The Russian language (native name: русский) has its roots in the Indo-European language family. As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 82 percent is in Russia. A total of about 156.6 million people worldwide speak Russian as their mother tongue.
Russian boasts 155 million native speakers.
That's around 2.4% of the world's population, and it makes Russian the 8th most-spoken language in the world.
Introduction. Russian is a widely spoken language in the world, with an estimated 260 million native speakers and an additional 120 million non-native speakers. It is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations.
Russian is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and it's considered an unofficial lingua franca in Ukraine and many former Soviet countries. These include Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
German vs Russian: Number and distribution of speakers
Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language as well as the 7th most spoken language in the world. In comparison, German is the most spoken native language in the European Union and is taught in many schools around Europe.
Russian is allegedly one of the most complex languages to learn; its Cyrillic alphabet is enough to scare you away. In fact, the Foreign Service Institute classifies it as a category-four language. But don't let that intimidate you. Learning the Russian language is far from impossible.
From the point of view of spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn, the other three languages in the East Slavic branch.
Greek is a relatively difficult language to master, even more so for English speakers. But it's still easier to learn than Russian or Arabic. The reason many English speakers find Greek to be so difficult is that it's not closely related to the English language.
Commonly Spoken
It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations and remains the unofficial lingua franca of the former Soviet republics, an indispensable communication tool across all of the Caucasus and Central Asia and most of Eastern Europe as well as Israel.
The roots of Russian can be traced back about 4000 – 6000 years ago. At this time, the language known as Indo-European was beginning to split, with various communities of speakers migrating away from their homeland in the areas of modern-day Ukraine and Southwest Russia, forming their own dialects in the process.
Furthermore, completely lacking any understanding of the local language will not endear you to local residents anywhere in the world. In order to make the most of your time as an expat in Russia, not only on a social and intercultural level, but alsoin everyday life, you need to know at least basic “survival” Russian.
Travelling in Russia can be challenging for non-Russian speakers. Migration cards may be in Cyrillic only, and immigration officials may only speak Russian. At train stations, most signs are in Cyrillic and ticket sellers usually do not speak English. Moscow metro signs use an inconsistent alphabet.
The Russian Orthodox Church has been the dominant religious institution for almost a millennium and continues to be the most popular religion in Russia. The church lost a lot of its property and power during the communist period; however, it has quickly regained esteem and influence.
According to the latest survey, as of March 2022, 78% of Ukrainians considered the Ukrainian language their native, while 20% named Russian. Around 30% of people speak both Russian and Ukrainian at home — they can understand both languages and use them interchangeably also in different spheres of life.
The English dialects prevailing both in Russia and Latvia are almost the same. Phonetically, Rusine is the closest to Russian, the pronunciations are pretty similar in both. If you're looking for Latvian Translation services, check this out. Latvian, on the other hand, is pronounced very differently from Russian.
Sumerian can be considered the first language in the world, according to Mondly. The oldest proof of written Sumerian was found on the Kish tablet in today's Iraq, dating back to approximately 3500 BC.