If you’re thinking about learning Russian it’s always good to know a little about the origins and history of the language you are learning. Here, Cactus Language offers up our most interesting Russian language facts:
Russian is derived from the Old East Slavic, and as such, shares strong similarities with Belorussian and Ukrainian. With the adoption of Christianity, a new alphabet was developed – the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian was standardised during the 18th century, and then simplified after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Russian is spoken by 260 million people worldwide, including 137 million in Russia and is the 6th most natively spoken language in the world. It is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and a recognised regional language in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russian is also a significant minority language in the Baltic countries and Central Asia, and is still used as a lingua franca in the former Soviet countries.
The Russian are known to be sarcastic at times, and Russian jokes often reflect the realities of everyday life. Examples include:
Few English words are of Russian origin. Interesting examples include bolshevik, cosmonaut, mammoth, pogrom, samovar, sputnik, taiga, tsar, ushanka and vodka
Along with English, Russian is the language of space. Astronauts have to learn Russian as part of their training and the computer system of the ISS uses both English and Russian. During the Space Race, Russian also influenced English. For example, the suffix -nik, used in “sputnik” (“fellow traveller”), was borrowed from Russian and is commonly used in words such as beatnik, peacenik and refusenik.
