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Russian: Russian Language
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Russian is primarily spoken in Russia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics of the USSR. Until 1917, it was the sole official language of the Russian Empire.
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The historical development of Russian is not easy to trace because until the 17th cent. the religious and cultural language of the Russian people was not Russian, but Church Slavonic. However, within Russia the latter language became sufficiently altered by the vocabulary and pronunciation of spoken Russian to be transformed into a Russian form of Church Slavonic adapted to Russian needs; this change began in early times. The earliest extant document containing Russian elements is an Old Church Slavonic text from the 11th cent. Ukrainian texts can be distinguished from Russian by the late 13th cent., but Belarusian does not definitely appear as a separate language before the 16th cent.
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Russian is the official language of Russia. It is ... an official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the de facto official language of unrecognized Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics.
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Education in Russian is still a popular choice for many of the first and second language speakers of Russian in the former Soviet republics. For instance, 75% of the public school students in Belarus, 40% in Kazakhstan, and over 20% in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova receive their education entirely or primarily in Russian.
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Russian is the most important of the Slavic languages and now one of the major languages of the world. The emergence of the Soviet Union in the postwar period as a major world power, coupled with tmpressive achievements in science and technology, has significantly increased the interest in and the study of Russian in recent years. With English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
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Russian has a very large vocabulary estimated to be up to 500,000 words. It is difficult to determine what percent of Russian vocabulary is inherently Slavic and what percentage is borrowed. By some estimates, about half of it may consist of words borrowed at one time or another from other languages. This is even more true of scientific, technical, and political vocabulary.
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Russian Language