Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have Russian as an official language, with high fluency, while it's also widely spoken as a lingua franca in many former Soviet countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Tajikistan, Armenia, and Central Asian nations (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan), and in large diaspora communities (Israel, Germany, USA). Fluency varies, but it's deeply embedded in education, media, and daily communication across these regions, serving as a key language for interethnic communication.
Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.
🌍 Only about 25% of its land lies in Europe, but this small portion holds nearly 75% of Russia's population, including major cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Russian is the most geographically widespread language in all of Eurasia, and it's the most popular native language in Europe. Russian speakers number roughly 138 million in Russia, followed in popularity by Ukraine (14.3 million), Belarus (6.9 million), Poland (6.9 million) and Kazakhstan (3.8 million).
Today, only four countries use Russian as an official language: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia itself. Russian is also recognized in Tajikistan as an interethnic lingua franca, but it does not have full official status within the government.
Languages with 1,000,000 or more speakers
To say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in Russian, you say: один (odin), два (dva), три (tri), четыре (chetyre), пять (pyat), шесть (shest), семь (sem), восемь (vosem), with pronunciations like "ah-DEEN," "DVAH," "TREE," "chye-tir-ye," "pyat," "shest," "syem," and "VO-syem," respectively, using the Cyrillic spellings and English phonetic guides.
The Russian language is very similar to Ukrainian and Belarusian, and a little bit Poland.
Russian is the third most common native language in Israel after Modern Hebrew and Arabic. Government institutions and businesses often also provide information and services in Russian, and has effectively become semi-official in some areas with high concentration of Russian-speaking immigrants.
Knowledge of Russian opens up opportunities in various fields such as international relations, diplomacy, intelligence, journalism, and multinational corporations. As geopolitical tensions continue, experts with Russian language skills are in high demand to engage in dialogue and conflict resolution.
Rublyovka, as the most prestigious residential area for the wealthy in Russia, has a history that dates back to the Tsarist era.
Most émigrés initially fled from Southern Russia and Ukraine to Turkey and then moved to other Slavic countries in Europe (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland). A large number also fled to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Iran, Germany and France.
Despite a growing interest in foreign languages across Russian-speaking countries, still only about 5.5 percent of Russian speakers are able to speak English as either a first or second language.
"sorokŭ, “a bunch of 40 sable pelts; forty”" - this is also why we have the words Shirt and Skirt in English. A western garment would take 40 sable pelts from Russia to make.
Russian is considered a challenging language due to its Cyrillic alphabet, six grammatical cases, and verb aspects. However, with consistent practice and the right guidance, learners can make steady progress and achieve fluency.
Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct, meaning they are no longer used and do not have any living descendants that can carry the language to the next generation.
Genetic studies show that Russians are overall closely related to other Eastern European and North European populations, such as Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, as well as Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns and Swedes, but also display significant genetic heterogenity, evidence for multiple genetic ancestries and ...
Many first-generation Mizrahi Jews and Maghrebi Jews (i.e. those who made aliyah to Israel from the Arab world) can still speak Judeo-Arabic dialects, while their Israel-born descendants have overwhelmingly adopted Hebrew as their first (or sole) language.
There's no single "hardest" language, but Mandarin Chinese is consistently ranked #1 for English speakers due to its tonal nature (four tones change word meanings) and complex logographic writing system requiring thousands of characters. Other top contenders often cited include Arabic (right-to-left script, complex sounds, grammar) and Japanese (multiple writing systems like Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, plus honorifics). The difficulty depends heavily on your native language, with languages like Tibetan, Estonian, and Polish also challenging learners with unique grammar or cases.
People write 'z' as a '3' because the cursive form of the Latin 'z' and the Cyrillic letter 'З' (ze) evolved from similar Greek letter shapes (zeta) and look very much like the number '3', a visual similarity that's often exploited in handwriting for fluid connection and differentiation, especially in math/science. It's a common handwriting variation, not a mistake, often just context-dependent for distinction from '2' or 'O', similar to how '1' and 'l' or 'O' and '0' are differentiated.
The 7-letter Russian spelling rule states that after the consonants г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, щ, you never write the vowel Ы, but instead use И, even if the sound is hard (like in жизнь - life). This also applies to other vowels: after these seven letters, never write Ю, use У (e.g., чуть), and never write Я, use А (e.g., часто), a principle often extended to include the letter Ц in broader rules. This rule ensures consistency with phonetic shifts after these specific "hard" or "hissing" consonants, helping learners avoid common mistakes in endings.