨ь⟩ originally indicated the pronunciation ofultra-short orreduced/ŭ/,/ĭ/.
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,мороз ('frost') is transliteratedmoroz, andмышь ('mouse'),mysh ormyš'. 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 Unicodecharacter encoding, which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering thisUnicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards.[114]
The Russiansyllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using a formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows:
Russian is notable for its distinction based onpalatalization of most of its consonants. The phoneme /ts/ is generally considered to be always hard; however, loan words such asЦюрих and some other neologisms contain /tsʲ/ through the word-building processes (e.g., фрицёнок ["фриц" plus diminutive "ёнок"], шпицята ["шпиц" plus diminutive "ята"]). Palatalization means that the center of thetongue is raised toward thepalate 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; cf. Belarusian ць, дзь, or Polish ć, dź). The sounds/t,d,ts,s,z,n,rʲ/ aredental, that is, pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against thealveolar ridge. According to some linguists, the "plain" consonants are velarized as inIrish, something which is most noticeable when it involves a labial before a hard vowel, such as мы,/mˠɨː/, "we" , or бэ,/bˠɛ/, "the letter Б".
Russian has five or six vowels in stressed syllables,/i,u,e,o,a/, and in some analyses/ɨ/, but in most cases these vowels have merged to only two to four vowels when unstressed:/i,u,a/ (or/ɨ,u,a/) after hard consonants and/i,u/ after soft ones. These vowels have severalallophones, which are displayed on the diagram to the right.[117][118]
The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one but continues to preserve characteristic forms. The dialects show various non-standard grammatical features.[132]
In terms of actual grammar, there are threeverbtenses in Russian – past, present, and future – and each verb has one of the twoaspects (perfective and imperfective). Russian nouns (and even verbs, although in thepast tense only) each have a gender – either feminine, masculine, or neuter, chiefly indicated by aninflection at the end of the word. Words change depending on both their gender and function in the sentence. Russian has sixcases:Nominative (for the grammatical subject),Accusative (for direct objects),Dative (for indirect objects),Genitive (to indicate possession or relation),Instrumental (to indicate 'with' or 'by means of'), andLocative (used after the locative prepositions в "in", на "on", о "about", при "in the presence of"). Verbs of motion in Russian – such as 'go', 'walk', 'run', 'swim', and 'fly' – use the imperfective or perfective form to indicate a single or return trip, and also use a multitude ofprefixes to add shades of meaning to the verb. Such verbs also take on different forms to distinguish between concrete and abstract motion.[133]
Vocabulary
This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letterП.
The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published during the past two centuries, are as follows:[134][135]
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.
Academic dictionary, III Ed.
1847
114,749
Russian and Church Slavonic with Old Russian vocabulary.
No single periodization is universally accepted. The history of the Russian language is sometimes divided intoOld Russian from the 11th to 17th centuries, followed byModern Russian.[136] It is also sometimes divided into the following periods:[137][138][136][48]
Old Russian (with the earliest form sometimes referred to asOld East Slavic; until the 13th–14th centuries);
Middle Russian (13th–14th centuries until the 17th–18th centuries);
Modern Russian (17th–18th centuries to the present).
The emergence of writing (and thusOld Russian literature) is dated to around the year 1000, afterOld Church Slavonic was introduced as theliturgical language in the late 10th century.[35] At this point, the two languages were mutually intelligible, but there were clear East Slavic and South Slavic forms.[35] The vernacular was considered the "low variety" whileChurch Slavonic was considered the "high variety".[139] The language found in thebirch bark manuscripts of the 11th–15th centuries represents the closest approximation to the vernacular Old Russian language.[140][141]
During the rise of Moscow as the political center of Russia in the 14th–16th centuries, in which the language is sometimes calledGreat Russian to distinguish it from the territories where the future Belarusian and Ukrainian languages developed, the attraction of speakers of the southern dialects gave rise to a hybrid dialect and this became the basis of the standard language.[142] The main phonological development during this period wasakanye.[143]
The political reforms ofPeter the Great were accompanied by a reform of the alphabet, and achieved their goal of secularization and modernization, but caused a need for a written language that more closely resembled the spoken vernacular.[139] The polymathMikhail Lomonosov, in hisRussian Grammar (1755), defined three styles: the "high style" (i.e. Church Slavonic, which would be used for high poetic genres, in addition to religious texts), the "middle style" (for lyric poetry, literary prose, scientific works), and a "low style" (i.e. a pure vernacular, which would be used for personal correspondence and low comedy).[139] The modern standard language is closest to the middle style.[139]
Blocks of specialized vocabulary were adopted from the languages of Western Europe. By 1800, a significant portion of the gentry spoke French daily, and German sometimes. Many Russian novels of the 19thcentury, e.g.Leo Tolstoy'sWar and Peace, contain entire paragraphs and even pages in French with no translation given, with an assumption that educated readers would not need one.[144]
The modern literary language was established by the time ofAlexander Pushkin in the first third of the 19thcentury.[139] Pushkin revolutionizedRussian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (the "high style") in favor of grammar and vocabulary found in the spoken language of the time. Even modern readers of younger age may only experience slight difficulties understanding some words in Pushkin's texts, since relatively few words used by Pushkin have become archaic or changed meaning. In fact, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19thcentury, in particular Pushkin,Mikhail Lermontov,Nikolai Gogol,Aleksander Griboyedov, became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech.[144]
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 theofficial language only in 1990.[145] Following thebreak-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.[146]
The Russian language in the world declined after 1991 due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and decrease in the number ofRussians in the world and diminution of the total population in Russia (where Russian is an official language), howeverthis[clarification needed] has since been reversed.[52][147][148]
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
According to figures published in 2006 in the journal "Demoskop Weekly" research deputy director of Research Center for Sociological Research of theMinistry of Education and Science (Russia) Arefyev A. L.,[149] the Russian language is gradually losing its position in the world in general, and in Russia in particular.[147][150][151][23] In 2012, A. L. Arefyev published a new study "Russian language at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries", in which he confirmed his conclusion about the trend of weakening of the Russian language after the Soviet Union's collapse in various regions of the world (findings published in 2013 in the journal "Demoskop Weekly").[52][152][153][154] In the countries of the formerSoviet Union the Russian language was being replaced or used in conjunction with local languages.[52][155] Currently, the number of speakers of Russian in the world depends on the number ofRussians in the world and total population in Russia.[52][147][148]
The changing proportion of Russian speakers in the world (assessment Aref'eva 2012)[52][154]: 387
Year
worldwide population,
billion
population Russian Empire, Soviet Union and Russian Federation,
Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своём достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства.
Vse lyudi rozhdayutsya svobodnymi i ravnymi v svoyom dostoinstve i pravakh. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'yu i dolzhny postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v dukhe bratstva.
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in English:[157]
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^On the history of using "русский" ("russkiy") and "российский" ("rossiyskiy") as the Russian adjectives denoting "Russian", see:Oleg Trubachyov. 2005. Русский– Российский. История, динамика, идеология двух атрибутов нации (pp. 216–227). В поисках единства. Взгляд филолога на проблему истоков Руси., 2005.РУССКИЙ – РОССИЙСКИЙ (in Russian).Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved25 January 2014.. 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.73–96).Acta Slavica Iaponica. Vol 32,"The Change of the Name of the Russian Language in Russian from Rossiiskii to Russkii: Did Politics Have Anything to Do with It?"(PDF).Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved7 January 2013.
^Article 10Archived 21 May 2011 at theWayback Machine of the Constitution says: "The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language. The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine. In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed."
^Ethnic Groups and Religious department, Fujian Provincial Government (13 September 2022)."少数民族的语言文字有哪些？".fujian.gov.cn (in Chinese).Archived from the original on 28 October 2022. Retrieved28 October 2022.我国已正式使用和经国家批准推行的少数民族文字有19种，它们是...俄罗斯文...
^ab"Russian".University of Toronto.Archived from the original on 28 June 2019. Retrieved9 July 2021.Russian is the most widespread of the Slavic languages and the largest native language in Europe. Of great political importance, it is one of the official languages of the United Nations – making it a natural area of study for those interested in geopolitics.
^Wakata, Koichi."My Long Mission in Space".JAXA.Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved18 July 2021.The official languages on the ISS are English and Russian, and when I was speaking with the Flight Control Room at JAXA's Tsukuba Space Center during ISS systems and payload operations, I was required to speak in either English or Russian.
^"Official Languages". United Nations.Archived from the original on 13 July 2021. Retrieved16 July 2021.There are six official languages of the UN. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The correct interpretation and translation of these six languages, in both spoken and written form, is very important to the work of the Organization, because this enables clear and concise communication on issues of global importance.
^Waterson, Natalie (1955). "The Turkic Languages of Central Asia: Problems of Planned Culture Contact by Stefan Wurm".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.17 (2):392–394.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00111954.ISSN0041-977X.JSTOR610442.
^Nakhimovsky,A.D.(2019).The Language of Russian Peasants in the Twentieth Century: A Linguistic Analysis and Oral History.United Kingdom:Lexington Books. (Chapter 1)
^Nakhimovsky,A.D.(2019).The Language of Russian Peasants in the Twentieth Century: A Linguistic Analysis and Oral History.United Kingdom:Lexington Books. (p.2)
^"Кому варто боятися закону про мову?" [Who should be afraid of the language law?].Портал мовної політики (in Ukrainian). 16 May 2019.Archived from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved14 May 2022.
^Wakata, Koichi."My Long Mission in Space".JAXA.Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved1 June 2024.The official languages on the ISS are English and Russian, and when I was speaking with the Flight Control Room at JAXA's Tsukuba Space Center during ISS systems and payload operations, I was required to speak in either English or Russian.
^Christer Kiselman (2008). Andrzej Pelczar (ed.)."Esperanto: its origins and early history"(PDF).Prace Komisji Spraw Europejskich PAU.II. Krakow: Polska Akademia Umieje ̨tno ́sci:39–56. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved4 October 2022.
^"Toldova, Svetlana & Alexander Kibrik. 1997. Core word order in Russian transitive clauses: Corpus evidence. Russian Linguistics 21(2): 177–206. DOI: 10.1023/A:1004502816970".{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^"Slioussar, Natalia. 2007. Grammar and information structure: A novel approach to Russian word order. Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (LOT dissertation series 164). DOI: 10.13140/2.1.5146.4967".{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^"Dyakonova, Marina. 2009. Information structure and word order in Russian: A corpus study. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 17(1–2): 73–108. DOI: 10.1353/jsl.2009.a001635".{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^"Zdorenko, Anna. 2016. Frequency of Russian transitive-corpus orders: A large-scale quantitative profile. Russian Linguistics 40(1): 63–91. DOI: 10.1007/s11185-015-9153-8".{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^abMatthews, W. K. (2013).The structure and development of Russian (First paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 112–113.ISBN9781107619395.
^Лопатин В. В., Улуханов И. С. (2005). "Восточнославянские языки. Русский язык".Языки мира. Славянские языки. М.:Academia. pp. 448–450.ISBN978-5-87444-216-3.
^Development of Tense and Aspect Systems. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2022. p. 12.ISBN9789027257444.
^Арефьев, А. Л.Сведения об авторе [Information about the author].socioprognoz.ru (in Russian).Archived from the original on 11 May 2013. Retrieved18 June 2013.
^Русский Язык На Рубеже Xx-Ххi Веков [The Russian language at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries] (in Russian). Demoscope.ru.Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved23 April 2014.
Timberlake, Alan (1993). "Russian". In Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G. (eds.).The Slavonic languages. London, England; New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 827–886.ISBN978-0-415-04755-5.
Trofimov, Michael V.; Jones, Daniel (1923).The Pronunciation of Russian. Cambridge primers of pronunciation. Cambridge: University Press.
Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015)."Russian". Illustrations of the IPA.Journal of the International Phonetic Association.45 (2):221–228.doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395, with supplementary sound recordings.
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