Local name: Русский язык (russkij jazyk)
Language family: Indo-Europan > Balto-Slavic > Slavic > East Slavic
Native speakers: ~ 155 millions (ne.se, 2010)
Script: A Cyrillic alphabet
Official in: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Spoken mostly in: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Latvia, United States, Israel, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Tajikistan, Lithuania, Georgia

Russian is by far the biggest native language in the Slavic language group. Having been the main language for inter-ethnic communication in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, Russian is also spoken by many non-native speakers. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many Russian-speaking Jews emigrated to Israel, making it one of the major languages there.

Typical for Slavic languages is that most phonemes have two allophones, one of which is palatalized (i.e. it is pronounced with a slight y-sound). Vowels in Russian can be pronounced quite differently if they are stressed or unstressed. Also very typical for Russian are the consonant clusters; Russian allows heavier clusters than most other languages, like встрет- (vstret-) ‘meet’ or чёрств- (čërstv-) ‘stale’.

The Russian vocabulary mostly relies on a native stock, but there are also many loanwords from Latin, Greek and other major Europan language, like in most of the European languages. However, Russian has also extended its vocabulary by borrowing words from Old Church Slavonic, the classic Slavic language. An example can be seen in the native Russian word for ‘city’, gorod (as in Novgorod) vs. the borrowed word grad (as in Volgograd). Russian has also absorbed some words from Turkic languages.

Saint Petersburg Standard: “Severnyj veter i solnce”
Speaker: Екатерина (Ekaterina) Age at recording: 36 (2013) Geographical reference: Saint Petersburg, RU (Google Map) Transliteration system: United Nations (1987)


Cеверный ветер и солнце поспорили, кто из них сильнее.
И тут мимо проходил человек в тёплой шубе.
Они решили, что тот, кто первый заставит человека снять шубу, будет считаться самым сильным.
Северный ветер задул изо всех сил, но чем больше он дул, тем плотнее кутался человек в свою шубу.
Так что, северный ветер, наконец, сдался.
Тогда вышло солнце и осветило всё вокруг таким тёплым и ласковым светом, что человек тут же скинул шубу!
И пришлось северному ветру признать, что солнце сильнее его.

Severnyj veter i solnce posporili, kto iz nih sil’nee.
I tut mimo prohodil čelovek v tëploj šube.
Oni rešili, čto tot, kto pervyj zastavit čeloveka snjat’ šubu, budet sčitat’sja samym sil’nym.
Severnyj veter zadul izo vseh sil, no čem bol’še on dul, tem plotnee kutalsja čelovek v svoju šubu.
Tak čto, severnyj veter, nakonec, sdalsja.
Togda vyšlo solnce i osvetilo vsë vokrug takim tëplym i laskovym svetom, čto čelovek tut že skinul šubu!
I prišlos’ severnomu vetru priznat’, čto solnce sil’nee ego.