11 Interesting Facts About Russian Language

Russian is one of the most widely spoken native languages in Europe. It belongs to the Slavic group of the Indo-European language family. The Russian language has about 150 million speakers in the world making it the 8th most spoken language. Russian is considered to be a very mysterious language and we bet you didn’t know these facts about Russian, let us know some interesting facts about Russian Language.

Russian Alphabets
Russian Alphabets

image: oocities.org

1. “Talking About Blue? Be Precise While In Russia!”

Well, not really, but the Russian language splits the color blue into two completely different categories- синий (“seeniy” meaning dark blue) and голубой (“goluboy” meaning light blue). So yeah they are better at distinguishing light blue and dark blue but just in terms of language. While Russian tells apart the shades of blue, some languages cannot even distinguish between green and blue!.
source: lidenz.ru

2. Weird Word For Germans

In Russian, The Germans are referred to as “немецкий” (nemetski) – which means those who can’t speak. The root of the word originates in the Russian word meaning mute, which also means stupid and inarticulate. At first, the Russian word nemetski was used for all those foreigners who did not speak Russian and most of the foreigners around there at that time were Germans so that’s how they got this name.
source: lidenz.ru

3. Want To Be An Astronaut, Learn It Right Away

An Astronaut in Space
An Astronaut in Space

Surprising isn’t it! But there is a reason behind it. Russian is often referred to as the international language of space. Due to Russia’s presence in space technology, and especially in the International Space Station, it’s now a requirement for foreign astronauts to have a working knowledge of Russian. In the event of an emergency, instructions are given to astronauts in Russian. In fact, a part of training to become an astronaut even includes a homestay in Moscow to learn local lingo. Well all those of you, who want to become an astronaut, start with Russian right away!.
source: listenandlearn.org, image: img05.deviantart.net

4. Etiquettes Count

In Russian, there is a fine line between formal and casual. It is important that you know the difference between a formal and an informal you, as this is something that is quite important to them. When you are first introduced to someone you should use the more formal word for you Вы and after that, you can switch to ты when you know them much better.
source: networklanguages.com

5. Don’t Worry About Future

In Russian, you cannot really use future tense and first person together because the verbs do not have a future form in the first person. Although you can say “you will win” and “he/she will win”, you cannot say “I will win”. You have to work around this by saying “I will be the winner”.
source: quora.com

6. Name Your Kids

Russian names consist of a first name, a family name, and a patronymic name, which is the father’s name plus the ending -ovich for a son and -ovna for a daughter. So if a father named Ivan has a son and a daughter, his son’s patronymic name will be Ivanovich and his daughter’s will be Ivanovna.
source: listenandlearn.org

7. Animacy Keeps The Language Alive

In Russian, there is animacy in nouns. The animate nouns are considered more alive than inanimate ones. So in Russian, a dead man (мертвец) is more alive than a corpse (труп), because a dead man (мертвец) is animate and a corpse is not.
source: blog.properrussian.com

8. One Of The Officials In United Nations

Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations. Others are Arabic, English, Spanish, French, and Chinese.
source: Wikipedia

9. Widespread Over Eurasia

Russian Speaking Countries
Russian Speaking Countries

Russian is spoken in Eastern Europe and North-Western Asia. There are 150 Million Native Speakers of it and 250 Million can speak it as first or second language. Russian is spoken mostly in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. It is slightly spoken in Moldova, Norway, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Finland and many north-western countries of Asia.
source: Wikipedia, image: ichef.bbci.co.uk

10. Resemblance To English

About One in Ten Russian Words are very close to the similar word in English. For Instance, проблема (pronounced “problema”) means “problem”, and кофе (pronounced “kofi”) is “coffee”.
source: listenandlearn.org

11. Be Careful On Putting Stress

In the Russian Language, where the emphasis falls on the word is important. For example, я плачу – in which stress is on the second syllable – means “I’m paying”. However, я плáчу – in which the stress is on the first syllable – means “I’m crying”.
source: listenandlearn.org