Russian language Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Russian
Русский язык (Russkiy yazik)
Native to	Russia, and some of the Commonwealth of Independent States
Native speakers	primary language: about 147 million secondary language: 113 million (1999 WA, 2000 WCD) (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Russian
Writing system	Cyrillic alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria (Moldova) and Gagauzia (Moldova).
Regulated by	none

Russian (in Russian: русский язык, pronounced russkiy yaz'ik) is the main language spoken in Russia. Lots of people also speak it in other countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. These include Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan and Estonia.

Russian is part of a big language family called Indo-European languages. It's also a Slavic language, like Polish or Czech. Russian is one of the three main East Slavic languages, along with Ukrainian and Belarusian. More people speak Russian than any other Slavic language in the world.

Unlike English, which uses the Latin alphabet, written Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. The letters in Cyrillic, like Latin letters, originally came from Greek. However, they look different. Other East Slavic languages and some South Slavic languages also use the Cyrillic alphabet.

Russian is an official language in several countries. These include Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It's also one of the six official languages used at the United Nations. The other five are English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.

Standard Russian: How it Developed
Russian Names: First, Middle, and Last
Russian Grammar: Cases, Gender, and Adjectives
Images for kids
See also

Standard Russian: How it Developed

Standard Russian is also known as modern literary Russian. It first started to appear in the early 1700s. This was when Peter the Great was working to make Russia more modern.

Standard Russian grew from the way people spoke in and around Moscow. It also took some features from the Russian used in government offices a long time ago.

In 1755, Mikhail Lomonosov wrote the first book about Russian grammar. Later, in 1783, the Russian Academy of Sciences published the first complete Russian dictionary. By the late 1700s and during the 1800s, Russian grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation became very stable and set. This time was known as the "Golden Age" of Russian literature. Russian books and poems became famous all over the world.

Over time, Russian became the main language for books, schools, and official talks across Russia. For a long time, only people from the upper classes and those living in cities spoke this standard language. People in the countryside continued to speak their local dialects.

In the 1900s, things changed a lot. All children had to go to school, and many families got radios and televisions. These things helped spread Standard Russian everywhere. By the middle of the 20th century, most local Russian dialects had almost completely disappeared. Standard Russian took their place.

Russian Names: First, Middle, and Last

In Russia, a person's full name usually has three parts. These are the first name, a middle name (called a patronymic), and the family name.

Parents choose the first name for their child. Some common Russian names for boys include Ivan, Vladimir, Mikhail, and Nikolai. For girls, popular names are Anna, Anastasia, Svetlana, and Yekaterina.

The middle name is called a patronymic (in Russian: otchestvo). It comes from the father's first name. For example, if a boy's father is named Ivan, his patronymic would be Ivanovich. If his father is Nikolai, his patronymic is Nikolaevich.

For girls, the patronymic is slightly different. If a girl's father is Ivan, her patronymic is Ivanovna. If her father is Nikolai, her patronymic is Nikolaevna. So, a boy's patronymic ends with -ovich or -evich, and a girl's ends with -ovna or -evna.

Boys usually have the same family name as their fathers. Girls use their father's family name too, but an -a is added to the end of the name. For example, if a man's family name is Romanov, his son would also have the family name Romanov. His daughter, however, would have the family name Romanova.

Let's look at an example: If a man's full name is Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, and he has a son named Aleksei and a daughter named Anastasia.

The son's full name would be Aleksei Nikolaevich Romanov.
The daughter's full name would be Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.

It's important to know that many people in Russia have family names that are not originally Russian. Some of these names stay the same for both sons and daughters. Examples include Glushko (a Ukrainian name), Rubinstein (a German/Jewish name), or Shevardnadze (a Georgian name).

Russian Grammar: Cases, Gender, and Adjectives

Cases: How Words Change Their Job

Like languages such as Latin and German, Russian uses a case system. This means that nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and some numbers change their endings. These special endings show what job a word has in a sentence. Because the endings tell you the word's job, the order of words in a Russian sentence can be more flexible than in English.

There are six different cases in Russian:

The nominative case is the basic form of a word, like the one you'd find in a dictionary. It's used for the subject of a sentence (who or what is doing the action).
The genitive case often shows ownership, like saying "of the book" or "the book's."
The accusative case is used for the direct object (the thing that receives the action).
The dative case is used for the indirect object (the thing that benefits from the action).
The instrumental case shows the tool or way something is done, like "with a pen."
The prepositional case is used after certain small words called prepositions, like "in" or "on."

Each case has many different uses, not just the ones listed here!

Gender and Number: Nouns Have a Type

In Russian, every noun has a gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Masculine nouns usually end with a consonant (like 'k' or 't').
Neuter nouns usually end with '-o' or '-e'.
Feminine nouns usually end with '-a' or '-я'.

When a noun becomes plural (meaning more than one), its gender doesn't matter anymore. The plural form acts almost like a fourth gender itself.

Adjectives: Describing Words

In Russian, an adjective (a word that describes a noun) must match the noun it describes in both gender and number (singular or plural).

Here are some common endings for adjectives in the nominative case:

If an adjective describes a feminine noun, it usually ends in '-ая' or '-яя'.
If it describes a masculine noun, it usually ends in '-ый', '-ий', or '-ой'.
If it describes a neuter noun, it usually ends in '-ое' or '-ее'.
If it describes a plural noun (any gender), it usually ends in '-ые' or '-ие'.

Just like nouns, these adjective endings also change depending on the case they are in!

Images for kids

This map shows how well people knew Russian in countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union (not including Russia) in 2004.
This is a page from "Azbuka" (meaning "Alphabet book"). It was the first textbook printed in East Slavic languages. Ivan Fyodorov printed it in 1574. This page shows letters from the Cyrillic alphabet.
This page is from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694. It shows the letter П.
The Ostromir Gospels from 1056 is one of the oldest known East Slavic books. It's an example of a beautiful medieval illuminated manuscript (a handwritten book with decorations) kept in the Russian National Library.