To mark UN Russian Language Day, here are 10 facts you never knew about one of the fastest-growing languages on the Internet.

1. 10 Facts You Never Knew
About the Russian Language

2. Russian is the 8th most spoken language in the
world and one of the official languages of a UN.
Indeed, establishing the 6th of June, a UN
initiated “Russian Language Day” to celebrate
multilingualism and cultural diversity.
This date coincides with the birthday of the
Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, who is
considered the father of modern Russian
literature.
To mark UN Russian Language Day, we offer you
10 facts about one of the fastest-growing
languages on the Internet.

3. 1. The Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic or azbuka considered the Russian writing
system. The First Bulgarian Empire developed it in
the 9th century AD.
The Cyrillic alphabet has 33 letters – 10 vowels, 21
consonants, and 2 which don’t represent any
sounds.
It can be written in capitals, lowercase, and Cyrillic
cursive.

4. 2. Gender
Russian nouns have an easily recognizable gender
type. Usually, feminine nouns end with –a or –я
while neutral with the letter –o or -e.
Masculine nouns usually end with a consonant.
However, there is a group of exceptions – nouns
that end with the soft sign (ь) can either be
feminine or masculine.
There is no particular way to distinguish them.

5. 3. The Verb “to be”
One of the most prominent features of the
Russian language is the lack of the verb “to be” in
the present tense.
For instance, an English sentence such as “You are
beautiful” in Russian would look like so “You
beautiful”.
The verb “to be” appears only in its past or future
form.

6. 4. The 50 Shades of Blue
in Russian
Interestingly, in the Russian language two words,
си́ний (dark blue) and голубо́й (lighter blue) used
for blue – and is seen as distinct basic colours in
Russian.
Some languages don’t distinguish blue and green.
Here some more Russian words denoting shades
of blue:

7. 5. The Language of the
Space
Russian is well-known as “The Language of
Space“. So you will need to learn some Russian if
you want to become an astronaut.
One of the largest space agencies in the world is
the Russian Roscosmos. Moreover, since the
computer system of the ISS is in both English and
Russian.
So learning Russian is a part of astronauts’
training.

8. 6. The letter “A”
The transition from Old to Modern Russian
manifests several phonetic changes that
simplified the language.
For instance, the words beginning with the letter
a- prefixed with the sound й-. A few notable
exceptions include азбука (alphabet) and авось
(perhaps).
In most cases, however Russian words starting
with a- considered borrowed from another
language.

9. 7. Stress patterns
Due to the radical change of meaning, the stress
patterns of Russian words is very important.
For instance, the phrase “я плачу” could mean
either “I am paying” or “I am crying” depending
on the stress.

10. 8. Russian words in the
English language
During the Space Race Russian has greatly
influenced English.
For example, the suffix –Nik from “Sputnik”
(“fellow traveler”) appears in many English words
such as beatnik, peacenik, and refusenik.
Other interesting examples include bolshevik,
cosmonaut, mammoth, pogrom, samovar, sputnik,
taiga, tsar, ushanka, and vodka.

11. 9. The Russian
Dictionary
The Russian language has a rather limited
vocabulary – around 200,000 words.
Wherein English has over 1,000,000 words As a
result, many Russian words have multiple
meanings.

12. 10. The Russian names
Every Russian has three names. The first is the
“given” name which is used to refer to the person.
The last name is the surname or the family name.
In Russian, the middle name is considered a
patronymic name or in other words, a name that
is derived from the name of the father.
These patronymic names vary in terms of gender.
The suffix -ovich or -evich is added for males,
while -ovna or -evna is typically female.
So, Mr. Ivan’s son would be Ivanovich while his
daughter’s middle name would be Ivanovna.

13. Conclusion
Russian is believed to be one of the most difficult
languages.
If you need help localizing your content in
Russian, just get in touch.