Russian language

Russian
русский язык[a]
Pronunciation	[ˈruskʲɪi̯ jɪˈzɨk] ⓘ
Native to	Russia, other areas of the Russian-speaking world
Speakers	L1: 145 million (2020–2023)[1] L2: 108 million (2012–2020)[1] Total: 253 million (2012–2023)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Russian
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old East Slavic
Writing system	Cyrillic (Russian alphabet) Russian Braille
Official status
Official language in	5 UN member states  Russia (state)[2]  Belarus (co-official)[3]  Kazakhstan (co-official)[4]  Kyrgyzstan (co-official)[5]  Tajikistan (as inter-ethnic language designated by the constitution)[6] Official on regional level  Moldova:  Gagauzia (co-official)[7] Left Bank of the Dniester (co-official)  Ukraine:  Autonomous Republic of Crimea (co-official)[b] Partially recognized states  Abkhazia[c] (co-official)[8]  South Ossetia[c] (co-official)[9]  Transnistria (state)[10] Organizations  United Nations: IAEA ICAO UNESCO WHO CIS EAEU CSTO SCO OSCE ATS ISO
Recognised minority language in	List  Romania[11]  Armenia[12]  Czech Republic[13]  Slovakia[12]  Moldova[14]  Ukraine[15]  China[16][17]
Regulated by	V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences[18]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ru
ISO 639-2	rus
ISO 639-3	rus
Glottolog	russ1263
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ea < 53-AAA-e (varieties: 53-AAA-eaa to 53-AAA-eat)
Majority of Russian speakers   Minority of Russian speakers

Russian^[d] is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages,^[e] and is the native language of the Russians. It was the de facto and de jure^[20] official language of the former Soviet Union.^[21] Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Russian has over 253 million total speakers worldwide.^[1] It is the most spoken native language in Europe,^[26] the most spoken Slavic language,^[27] as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia.^[27] It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers.^[28] Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station,^[29] one of the six official languages of the United Nations,^[30] as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet.^[31]

Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically,^[32] though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [zamók, 'lock'] and за́мок [zámok, 'castle']), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names.

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