Russian language

Russian
русский язык[a]
Pronunciation	[ˈruskʲɪi̯ jɪˈzɨk] ⓘ
Native to	Russia, other areas of the Russian-speaking world
Speakers	L1: 148 million (2020 census)[1] L2: 108 million (2020 census)[1] Total: 255 million (2020 census)[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] As inter-ethnic language but with no official status, or as official on regional level  Uzbekistan[b] (as inter-ethnic language despite having no de jure status)[7][8][9]  Moldova:  Gagauzia (co-official)[10] Left Bank of the Dniester (co-official)  Ukraine:  Autonomous Republic of Crimea (co-official)[c] Partially recognized states  Abkhazia[d] (co-official)[11]  South Ossetia[d] (co-official)[12]  Transnistria (state)[13] Organizations  United Nations: IAEA ICAO UNESCO WHO CIS EAEU CSTO SCO OSCE ATS ISO
Recognised minority language in	List  Romania[14]  Armenia[15]  Czech Republic[16]  Slovakia[15]  Moldova[17]  Ukraine[18]  China[19][20]
Regulated by	V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences[21]
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)
Official language (Stripes: Disputed territory)   Spoken by >30% of the population as either 1st or a 2nd language   Neither of the above

Russian^[e] 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,^[f] and is the native language of the Russians. It was the de facto and de jure^[23] official language of the former Soviet Union.^[24] 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.^{[25][26][27][28]}

Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide.^[29] It is the most spoken native language in Europe,^[30] the most spoken Slavic language,^[31] as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia.^[31] 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.^[32] Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station,^[33] one of the six official languages of the United Nations,^[34] as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet.^[35]

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,^[36] 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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