Russian

Where does Russian hold official standing

Russian was the de facto official language of the Soviet Union, and de jure in its final years. In Belarus the constitution makes it a second state language beside Belarusian; 77% of the population was fluent in it in 2006. In Kazakhstan it is not a state language, but article 7 of the constitution gives it equal status with Kazakh in state and local administration. In 2009, 84.8% of people there aged 15 and over could read and write it well, and a draft media law of October 2023 set out to raise the share of Kazakh on television and radio. Kyrgyzstan also keeps Russian official, and Tajikistan's constitution names it the language of inter-ethnic communication.

How the literary standard formed

Feudal division and Mongol rule held back a common language. The chancery language of Moscow gave the first push towards a standard between the 15th and 17th centuries, and Contemporary Standard Russian arose with the state's modernising reforms of the early 18th century, on a Moscow dialect with a northern base. Church Slavonic, long the language of the church, left many words borrowed or calqued from Greek. Polish, Dutch, German, French and English added more.

What the spelling leaves out

Most consonants come in hard and soft pairs, and the difference is usually shown by the vowel that follows, not by the consonant. Stress is not normally written. An optional acute accent separates words spelled alike, such as замо́к, lock, and за́мок, castle, and it is compulsory in dictionaries and books for children and learners. The first spelling reform came in 1708 to 1710 and the last major one in 1917 and 1918, which dropped letters such as yat.