Hello back, my name is Kerrin. Whilst reading across the internet, I found several interesting facts about the Russian language. Here are several interesting facts of the Russian language.

• Russian is one of the most spoken languages

There are a lot of Russian speakers, approximately 235 million Russian speakers worldwide. Then, of the 235 million Russian speakers, there are around 154 million native speakers of Russian. Thus, from the amount of total speakers, Russian is the 9th most spoken language in the world. Meanwhile, from the amount of its native speakers, Russian is ranked as 7th most spoken language in the world. Besides being spoken in Russia, Russian is also being spoken in other countries, mainly in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine, and many other former Soviet States. So, Russian is spoken throughout Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Baltic regions. Apart from that, Russian is also spoken in the diasporas around the world, notably in the USA, Mongolia, Israel, Finland, and Cyprus. Therefore, Russian also serves as one of the lingua franca in the world.

• Russian as an official language

Apart from being the official language in Russia, Russian is also an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Apart from that, Russian is also a recognized minority language in Moldova, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Tajikistan (where Russian is recognized as the interethnic language), and Uzbekistan (semi-official). Besides, Russian is one of the six official languages in the United Nations, besides Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

• Russian is written with Cyrillic alphabet

The Russian language is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 characters, with 10 vowels, 2 sound signs and 21 consonants. The Cyrillic alphabet was created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius in order to translate the Bible to the Slavic languages and spread Christianity. This alphabet was influenced by the Greek alphabet, with several letters being created according to Greek letters. Here are some examples of the similarities between the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek alphabet:

Russian Cyrillic	Greek Alphabet
Р р	Ρ ρ
Г г	Γ γ
Ф ф	Φ φ
П п	Π π
У у	Υ υ
Л л	Λ λ
И и	Η η

• The Russian sign letters

Do you know that there are two letters of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet which do not have their own sound? There are the letters Ъ (hard sign - твëрдый знак/ tvyordyy znak) and Ь (soft sign - мягкий знак/ myagkiy znak). Both of them or course doesn’t have their own sound, but their presence helps to soften a consonant in a word. The hard sign (ъ) creates a distinct “y” like sound, for example in the word “объект” (ob”ekt - Object). While the soft sign (ь) helps to create a palatalization in the consonants, for example the word пьеса (p’esa - play).

For some fun fact, both the letters Ъ and Ь used to be a vowel with their own distinct sound, but it was lost and becomes silent letters. The letter ъ used to be pronounced as near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/, while the letter ь used to be pronounced as near-close near-front unrounded vowel /ɪ/.

• Russian has consonant clusters

Russian has consonant clusters, where the words have consonant sounds without the vowels. It’s common to see three to four consonant clusters in Russian words, compared to English and Indonesian. Although English has consonant clusters, generally they are less complex than Russian. Russian have some types of consonant clusters, such as like this:

• - Two-consonant clusters. For example Что (chto) - what
• - Three-consonant clusters. For example скрывать (skryvat’) - to hide

• - Four-consonant clusters. For example вздрогнул (vzdrognul) - shuddered

• Russian has no articles

Russian has no articles. That means, there are no “the” & “a”. As we all know, articles in grammar determine if a noun is specific or general. In English there are two types of articles: definite or indefinite. The definite articles in English are manifested as “the”, usually it is being used for specific nouns. While the indefinite articles in English are manifested as “a/an”, usually being used to describe singular, non-specific nouns. Since Russian lacks articles, when wanting to convey the concept of “articles”, in Russian one has to understand the context.

• Russian doesn’t have “to be” verb/ copula

The verb “To be” or copula is a verb with the function of linking the subject of the sentences with a description in a sentence. While English have a copula, Russian lacks it. Here are the examples of copula in English:

I am happy

You are happy

He/she/it is happy

We are happy

They are happy

Meanwhile, since in Russian there are no copulas, in order to construct similar words like in English, the subject and the description are just being used without the copula. Here are the examples in Russian:

Я счастлив (Ya schastliv) - I [am] happy

Ты счастлив (Ty schastliv) - You [are] happy

Он счастлив (On schastliv) -He [is] happy

Она счастлива (Ona schastliva) - She [is] happy

Оно счастливо (Ono schastlivo) - It [is] happy

Мы счастливы (My schastlivy) - We [are] happy

Вы счастливы (Vy schastlivy) - You (plural) [are] happy

Они счастливы (Oni schastlivy) - They [are] happy

Technically, the word я (ya - I), ты (ty - you), он (on - he), она (ona - she), оно (ono - it), мы (my - we), вы (vy - plural you) and они (oni - they) are subject of the verb. As you can see, Russian has the phenomenon of “zero copula”, where there is no “to be” in those sentences.

• Russian’s Language Branch

Russian is part of the Eastern Slavic branch of the Slavic branch from the Indo-European Language Family group. As part of the Eastern Slavic group, its closest language relatives are Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn. As part of the Slavic group, Russian shares connections with Bulgarian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, and the others. As part of the Indo-European group, Russian shares a distant connection with Hindi, Greek, English, Parsi, French, German, Sanskrit, and many others.

• Russian is a language of space

Do you know that Russian is a language of space? Besides English, Russian is also being used for space exploration. In the International Space Station or ISS, the official languages there are Russian and English. That arrangement happened due to the historical role of the Soviet Union in space exploration, therefore astronauts are required to understand both English and Russian. The understanding of Russian are required for understanding the Soyuz spacecraft, and many other operational necessity.

And that’s about the interesting facts of the Russian language. Thank you for reading :)