Russian language
East Slavic language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Russian (Russian: русский язык, transliterated as: russkiy yazyk) is a Slavic language. It is the main language spoken in Russia. It is also spoken by many people in other parts of the former Soviet Union, such as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan and Estonia.
Russian, like other Slavic languages, is an Indo-European language. Russian is one of the three main East Slavic languages; the others are Ukrainian and Belarusian. More people speak Russian than any other Slavic language.
Russian does not normally use the Latin alphabet, unlike English and the West Slavic languages, but some people learn to write it in Latin letters. Russian mostly uses the Cyrillic alphabet, whose letters, like those of Latin, came from Greek but are different. The other East Slavic languages and some of the South Slavic languages also use the Cyrillic alphabet.
Russian is an official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, along with English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.
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Standard Russian
Standard Russian is also called modern literary Russian (Современный русский литературный язык). It first appeared in the early 18th century. Peter the Great was then working to modernize the Russian Empire. Standard Russian grew out of the dialect of Russian that was spoken by people in and around Moscow. In some ways, Standard Russian was also like the Russian that had been used in government offices in earlier centuries.
Mikhail Lomonosov wrote the first book on Russian grammar in 1755. The Russian Academy of Sciences published the first full dictionary of Russian in 1783. The grammar, vocabulary. and pronunciation of Russian were stabilized and standardized in the late 18th century and during the 19th century. The time was called the "Golden Age" of Russian literature because it was a good period for the subject, which became very famous across the world.
All of Russia began to use Russian as the language of literature, education and official communication. Until the 20th century, only the upper classes and people in cities spoke the literary language. Russians from the countryside continued to speak their local dialects. In the 20th century, all children were required to go to school. Many people had radios and televisions, which helped to spread Standard Russian. By the mid-20th century, Russian dialects had mostly disappeared. Standard Russian replaced them almost completely, especially in talking to people from different oblasts.
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Names
In Russian, a person's name has three parts: the first name, the patronymic, and the family name.
Parents choose the first name for their child. Some common Russian names for boys are Ivan, Vladimir, Mikhail, and Nikolai. Some common Russian names for girls are Anna, Anastasia, Svetlana, and Yekaterina.
The second name is the patronymic (Russian: otchestvo) and comes from one's father's first name. For example, a boy whose father is Ivan would havae as patronymic is Ivanovich. If a boy's father is Nikolai, his patronymic is Nikolaevich. If a girl's father is Ivan, her patronymic is Ivanovna. If her father is Nikolai, her patronymic is Nikolaevna. The patronymic of a boy ends with -ovich or -evich. The patronymic of a girl ends with -ovna or -evna.
Boys have the same family name as their fathers. Girls use their father's family name but an -a is added to the end of the name. A man whose family name is Romanov would have a son with the family name Romanov and a daughter with the family name Romanova.
If a man's name is Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov and has a son, Aleksei, and a daughter, Anastasia, the son's full name is Aleksei Nikolaevich Romanov, and the daughter's full name is Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.
There are also many people in Russia whose family names are not of Russian origin. Some of the family names have only one form, which is the same for both sons and daughters. Some examples are Glushko (a Ukrainian name), Rubinstein (a German/Jewish name) or Shevardnadze (a Georgian name).
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Grammar
Case
Like Latin, Greek, and German, Russian has a case system. In Russian, it applies to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, and participles with a set of word endings (sounds/letters attached to the ends of words) that show the grammatical roles of words in a sentence. Because grammatical roles are shown by the endings, word order is freer in than in English. There are six cases in Russian.
The nominative case, the form listed in the dictionary, is used for the subject of the sentence. The genitive case often shows ownership. The accusative case is used for a direct object. The dative case is used for an indirect object. The instrumental case is used for the tool or instrument with which something is done. The prepositional case is used after certain prepositions, such as "in" and "on", but other prepositions may require the use of other cases. Each case has uses other than those that are listed.
Gender and number
In Russian, nouns have one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. That is the same for languages like French and Spanish but with the neuter gender. Masculine nouns usually end in consonants, neutral nouns usually end in -o or -e, and feminine nouns usually end in -a or -я. The plural acts like a fourth gender because plural words do not change their form according to their gender.
Adjectives
In Russian, an adjective must agree with the word that it describes in gender, case and number. In the nominative case, adjectives that describe feminine words usually end in -ая or -яя. Those that describe masculine words usually end in -ый, -ий or -ой. Those that describe neuter words usually end in -ое or -ее. Those that describe plural words usually end in -ые or -ие. The endings change depending on case.
References
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