What do you know about the Russian language?
  • natalianovikova76 July 2013
    Приве́т! - Hi! or Hey there! (inform.)

    Now, that you can greet and introduce yourself in Russian, I would like to share some facts about the Russian language –     ру́сский язы́к. [RUSS-kee-i yi-ZYK]

    The Russian alphabet (ру́сский алфави́т) has 33 letters (21 consonants, 10 vowels, and 2 signs) and is written in Cyrillic, which is derived from the Greek alphabet: А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я http://bit.ly/cfwUmw 

    Russian as one of the Slavic languages also belongs to the wider Indo-European group of languages, hence Russian and English share a lot of cognates, such as брат – brother, мать – mother, сестрá – sister, just to name a few. 

    Although Russian grammar is complex and the language has the reputation of being a very difficult one to learn, yet it is known as one of the most poetic, rich, and powerful languages in the world. 

    World famous Russian authors, Leo Tolstoy – Лев Толсто́й, Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Фёдор Достое́вский, Anton Chekhov – Анто́н Че́хов, Mikhail Bulgakov – Михаи́л Булгáков, Nikolai Gogol – Николáй Го́голь, and Vladimir Nabokov – Влади́мир Набо́ков are exceptional writers who shaped the world’s literature.

    Russian is the official language of the Russian Federation (Росси́йская Федерáция). The number of native and non-native Russian speakers combined in Russia and abroad is between 255 and 285 million people. 

    Russian is the 8th most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the 5th by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

    In 2013, Russian ranked as the second-most used language on the Internet after English.

    1.  What other interesting facts do you know about Russian? 

    2. Can you name other true cognates that Russian and English share? 

    3. What other countries do you know besides Russia where Russian is also spoken?

    4. What are your favorite Russian authors? 

    I'd love to hear your thoughts and interesting answers! :-)

    Спасибо! - Thank you!

    Натaша - Natasha 
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