Russian (Русский язык)

Russian is an Eastern Slavic language spoken mainly in Russia and many other countries by about 260 million people, 150 million of whom are native speakers. Russian is an official language in Russian, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and in a number of other countries, territories and international organisations, including Tajikistan, Moldova, Gagauzia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and the UN. It is also recognised as a minority language in Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Russsian at a glance Native name : русский язык [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]

: русский язык [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk] Linguistic affliation : Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic, East Slavic

: Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic, East Slavic Number of speakers : c. 260 million

: c. 260 million Spoken in : Russian, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc.

: Russian, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc. First written : 10th century AD

: 10th century AD Writing system : Cyrillic alphabet

: Cyrillic alphabet Status: official language in Russian, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and many other countries and territories.

The earliest known writing in Russia dates from the 10th century and was found at Novgorod. The main languages written on them in an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet were Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic. There are also some texts in Finnish, Latin and Greek.

Russian started appearing in writing regularly during the reign of Peter the Great (a.k.a. Peter I) (1672-1725) who introduced a revised alphabet and encouraged authors to use a literary style closer to their spoken language. The dialect of Moscow was used as the basis for written Russian.

Russian literature started to flower during the 19th century when Tolstoi, Dostoyevskii, Gogol and Pushkin were active. During the Soviet era knowledge of the Russian language was wide spread though the subjects authors could write about were restricted.

Russian alphabet (русский алфавит)

Russian alphabet learning game

Hear the Russian alphabet

Russian pronunciation

There are a number of other transliteration schemes for Russian. The one shown here is the BGN/PCGN romanization system, which was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN). It is designed to be relatively intuitive for English speakers to pronounce, and is also known as the British Standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian

http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/ntr/russisch/umschrifttabelle.html

Notes

After Ж, Ш and Ц After Ч and Щ After all

other consonants Word initially and after

Ь, Ъ or a vowel Е е [ɛ] [e] [ʲe] [je] Ё ё [o] (not used after Ц) [o] [ʲo] [jo] Ю ю [u] - [ʲu] [ju] Я я - - [ʲa] [ja]

А is pronounced [a] when stressed, and [ə] or [ɐ] in unstressed syllables

The soft (palatalization) sign after Ж, Ш, Ч and Щ does not affect their pronunciation.

The vowels Е, Ё, Ю and Я normally palatalize the previous consonant (the 3rd case). When a hard sign (ъ) separates a consonant and one of these vowels, the consonant is pronounced without palatalization and the vowel is pronounced according to the rules of the 4th case. Example: подъезд (porch) [pad'jest].

If a consonant is the final letter it is always unvoiced (see the previous example).

The pronunciation of unstressed vowels depends on the region. In the Central European part of Russia the unstressed Е and Я are pronounced as [i] and unstressed О is pronounced as [a]. Example: молоко (milk) [mala'ko].

The letter Ё is often written as Е except in cases of possible ambiguity: небо (sky) and нёбо (palate).

Cursive Russian alphabet

This is a version of the cursive handwritten Russian alphabet. Some letters have different shapes when written in this way.

How to write the cursive Russian alphabet

Older versions of the Russian alphabet

Russian alphabet (1750-1918)

This is the version of Cyrillic alphabet used between 1750 and 1917/18.

Russian alphabet (pre-1750)

This is the version of Cyrillic alphabet used until 1750. The chart shows the letters, their names, the IPA transcription of their names, their Latin equivalents, and their numerical values.

These versions of the Russian alphabet are transliterated using the Scientific transliteration system, which is also known as the International Scholarly System, which has been used since the 19th century, and is the only one to include transliteration of the older letters.

Download alphabet charts for Russian (Excel)

Sample text in Russian

Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства.

Cursive version

Transliteration

Vse lyudi rozhdayutsya svobodnymi i ravnymi v svoyem dostoinstve i pravakh. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'yu i dolzhny postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v dukhe bratstva.

A recording of this text by Yuri from Belarus

A recording of this text by Max Bollinger

Russian voiceover audio by Max.Bollinger@Gmail.com

Translation

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.

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Sample videos in Russian

Information about Russian | Useful phrases | Silly phrases | Numbers | Colours | Time | Family words | Terms of endearment | Weather | Idioms | Tongue twisters | Tower of Babel | Articles | Links | Learning materials

Links

Information about the Russian language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/russian/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Russian-language

http://realrussia.co.uk/Info/Languages

https://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Russian/

Online Russian lessons

http://russianmadeeasy.com

http://masterrussian.com

http://www.waytorussia.net/WhatIsRussia/Russian.html

http://www.russianlessons.net

http://speakrussian.blogspot.com/

http://listen2russian.com/

http://www.learningrussian.net

http://www.ruslang.com

http://www.study-languages-online.com

http://www.russianforeveryone.com

http://www.yesrussian.com

http://www.bridgetorussian.com

http://russianeasy.ru/index/russian_language_level_1/0-12

http://www.radioaurora.am

http://curso-de-ruso.com

http://www.livelingua.com/fsi-russian-course.php

http://polymath.org/russian.php

http://www.learnalanguage.com/learn-russian/

http://www.readyrussian.org

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoa_y1gWleTPAhNaWj0A-zw

http://ilovelanguages.org/russian.php

http://www.funrussian.com

https://www.simplang.com/russian/

https://www.repeto.org/learn/russian

Russian Sets - news stories in Russian

http://foreigncy.org/russian-sets/

Learn Russian

Slavic languages

Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Kashubian, Knaanic, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Sorbian, Ukrainian, West Polesian

Other languages written with the Cyrillic alphabet

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