Russian is the most important of the Slavic languages and now one of the
major languages of the world. The emergence of the Soviet Union in the postwar
period as a major world power, coupled with tmpressive achievements in science
and technology, has significantly increased the interest in and the study of
Russian in recent years. With English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic,
Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Of the 150 million people in the Russian Federation, about 125 million are
native Russians, with many members of other nationalities speaking the
language with varying degrees of fluency. About 30 million Russians also live
in the newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union, with
the numbers by country as follows: Ukraine — 12 million; Kazakhstan — 8
million; Belarus — 3½ million; Uzbekistan — 2½ million; Latvia — one million;
Kyrgystan — one million; Moldova — 600,000; Azerbaijan — 500,000; Turkmenistan
— 400,000; Lithuania — 350,000; Armenia — 50,000. Latest figures also show
250,000 Russian speakers in the United States and 40,000 in Canada.
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, whose origin dates from the
9th century. Its creators were two missionaries from Greece, the brothers
Cyril and Methodius, who based it largely on the Greek. Though appearing
formidable to one who has never studied it, the Russian alphabet is not
difficult to learn. A number of letters are written and pronounced
approximately as in English (A, K, M, 0, T), while others, though
written as in English, are pronounced differently (B = V, E = YE, Ë = YO, H
= N, P = R, C = S, X = KH).
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If learning the Russian alphabet is not especially difficult, learning to
speak the language is something else again. Russian is notorious for its long
personal and place names (e.g., Nepomnyashchiy, Dnepropetrovsk), for its long
words (upotrehienie—use, dostoprimchatelnosti—sights,
zhenonenavistniehestvo—misogyny), and for its unusual con-sonant clusters
(vzvod—platoon, tknut'—to poke, vstreeha—meeting). Nouns,
pronouns, adjectives, and numbers are declined in six cases: nominative,
genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and preposi-tional or locative.
The Russian verb has two aspects, each represented by a separate
infinitive-the imperfective to indicate a continuing action, and the
perfective to indicate an action already completed or to be completed. The
genders number three, masculine, feminine, and neuter, with a different
declensional pattern for each (though the neuter is similar to the masculine),
and a fourth one for the plural. The stress in Russian is particularly
difficult, impossible to predict in an unfamiliar word, and frequently
shifting in the course of declensions or conjugations.
Yet despite these difficulties, Russian is being mastered by an increasing
number of students in many different countries. They have found it worth the
effort for many reasons, not the least of which is the great body of Russian
literature which ranks among the most brilliant in the world.
English words of Russian origin include vodka, tsar, samovar, ruble,
pogrom, troika, steppe, and tundra. The word sputnik entered
the language in 1957.