Russian

Russian (русский язык, tr. russkiy yazyk) is an East Slavic language native to Russia in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of four living East Slavic languages, and also part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. Russian is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution; and continues to be used in public life with varying proficiency in most of the post-Soviet states.

Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide, and is the most spoken Slavic language, the most spoken native language in Europe, as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries, such as Israel and Mongolia. It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's eighth-most spoken language by total number of speakers. Russian is the second-most used language on the Internet after English, and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Russian is written using 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. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically, though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress, such as to distinguish between homographic words, e.g. замо́к (zamók – a 'lock') and за́мок (zámok – a 'castle'), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names.