Talk:Russian language/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Russian is not spoken in the Czech Republic

As someone from the Czech Republic I am offended. Many people were forced to learn this language so yes there are old people that know it but they hate using it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs)

According to SIL, there are Russian speakers there. I'm sure nobody appreciates the history behind the presence but that doesn't mean it's appropriate to deny it. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe, but those are speakers as second language learnt at school. It should be stated somehow that Russian spoken in Czech Republic is used by ethnic Russian emigrants. Otherwise it's confusing, I guess no Czech speaks Russian at home (or not a significant amount of them). Anyway, the fact that a population knows a language does not mean that the language is spoken there. I don't understand either, why SIL is trusted as universal truth. User:AlbertoFL

You just contradicted yourself. Is it second-language learners or Russian immigrants? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I meant there are two different situations given in the Czech Republic which represent the non-natural use of the language by the native Czechs. So, on the one hand you have Czechs that learnt it but do not use it. On the other hand you have Russian emigrants that speak it among themselves in the CR. So it is not correct to say that Russian is spoken in Czech Republic, because it's used by an ethnic group with no roots (or too recent roots) in Czech Republic.

You won't see in the article Arabic language that France is cited as country where Arabic is spoken, although there are more than one million people that are credited to speak it. But well, this is just my humble opinion.

I believe you should consider that a language is spoken in another country, when there is a significant amount of NATIONALS that have that language as native language. For example Hungarian in Romania, Albanian in Yugoslavia, Turkish in Germany. But the circumstances of Russian in the Czech Republic are totally different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.24.127.224 (talk • contribs)

Well the "spoken in" section ought to represent where populations of speakers exist. It's not a "spoken by" section. I'm not entirely familiar with the situation in the Czech Republic and I cited SIL because it is a source. If you've got another source that contradicts this, by all means cite it. Perhaps there are pockets of speakers in the Czech Republic that arent' second-language learners and not recent immigrants and you simply aren't aware of it.

I've been there couple of times and I only heard Russian spoken by Russians (and people from other CIS countries). This is first hand source, does it count? :P It's not a big deal anyway. User:AlbertoFL

No, it doesn't count. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Depending on the population, the sample size and the confidence interval, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This stuff is about statistics, not philosophy. User:AlbertoFL

Alberto, as great a guy as you may be, your trips to the Czech Republic don't count and wouldn't even if we didn't have a policy against original research. While I agree that SIL can be problematic in its reporting, I'd like to see some other source(s) that either deny the presence of Russian speakers in the country or show the populations in each country so that we can get our feet wet in the matter. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, no problem. As I said, it's not a big deal. I had put "also significantly in [...] (Russian minorities)". But I'm gonna delete "(Russian minorities)", since I'm not a reliable source :P I'm happy if Russia and CIS countries are just separated from USA, Germany, CR and Israel in the list. Anyone, feel free to revert it if you disagree :) User:AlbertoFL (9/2/07 8:20 GMT+1)

You might think that Alberto's trips don't count. What about my 6 year stay in various parts of the country? I assure you Russian is only spoken by the older generation as a second langauge they learnt at school. How well do you think they speak?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs).

Here are the numbers from SIL

• Czech Republic. Pop.: 10,246,178. Russian speakers: 33,500. - 0.33%
• Israel Pop.: 6,199,008. Russian speakers: 750,000. - 12.1%
• Mongolia Pop.:: 2,751,314. Russian speakers: 4,000. - 0.15%
• United States Pop.: 293,027,571. Russian speakers: 334,615. - 0.11%
• Germany Pop.: 82,424,609. Russian speakers: 360,000. - 0.43%

Other countries that are not cited

• Finland Pop.: 5,214,512. Russian speakers: 10,000. - 0.19%
• Canada Pop.: 32,507,874. Russian speakers: 31,745. - 0.01%

AlbertoFL 09:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"most widely spoken language of Eurasia "

What does it mean? The most widely languge spoken both in Europe and Asia? It's simply not true, for example English or Chinese have much more speakers. So I've got absolutely no idea what does Eurasia mean in this context, it doesn't make any sense. Der_Ritter 17:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess it meant it's the language that is spoken in a larger surface of Eurasia, although such magnitude (area where the language is spoken) says nothing. :) AlbertoFL 13:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Too many questionable statements in this article

Particularly related to Moscow dialect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.131.10.195 (talk) 18:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The Czech Republic should not be listed in the infobox

Russian used to be taught in the Czech Republic but English has replaced it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs)

From the above thread: Czech Republic. Pop.: 10,246,178. Russian speakers: 33,500. - 0.33% — Feezo (Talk) 08:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that Czech ethno-Nazis, above and below, are uncomfortable with their own language. As Czech and Russian fairly (very) close, you can get buy anywhere in Czech Republic by speaking just Russian. No problem, haven't met any Czech ethno-Nazis in real life (it seems they all migrated to Wikipedia, which is not a bad thing after all). Polish grammar is closer to Russian than Czech one, but Czech vocabulary is closer to Russian than Polish. I'd say Russian is closer to Czech than dialects of low German are to Dutch. So say, osvoboditel naroda on Masaryk's monument in Czech would read as identical obsvoboditel naroda if transliterated into Russian. Actually similarity it amazing.

If you list the Czech Republic in the info box then you will have to list many other countries like Finland, Sweden, Greece etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs)

All right, then we can have something like: Russia, former Soviet republics, Israel. Communities of speakers also reside in Germany, Czech Republic, Finland, Mongolia, and the United States. I have it in descending order from highest to lowest percentage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aeusoes1 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Not enough people speak Russian in the Czech Republic for it to be in the infobox —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs)

Please don't change the article until we've reached some sort of agreement. If it's a matter of not enough then we would have to remove more countries than just the Czech Republic. I personally think it's significant that there are 30,000 speakers in Czech Republic and not, say, Greece. What do you think is the cutoff point? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not significant as there are more than 60,000 native English speakers in the country and I don't know anyone who would put the Czech Republic in the English infobox. In order to be in the infobox a language needs some recognition. For example, it must be official or at least be able to be used for everday life in a part of the country. For example, in the USA you can get by with using Spanish in some places. Russian on the other hand will not get you very far in the Czech Republic.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs).

Actually, the only reason English doesn't have the Czech Republic in its infobox is because doing so would entail also including all the countries that have more than 60,000 speakers, which is a lot. You contradict yourself though. Spanish has little to no formal recognition in the United States and it certainly is not the official language in the states where it is most spoken. The US is in the Spanish infobox because people who speak it live there, not because there's any formal recognition of it. How well you get by using a language in a particular country is not a valid measure for whether a significant amount of speakers live there. Spanish in the United States is obviously more noteworthy than Russian in the Czech Republic but I'll ask again since you haven't answered the question. What is the cutoff point for inclusion or noninclusion? Is it 2% of the speakers? 75,000 or more speakers? Or is it some other criterion? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think your wrong about the status of Spanish in the US as it does have some legal recognition in at least one state. I think that the cut off point should be around 10-20% as this would ensure that the language is actually spoken by a large sector of the population. I would allow a lower percentage if the language has official recognition or historical significance or if it is spoken by a community that has its own schools, newspapers, radio, television and where their children are growing up in that language. For example, although sorbian is spoken by a tiny minority in Germany it has legal recognition and a long history in the country. Following the previously mentioned guidelines will ensure that the speakers of a language aren't scattered throughout a country. Furthermore these guidelines would allow languages like Greek to have English in their infobox as there are greek newspapers, television shows etc.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs).

I'd have to look Spanish up but even if it isn't legally recognized you are certainly clear on your preference. Unfortunately, your idea of what is worthy of inclusion in the infobox doesn't seem to be the criterion applied on other language pages. Hmong, for example, lists the United States in its infobox despite all speakers here being the refugees (or children of refugees) from southeast Asia. The situation is similar for Vietnamese, and Cambodian as well as Russian. Also, your own edits don't consistantly act upon this notion and if I think what would really disqualify the Russian speakers in Czech Republic if what you and Alberto both say is true: that the speakers there are very recent immigrants. While visiting and living in Czech Republic may get you authority elsewhere, Wikipedia is based on sources so some sort of book or article would really help you prove your case for the article. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The Czech wikipedia page about Russian does not list Russian as one of the languages spoken in the country so I think we should stick with what it says. If you look up http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Czech+Republic it states that 33,500 people out of a total population of 10,246,178 speak Russian. This number is not significant at all. There are probably more people that speak Vietnamese and Ukrainian in the country.

The link http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rus states that Russian is spoken in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, USA, Uzbekistan. So either include all the preceding countries or remove the Czech Republic. I would still remove it as 33,500 people really doesn't seem to be enough.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.148.185 (talk • contribs)

I feel like you're offering the suggestion of potentially putting in all the countries even though you don't really believe they should be there. I find putting them all in to be acceptable and we can either list them alphabetically or in descending order of percentage. Does that sound good to you? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that descending order of percentage may be better as it shows how widespread the language is reasonably well. However, alphabetical order is better when it comes to looking up a country in the infobox. It might be a good idea to have a look at what other language pages have and do the same as both ways are perfectly acceptable.

Do you really want to deploy "CIS countries" and put all of them? I think we have to put some limits. I was on the bus the other day and there was a couple speaking in Russian. Then I guess Spain should be also on the bottom of the list. We have to stablish two criteria. On the one hand minimum percentage that shows significance (for the cases of Czech Republic or Germany). On the other hand an absolute minimum is also important (e.g. USA, whose percentage is quite low). Do you really want to put Uruguay? (14,000 speakers, 0.4%)

The Spanish Institute of Statistics says [1] that in 2005 there were about 65,000 (legal) Ukrainian residents in Spain. If 24% of Ukrainians have Russian as first language (Demographics_of_Ukraine) (not considering that most of the population is fluent in Russian anyways) then we could include Spain too :) AlbertoFL 18:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am very disappointed. I read the discussion and it seems to me you are putting infos on the wiki by guessing.

I am the native Czech. So I can confirm that Czech Republic is not Russian speaking country. We had to learn Russian, our country belonged to Communistic Zone after WW2 and later it was the language of the Soviet Union troops, which occupied the country in 1968-1991.

Most of the people (obligate language for 100% of pupils and students in 50’s – 80’s) is not able to speak in it or read the alphabet. There were no opportunities except school or science to use Russian. And more, if someone has to do something under the force it is usually worthless. Now is the Russian again taught at business schools, because of the trade opportunities at the Post-Soviet countries.

We have more foreigners from Ukraine and Vietnam. Whole Vietnamese families settle here. Families from Ukraine and Russia usually send one member who works here as labourer and supports the rest of the family. I am including link on table of foreigners’s purpose-of-residence [2] from Czech statictical office.

Vlasta —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.176.205.102 (talk) 20:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Those people who use Russian primarily to communicate with foreigners aren't being taken into account. The only issue is whether there are significant communities of native speakers in the country. I agree that 0.3% of the population is fairly small, but if you look at French in the United States, you'll see that while only 0.5% of Americans speak French at home, for many of them it is the language of their communities and has been preserved through many generations. Do we have any way of knowing if any of the 30,000 native Russian-speakers in the Czech republic go back one or two generations there? Joeldl 23:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Dialectology

My Russian teacher (himself a Pole) claims that Russian is overall remarkably uniform and differences minimal, at least if we take into account the vast distances between say Vladivostok and Moscow. He claims that the dialectological difference is less noticeable than (for example in English) say between a Texan and a New Yorker. Is this correct? If so, it would be interesting to note it somehow in the article. Mountolive | Talk 06:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It is partly correct. Because certain areas of Russia were settled by speakers from all of the areas where Russian was traditionally spoken, they eventually adopted the most prestigious form, the Moscow one. Since those areas were settled recently, and continued to receive new immigrants throughout the twentieth century, they haven't had time to diverge significantly. On the other hand, there are significant differences between, for example, southern Russia and Moscow, albeit less than exist in English. Joeldl 12:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Joeldl. Wouldn't it be interesting now to make some mention of this in the article? There is already the "despite leveling after 1900" but maybe this should be slightly expanded with an additional sentence which I suggest it would include the comparison with English (for illustrative purposes and because this is the language here). I would edit myself, but, since this is a fact that I have been told about and have no direct evidence myself, I'd rather have it done by someone who is sure about the right words to use. Thank you again. Mountolive | Talk 16:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind if you do it yourself. The best way is always to cite a reliable published source, although plainly this isn't always followed on Wikipedia. I'm afraid I don't know where I learned about what I just told you, so I can't help you with that. But yes, I agree that it is interesting. Joeldl 16:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess you understand me if I don't dare to edit with some info which I only heard about and I don't have any direct experience myself. Despite considering this proposed edit quite interesting and relevant, I couldn't edit because, if someone came to ask me to defend this assertion, my only point would be "my teacher and Joeldl told me so" do you know what I mean? :)

Besides, as you may have noted already, I am not a native English speaker either which means that my wording is usually at risk to sound clumsy, specially when I try to adapt to an existing context.

So if you dare to edit, please go ahead, if not, maybe someone else with more expertise and authority (or just self-confidence) should do. Thank you for your feedback anyway! Mountolive | Talk 05:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It seemed to me that natives of St. Petersburg had a strong local dialect, which they used to establish their 'bona fides' as locals, rather than generic Homo sovieticus. When they used it, I had a lot more difficulty following what was said than I usually did in Moscow, for example. Has anyone else experienced this? LADave 11:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no neither strong dialect nor dialect at all in SPb. It is likely that people you heard had their own speech style that didn't correspond what you had learnt. The difference with central (Moscow) Russian is not morphological and not even phonetic. It just concerns lexicon a bit. If you can read in Russian here is an article: http://ru.wiki.x.io/wiki/Различия_в_речи_москвичей_и_петербуржцев —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.122.61.61 (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that dialectal differences are minimal across Russia and even including former USSR republics. Mixed languages (Balachka, Surzhyk, Trasianka) are more distant from standard Russian than any dialect, not to be confused if someone speaks a mixed language from someone speaking with a Ukrainian or South-Russian accent. Southern accent, mentioned here, differs mainly in the pronunciation of letter Г (G), which doesn't constitute a serious problem for learners or native speakers but is considered a less prestigious accent for many Russian-speakers, including southerners themselves. --Atitarev (talk) 22:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Not a most spoken language of Eurasia

It is not the most widely spoken language of Eurasia. Chinese and Hindi have more speakersMisterx 14:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

They have MORE speakers, but they are not as WIDESPREAD as Russian. Chinese and Hindi are mostly spoken only in China and India respectively. Russian is more widespread, then. --Andrei Knight 01:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Actualy not. There are many chinese speakers in Russia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.205.130 (talk) 08:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Very few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.113.149.177 (talk) 14:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Then English must be more WIDESPREAD than Russian anyway - it is literraly spoken almost in every country of Eurasia (Almost everyone in India, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Nordic countries are speaking English).--ZZbatam (talk) 17:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

New category?

Could someone create a "Category:Russian-speaking countries" to mimic other categories like "Category:English-speaking countries," "Category:Arabic-speaking countries," "Category:Spanish-speaking countries," and so forth. It seems that there are quite a few countries (besides Russia) that could fit well in to this category. --WassermannNYC 20:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Consider it done...I've just made this category because I finally figured out how to create it, so all of you feel free to expand it (and it can be expanded massively). The categorization so far is probably sort-of sloppy (because I'm a Wiki-beginner), so please cleanup the category as you see fit. BTW: I simply cannot believe that this category wasn't created sooner! --WassermannNYC 14:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It may not have been created sooner because it opens a political can of worms! Joeldl 15:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope that I didn't "open a political can of worms" as you say, because I wasn't intending to create controversy. I did mess up in the creation of this category though -- I should have named it "Category:Russian-speaking countries and territories" (like the "Category:Chinese-speaking countries and territories") instead of "Category:Russian-speaking countries" (because they are not all proper countries, like the Crimea and the Kaliningrad Oblast, etc). Does anyone know how to move this category to "Category:Russian-speaking countries and territories" without losing all of the data? --WassermannNYC 15:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

That was a joke (sort of). There's no reason not to have the category, it's just that some countries with Russian minorities will have people who don't want them called Russian-speaking. To rename a category you need to follow the procedure at WP:CFD, even for spelling mistakes. Joeldl 16:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but Belarus is Russian-*language* majority (with their President addressing the population in Russian, and most Belarussian descent measured by last name syntax, not language), and Ukraine is purely bilingual (with television mixed, from soaps to debates between polititians often having 1 speaking Ukrainian, the other answering in Russian, and the host speaking in a bilingual slang mix). In the Eastern half of the Ukraine, it is nearly impossible to find any Ukrainian speech or writing outside of government buildings, and any government or commercial organ, including police, immigration, and banks, will (albeit, grudgingly, in some areas) accept any documents written in Russian. In some areas of the Ukraine, even state employees are barely proficient in Ukrainian and struggle with or even will not accept documents unless those are written in Russian. For Belarus, Russian is the primary state language. All other CIS countries have large Russian-native groups and near-100% advanced comprehension of Russian (while Ukraine and Belarus have near-100% FLUENCY). Kaliningrad Oblast', meanwhile, is A PART of Russia. Israel has a high 2-digit percentage of Soviet expatriates and is therefore definitely a Russian-speaking country. As smalpcts expatriate enclaves, prominent examples would be West Hollywood, CA, USA and Brighton Beach, NY, USA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.195.186.63 (talk) 17:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed a bit of a political can of worms, as some editors have removed Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Caucasus states (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) from the category. The first group has a very significant number of both native Russian speakers (ethnic Russian + Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews) and native local speakers who are fluent in Russian. Israel editors would also resist this inclusion, although they have 700 thousand to 1 mln people who are fluent in Russian. Russian is either number 3 or 4 in Israel (Hebrew, Arabic and English) and is used in some formal situations and writing as well. --Atitarev (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Regulator

It says in the infobox that russian has no regulator, but if you check that page it says russian DOES have a regulator. Mallerd 06:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Somebody a while back said that the Russian Academy of Sciences wasn't a language regulator and removed it from the infobox. I'll put a "citation needed" tag on both pages. Joeldl 07:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Considering Rusyn

It says it is "often seen as a dialect of Ukrainian" - although 'Rusyn' is an officially recognized language. Ukrainian, indeed, has a lot of dialects and the Gutsul dialect is indeed almost identical to the officially recognized minority language called Rusyn in Southern Europe. Dutch, for instance, may be near-identical to the Low German dialects of the German language, still not being a dialect itself. Im changing the passage. 84.167.235.25 01:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC) Further it says again that 'some academics consider [Rusyn being a dialect of Ukrainian]'; as a matter of fact I've heard a plenty of Russians expressing the view that both Belarusian and Ukrainian are mere dialects of Russian. 84.167.235.25 01:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This position is POV. The predominant view is to regard it as a dialect of Ukrainian. This is what Encyclopedia Britannica says in its article on Slavic languages:

• Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian constitute the East Slavic language group.
• Carpathian, also called Carpatho-Rusyn, has sometimes been considered a language apart. In 1995 a codified form of it (Rusyn) was presented in Slovakia, thus enabling the teaching of Rusyn in schools.

I favour saying "sometimes", which reflects the balance of opinion. Joeldl 04:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Why the Mongol Invasion didn't impact the Russian ethnic & language?

The Mongol Invasion led by Batu Khan and his Blue Horde, conquered and ruled Russia for about 250 years. Many cities and towns were destroyed during that time. Why is that today the Russians still look caucasian and the Russian language is still an indo-european language? Didn't the mongol invaders impact the Russian language and ethnicity? Homer33 04:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You can find this information elsewhere on Wiki (I hope it is still there!) or works such as The Empire of the Steppes - but, basically, the Mongol armies did not settle in Russia proper, or other areas of eastern Europe; the Batu/Subedai raid into Europe contained several "pure" Mongolian units - the tumens - but much of their army was also composed of auxillary Turkic peoples they had conquered and used in their vanguards. The Mongols raided and crushed the armies of Poland, Germany, and most importantly Hungary with their Cuman allies - but these were raids, and the territories (although raided again several times) were not held or settled by the Mongol hordes - indeed, after the death of the Great Khan, most of the tumens were required to be returned to Mongolia. The Mongol sub-Khan, Batu, made his capitol at Sarai on the lower Volga, where Russian princes were requred to pay homage and give tribute on a huge scale. The Mongols there very quickly were assimilated into Tatar/Turkic peoples that outnumbered them by a high degree. Indeed, Batu's brother converted to Islam and when he assumed Batu's throne of the Golden Horde, he quickly made it an Islamic sub-Khanate that very shortly was involved in civil war against the Il-Khans of Iran/Iraq. The Mongols left no permanent presence in Russia to 'corrupt' the language, and Mongolian was replaced by the local tongues of the Tatars in the vicinity of Sarai as they were aborbed into that population as time went on. I don't think this has much to do with the article, tho' - a non-influence is not worth mentioning. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Apparantly the Mongols didn't intermingle or interfere with the dealings of most inhabitants they conquered. For quite a number of principalities, especially later on, the Tatar overlordship consisted simply of payments of tribute. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

One of my Russian teachers said there are a lot of Tatar loan words. For example the verb kushat' is Tatar while yest' is Slavic, both meaning "to eat".

One possible explanation for the structure of Russian remaining indo-european is that the invaders didn't bring along many of their women. If toddlers learn to speak more from their mothers than their fathers, the child of a Mongol or Tatar father and a Russian mother would learn a language following the mother's syntax. The father's contribution would most likely be miscellaneous loan words. LADave 11:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Invaders who were nomads didn't stay in Russian lands for a long time (from time to time they raided, pillaged and gone off to their steppe) and all possible children that were born as results of rapes had no chance to survive in conservative peasant communes. Tatar loan words could appear also as result of peaceful relations with old turkic neighbours that live down by Volga. --Nekto (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Russian verb кушать is of Common Slavic stock as well, and is ultimately borrowed from Germanic (compare e.g. Gothic kausjan "to taste"). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

There are lots of langue important tatar words. Just few, that I remember: dengi (деньги), karandash (карандаш), loshadj (лошадь). But no mongol words, as soon all mongols was asimilated in turkic (tatar) langue. Probably only russian word of mongol origin is Hurray! (ура!)

Karandash - pencil - is a corruption/borrowing of the French "Caran D'Ache" - a brand of crayon presumably imported into Russia - and is not a Turkic or Mongol word. Similarly "voksal" ("вокзал") - station - is from the English name Vauxhall. Lstanley1979 (talk) 21:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

it's not possible to have no impact but the impact wasn't great. I can't provide the source but there was a reverse impact too - Russian culture influenced the Mongol-Tartar culture, note that Mongols were not as destructive for the Russian culture as is the general perception. --Atitarev (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

There are many mongol and tatar words in russian since that invasion (for example dengi (деньги) - money, kolpuck (колпак) - hat, almaz (алмаз) - diamond, bogatyr (богатырь) - strong man, bazar (базар) - market, kirpich (кирпич) - brick, boorun (буран) - tornado, kaftun (кафтан) - jacket, tarakun (таракан) - roach. And many others! Most of these words ara from tatar language, simply because mongols had almost no contact with russian people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.234.14.127 (talk) 14:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

this is bull. Dengi is of the same root as dinar and dinero, they are not Mongol or Tatar or Turkic, bazar is not a market but a bazaar, a market is rynok, and so on and on.

Translation Help

I've been using www.freetranslation.com lately to translate things from English to Russian for my MSN name and when I copy the translated english and translate it back to english, it's different than what I put in. For example:

English - I'd Rather Feel Pain Than Nothing At All

Translated to Russian (a rough version of Russian) - Я предпочитаю Чувствовать Боль, Чем Ничто Вообще

Translated back to English - I prefer To feel the Pain, Than Anything In general

Can anyone who speaks perfect Russian translate the top line (the one marked English) into Russian and type it up? Or is there an online translator that translates into perfect russian (or any other language) which is free? Because I don't wanna pay $50.00USD just to get a professional translation. Thanks! 67.68.37.27 22:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Я предпочитаю чувствовать боль, нежели совсем ничего. --X-Man 21:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Я лучше буду ощущать боль, чем ничего совсем. Translation above is incorrect - seems like he gets fun from feeling pain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.94.16.246 (talk) 17:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

And what's about "Уж лучше чувствовать боль, чем ничего не чувствовать." or "Уж лучше боль, чем ничего" without the verb "чувствовать"? --77.51.93.240 (talk) 10:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Small difference, but better use "Уж лучше чувствовать боль, чем ничего не чувствовать." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dedicate (talk • contribs) 07:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Commonwealth of Independent States

CIS is not a country. I believe individual countries should be listed instead. Also, it's unclear whether Russian is spoken in all states of CIS. --X-Man 21:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Language

Are there any websites that have the English spelling of a Russian word? I just want to know, please. --76.16.151.77 00:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Kino Lala

If you mean transliteration of Russian words using Latin letters, try http://translit.ru. But you shouldn't try reading the result by English rules. --X-Man 13:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

A "Four-Square" for extra info (If it helps)...

I don't know if I should be specifically talking about it in the Russian discussion, but this would provide an example. Has anyone on Wikipedia considered a fourth alphabetic translation as explained briefly?

• The Russian article on the English language would include "Английский/Angliiskiy", and "English/Англичан". "Angliiskiy" is the Cyrillic to Roman Alphabetic translation of English from Russian. Actually, "Англичан" translates to "Anglishan", so I don't know if "Англичан" would fit.
• What is a short "U" in Russian? The English article on the Russian language would include "Russian/Р_счиан", and "Русский/Russkiy". The blank is most likely a combination.

Русчиан is not a word in Russian. --X-Man 08:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I know it is not a word - it is close to what I think is, written in "Cyrillic English", the word for Russian. X-Man, you and I do not have the same idea right now. Can you read ロシア語, 俄语, and 러시아어? If you can't read all of them, we will eventually have the same idea. I can't read any of them, but I confirm that these are all respectively Japanese, a form of Chinese, and Korean words for Russian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.181.164 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure if I understand the first question but Russian has only one U: <у>. As far as I know, there is no vowel length in Russian and there certainly is not phonemic vowel length. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I hope you are not mistaken about the "ч". According to the Russian Alphabet article on English Wikipedia, "ч" is a "ch". Which means that I made a mistake when I thought it was an "sh". An "Я" would not be correct either as it would create a conflict against "И" in Cyrillic English. For those who want to ask what it means, pairing the words together answers the question on its own. Example: I believe that the Cyrillic Japanese word for Japanese would be "Нихонго". This is also not a word in Russian to give you a heads up - just a change in symbols. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.181.164 (talk • contribs)

Why do you want to provide Cyrillic transliterations on the English Wikipedia? Leushenko (talk) 12:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think s/he believes that the Russian Wikipedia page has transliterations of the English word into Cyrillic. However, "Англичан" is actually the Russian word for an English person, as opposed to the English langauge ("Английский язык"). I don't believe it is standard practice on any language Wiki to transliterate backwards like that, though I could be wrong. It doesn't seem like it would be particularly useful for someone to know how to pronounce a word for something in a language they can't even read, especially in the case of alphabetic languages like Russian where the alphabet can be learned in a few days (as opposed to say, Chinese or Japanese). Also, rendering certain English sounds in Cyrillic is difficult or impossible. This is why, for example, it is possible for a Russian to learn about tred-unionizm at Garvard Oohniversity while studying to be a biznesmen on the veek-end.

I may be mistaken about what s/he was trying to say, and/or the prevalence of this practice on other language Wikipedias, and if so I apologize. Also, "ч" is pronounced like "ch" in "church" in English. In some common words in everyday speech (such as "что") you may hear it pronounced like "sh" in "ship." Stuffisthings (talk) 17:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• What do you mean "англичан"? There is no such basic form of a noun in Russian, it is the plural genitive of "англичанин", i.e. "englishman" (masc.).

RFC: "different but equally valid ways of transliterating Cyrillic"???

The article on Markov numbers currently says:

Markov numbers are named after the Russian mathematician Andrey Markov. Due to the different but equally valid ways of transliterating Cyrillic, the term is written as "Markoff numbers" in some literature. But in this particular case, "Markov" might be preferable because "Markoff number" might be misunderstood as "mark-off number."

Can I get some opinions on whether there really are "different but equally valid ways of transliterating Cyrillic"? Aren't some systems preferred over others by Russian linguists? Knodeltheory 19:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Because voiced consonants are devoiced word-finally in Russian, more casual transcription systems might transliterate it as Markoff, but this isn't "equally valid" with those that retain a consistant letter-to-letter conversion. See Romanization of Russian. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

K, g, x

Russian is notable for its distinction based on palatalization of most of the consonants. While /k/, /g/, /x/ do have palatalized allophones [kʲ, gʲ, xʲ], only /kʲ/ might be considered a phoneme, though it is marginal and generally not considered distinctive (the only native minimal pair which argues for /kʲ/ to be a separate phoneme is "это ткёт"/"этот кот").

Very strange statement. Try to exchange them and you'll get completely different sounding and even will be hardly intelligeble. Regarding the differece between k and k': there are many words that differ only in this phoneme, for example "Киш-Миш" (a sort of sweets) and "Кыш, Миш!" (Mike, go out!). Yes, probably the first is borrowed, but it nevertheless valid Russian word.--Dojarca 20:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, the page says that they are not "considered" distinctive. Perhaps it needs a source, though. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

An example for g and g': гуля is a child speak for pigeon, Гюля - is a deminutive for a wide-spread Tatar women name (Гюльнара).--Dojarca 03:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's false statement. I think, it sould be deleted. But I don't dare to do it myself because I'm not a good English speaker. Nikita --89.110.7.187 (talk) 10:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

If we say about phonemes then there is a point of view that /g/ and /h/ don't have pairs. But there are corresponding pairs of sounds (or allophones) that you can easily hear in everyday speech. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.37.29.126 (talk) 19:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Allies vs. sattelites

I have changed "Sattelites of the USSR" to "allies of the USSR" to avoid political-biased wording. In other places in Wikipedia allies of the USA called "allies", not "sattelites".--Dojarca 16:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The two have different meanings. A satellite is " a country under the domination or influence of another." Nations under the Warsaw pact (other than the Soviet Union, of course) are exemplary of this notion. While there are a few examples where this might apply to the US, it is clear that most countries in league with the United States are not under nearly as strong a political domination as were those of the Soviet Union. Keep in mind, also, that in addition to having satellite states the Soviet Union also had allies, such as China and Cuba. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. What does "political-biased" mean? These states were established by the USSR, and if they threatened to become independent they were invaded. My dictionary defines "Eastern bloc" as the states "dominated by" the USSR.

What U.S. "client states" are called is a separate issue (see WP:POINT), so deal with that there. —Michael Z. 2007-08-05 07:11 Z

Warsaw pact was a military alliance hence the term "allies" is completely correct. The USSR did not "dominate" Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania and it is very doubtful to which extent and at what times it diminated other countries. Just the same, USA dominated the western Europe. Hence, no difference. Anyway as I already pointed out the term "allies" is fully correct and neutral.--Dojarca 08:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

All right, after taking a careful look at the sentence in question, I think that allies is a better term here because it's about the Warsaw pact and other countries not in the pact but still associated with the USSR (Cuba, for instance).

However, I don't want to walk away from this discussion without pointing out that your understanding of the relationship between the Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw pact needs revision. please take a look at Prague spring, Revolutions of 1989, Eastern bloc, and cominform. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:56, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

File:Praguespring01.jpg

"No difference"?

One must add the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the list to help explain that East-Bloc countries were operating under a constant and real threat of invasion.

Albania and Cuba were clearly satellites too, totally dependent on the USSR to fuel their economies. The relevant history article literally says "Albania entered an orbit around the Soviet Union"—the country later split with Moscow, and suffered greatly because China couldn't match the level of Soviet support. After 1991, "Over 80% of Cuba's trade was lost and living conditions worsened". Political direction follows economic dependence.

The question of wording is somewhat academic—"allies" is inadequate, not "neutral", but it is not strictly incorrect. But Dojarca's comparison between the relationships of the Eastern and Western political blocs in of Europe makes me wonder if we can find any mutual grounds for discussion at all. —Michael Z. 2007-08-08 20:39 Z

Ahh, yes, I had forgotten about the Hungarian Revolution. Don't tell my Hungarian relatives. My main argument is that the Warsaw Pact is an exclusive group of obvious "satellites." I suppose if Cuba is considered a satellite state (according to Satellite state) that this isn't quite the case but the paragraph in question also mentions China, Laos, and Vietnam. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Is Greece an ally or sattelite of the USA? Is West Germany ally or sattelite?--Dojarca 12:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The word, "debuccalized"

What does "debuccalized" mean? Brian Pearson 01:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

loss of place of articulation. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been unable to find the word. Could it have an alternate spelling or could it be "devocalized"? Brian Pearson 00:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Unable to find it where? It's not a common term, but when you break it down, it makes sense: de ("remove from:) + buccal (relating to the mouth) -ize (turns adjective into verb). [h] and [ɦ] are often called "glottal fricatives" but are technically placeless segments (not necessarily even fricatives). So if a segment, say /θ/ becomes [h] in some context or dialect, the change is from a segment that is

[+dental], [-voice], [+consonantal], [-vocalic], [+fricative] to one that is all those things except [+dental]. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ƶ§œš¹, I appreciate it. I've noticed many combination words that have not existed that way in the past, but which are becoming much more acceptable. It seems we are watching the language evolve in front of our eyes... Brian Pearson 00:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

80% of the population of the Baltic states are able to hold a conversation in Russian

Unless refrenced with up to date data, this should be removed beacuse use of Russian langauge has declined quite quickly after breakup of Soviet Union in Baltics and younger generation more or less has a choice what to learn in school. This has resulted in growing interest in Western European languages and decline of Russian. I will try to find some refrence to how many people in Baltics, or atleast in Estonia, are still able to speak Russian. If I rember correctly, it was about 50%+ in Estonia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4rdi (talk • contribs) 19:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I live in so-called Estonia, and not once, not on a single occasion, was I unable to communicate in Russian.

I suppose you live in Narva, city where majority of population are so-called russian-speaker immigrants. If so, there are no problem to comunicate in russian, indeed. BTW, Narva is not whole of Estonia!--ZZbatam (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Soviet policy

"During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian." Remowed. If I remember corectly, only in Georgia, georgian was official language of soviet republic. Edo 555 (talk) 09:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Why's that? If official language means official documentation on this language, each of the republics had own official langauge. In Georgia they had documents in both georgian and russian, Tajikistan - farsi and russian, and so on.. My father was born in Yerevan, so he has birth certificate in both russian and armenian languages, as well as university diploma. --FarShmack (talk) 18:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I was born in Tatarstan which was only republic in RSFSR and my documents is wrote on Russian and Tatar. I guess even in 1970s there were many regions in USSR where population just didn't speak Russian so using national languages was a necessity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.173.28.89 (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

palatization

Isn't palatisation also a part of fino-ugric language influence on russian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edo 555 (talk • contribs) 09:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how. Palatalization contrasts (a feature of all Slavic languages)are explainable through simple language change. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

No. Palatalization is a common Slavic phenomemon. Though it developed differently in certain languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.37.153.244 (talk) 22:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Language policy

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.[citation needed] During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian. Following the break-up of 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national intercourse throughout the region has continued.

Are you are folowing some political ideas? Or whay you put information, which isn't factual?

Well, in russian empire for some time russian aristocracy spoken french and countes russian as peasant language. Did french was official? In Finland gubernia administration actualy sweedish was used not russian. In Soviet Union russian was not unifying, but only official language. I don't know, from where you found, that there was some other official langues in soviet union. Edo 555 (talk) 12:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC) And whay almoust ewerything about central asia are removed.

More bizarre bull. Russian aristocracy obviously spoke Russian. It also wrote Russian as entire body of largely aristocratic Russian literature, both prose and poetry is in Russian, not French. Russian aristocracy and educated classes also knew French, so did Prussian, Austrian or Swedish aristocracy. Of course Russian was unifying language of the USSR as you could speak it anywhere (as you can now) and be understood (as you are now). All languages of the former Soviet republics and autonomous republics were official, all documents - from birth certificates to diplomas - in those republics were bilingual.

Need Cyrillic help

Can someone transliterate the title of the Sakha anthem, so we can make an article about it? The link is here. Badagnani (talk) 01:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I would direct you to WP:ROR but the title of the Sakha anthem is not in Russian. (ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ГИМН РЕСПУБЛИКИ САХА (ЯКУТИЯ) (на якутском языке) would be transliterated GOSUDARSTVENNY GIMN RESPUBLIKI SAKHA (YAKUTIYA) (na yakutskom yazyke).) My guess is that it's Monglian, in which case it would be transliterated as Saha Öröspüübulükjetin örögöjün yryata. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'm not sure what title to use, then. Badagnani (talk) 05:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with anthem of the Sakha Republic? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

That's very good! Badagnani (talk) 16:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion into Russian speaking countries category

Various ex-USSR countries have a large number of both fluent Russian speakers and native Russians but they don' wish to admit this and to be identified as Russian speaking countries, notably: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, to a lesser extent Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Also, Israel has up-to a million Russian speakers due to migration and it has penetrated many spheres and is used semi-officially in some areas, e.g. Haifa. No-one denies their native language official status. --Atitarev (talk) 23:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Category III?

The US Foreign service institute, which seems to be the authority on these language difficulty categories, rates Russian a Cat II language. As does this wikibooks page referencing it: [[3]]. I propose changing the text to read Category II instead of III. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moltovivo (talk • contribs) 18:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Classification

Why does that language classification thingy to the right only go to balto-slavic? Shouldn't it be east slavic and stuff? According to Nationalencyklopedin, it's an east-slavic language. --212.247.27.177 (talk) 20:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Largest native language in Europe

I thought that it is a noteworthy fact, seeing how its frequent usage and the large size of territories where it is spoken are cited as well. This status is mentioned in the article on the German language, which is called the second largest native language in Europe after Russian. --Humanophage (talk) 20:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Scientific publications

"Over a quareter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian." Firstly, I couldn't find this on the site referenced. Secondly, and more importantly, what does this and the associated similar statements mean? That Russian-speaking scholars produce over a quarter of the world's scientific literature, that Russian scholars are able to translate a quarter of the world's scientific literature into Russian, or a middle ground? Same goes for "60–70% of all world information is published in English and Russian languages." This could accurately be interpreted as saying that 59.9% of world information (not my favourite choice of words either) was published in English and 0.1% was published in Russian. Basically, I don't see what these statistics add to the article if they remain unqualified (apart from weaselly promotion of the Russian language). Obviously a lot of material exists in the Russian language; what would be more relevant is how much is produced in the Russian language, or how many of the people reading that material are reading it in Russian. Simply stating that material exists says nothing about the role or relevance of either the material or the language. Leushenko (talk) 01:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If you search "quarter" on that site, you will see the statement (verbatim) under "Why learn Russian" section. I don't think the persuasive paragraph is particularly credible. It is, at the very least, biased. I say remove this statement. QueenStupid (talk) 21:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think this is a credible source. It is telling you why you should learn the language after all. I would think that English, Chinese, German, French, Chinese, and perhaps Japanese may be able to top Russian as a scientific language, perhaps back in the Soviet Union days, but i don't think this is the case anymore. If no on can find a more credible source this should be deleted. --Tacit tatum (talk) 04:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Svalbard is not a country

Something really small, but it says in the info-box (under the map) that the map shows the countries of the world where Russian is spoken. Svalbard is highlighted on it, but it isn't a country. It is part of Norway, so shouldn't the rest of Norway also being colored? It is small, I know. Asm82 (talk) 23:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

No, because Russian isn't spoken in the rest of Norway. Svalbard is partially administered by Russia. Aaker (talk) 11:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not partially administered by Russia, but there is a Russian settlement there. It is administered by Norway. But no, Norway shouldn't be colored.--Barend (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Top of page is not right.

Could someone plese fix the top of this page, I am not sure how to do it, but it seems that it has been mucked up a bit. There is some weird scripting at the top and the picture is not where it is supposed to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.252.70.12 (talk) 14:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Racist picture

the picture with the bath room urinal statement translated into four languages has been vandalized racially with the crossing out of just arabic and the fact that it is in a Israeli airport. Im sure some one can find a better example for the Russian language in a picture.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.245.220.80 (talk) 23:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Need Russian help

Can a Russian speaker help with this question? In the correct Russian pronunciation surname "Shchedrin" (as in Rodion Shchedrin), should "Shch" be pronounced "sh" (as in "sheet") or "shch" (as in "fresh cheese")? Thank you, Badagnani (talk) 06:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There are two possible pronunciations for this sound. The normal, most common way is indeed "shch" as in "fresh cheese" and the other (the more colloquial, "slangy" way, which is not standard) is an elongated, palatalized "sh." Try pronouncing the "sh" with the tongue pressed higher toward the roof of your mouth, holding the sound out about 1.5 times as long as you would a normal "sh." Szfski (talk) 10:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- so in pronouncing this surname in Russia (as, for example, a radio announcer or TV presenter would), you'd say that the most proper way is to pronounce it "shch"? That's really what I needed to know. Badagnani (talk) 10:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Щ is just a long English 'sh'. Native speakers never pronounce it as 'shch'. Szfski is absolutely wrong (I bet he's not a native speaker), Atitarev is right. 195.113.149.177 (talk) 08:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and I want to add. "Щ" is more sonant than English 'sh' and sounds almost like white noise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.112.227.234 (talk) 19:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You still want to know pronunciation for this word? Name is Rodion Shchedrin (Родион Щедрин) and you are trying to pronounce the letter Щ, don't you? This letter sounds like "sh" in word "shit", these sounds are almost identical.

This was a bad example, you don't have to swear. :) It is indeed very close. Only the Russian "щ" is longer like "fresh sheets". Yes, it is standard for media and in common use. Pronouncing "щ" as "shch" as in "fresh cheese" is not standard but used by some speakers (Ukrainians, Polish, etc). It is common to traditionally romanise "щ" as "shch", though. So, Щедрин is spelled Shchedrin in English, not Shshedrin. Szfski, you are incorrect in your description.

I can record both pronunciations but I am not sure I know how to add audio files here. It seems a bit complicated. --Atitarev (talk) 11:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

As a native speaker I can say that statement ""Native speakers never pronounce it as 'shch'"" is not totally correct. This pronunciation is regional, not only ukrainians or belarussians can use it. But indeed, the normative pronunciation is like in the exaple above "fresh sheets". This sound is similar to english "sh" but longer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.37.29.126 (talk) 19:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Spoken in:

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uruguay? This seems strange. If there is a reliabale citation for it, by all means. Until then, I have deleted it from the infobox. The map, which seems to be made based on the infobox, should also be removed if this information can't be referenced.--Barend (talk) 12:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right that they should be removed if there's no source, but I've {{fact}} tagged the three countries to give editors note that the information is unsourced and that they have a reasonable period of time to find sources, after which removal is more appropriate. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 12:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough.--Barend (talk) 13:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The fact tag from Afghanistan and Uruguay has been removed, without a source being added. This is highly inappropriate. Provide sources or remove the uncited information. Also, I think the map has to go. It includes Mongolia and Pakistan, which is not even on the dubious, unsourced list.--Barend (talk) 13:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Need Russian assistance

Can an editor fluent in Russian help me by providing the cursive Cyrillic text of the two phrases with gray arrows in this image? If you could post the answer to my discussion page, it would be great. Many thanks, Badagnani (talk) 00:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't read the name, sorry.

Диплом (Diploma, can be equivalent to a Degree)

Г-ну (=Господину) Хасиму Эль-Табу (Эль Габу) - To Mr Hasim Al-Tab(u), or Al-Gab(u). The name is dative case, it's hard to tell, what is the original name (nominative case). --Atitarev (talk) 10:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Many, many thanks. The person is Halim El-Dabh. Badagnani (talk) 10:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

A few more questions:

1. What does the ш mean in the second line of text in the middle (В ПРОВЕДЕНИИ Ш МЕЖДУНАРОДНОГО МУЗЫКОВЕДЧЕСКОГО)? Badagnani (talk) 11:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

2. Does ОРДЕНА ЛЕНИНА СОЮЗ КОМПОЗИТОРОВ СССР mean "Order of Lenin" or "Orders of Lenin"? Does the whole line mean "ORDER OF LENIN OF THE UNION OF COMPOSERS OF THE USSR"? Badagnani (talk) 11:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

3. What does the г. mean in "СИМПОЗИУМА В г.САМАРКАНДЕ"? Badagnani (talk) 11:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

4. Can Первый секретарь mean "chairman," or does it mean "first secretary"? Badagnani (talk) 11:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

5. Can СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВО mean "participation," or is "collaboration" or "cooperation" more accurate? Badagnani (talk) 11:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

6. In the signature М. Хренников, what does the М. stand for? Because the first name of the person signing was Tikhon (T.), not M. Badagnani (talk) 11:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

1. It's III - number 3, not letter "ш".

2. It's genitive singular. THE UNION OF COMPOSERS OF THE USSR is named after "order of Lenin", grammatically as of "the order of Lenin". Quite a common way to expand names in the ex-USSR.

3. г. is short for "город" - city/town.

4. It's the "first secretary", which in some cases means "chairman". There may also be a "second secretary" (deputy).

5. "Сотрудничество" has a wider meaning, which can include all of these. "Cooperation" probably fits better.

6. It says "T. Khrennikov". Both capital and small Russian Т, т in cursive may look like Roman "m".

Now that you told me the person's name, I can tell, it's "Г-ну Халиму Эль-Дабу" (dative from "г-н Халим Эль-Даб").

Hope this helps. --Atitarev (talk) 12:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, your assistance is greatly appreciated, and you know I'd never have been able to figure out any of that without your help. You're a true Wikipedian. Badagnani (talk) 12:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. --Atitarev (talk) 14:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Russian not most taught foreign language in Mongolia

The statement "[Russian] is currently the most widely-taught foreign language in Mongolia" is not correct. English is now the most widely-taught foreign language. The statement cites a 2005 New York Times article that does not even directly support this statement and that itself is misleading. Russian is still taught in Mongolia, but not to the extent of English. I did not make the change because I cannot find an English-language citation. Onionjohn (talk) 01:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Orthographic indication of stress

I guess, since I've been called out to go here before reverting, I should start a discussion here regarding the statement "Stress in Russian is neither indicated orthographically, nor governed by phonological rules." It is my understanding that the accent mark is a feature of dictionaries and not of the standard orthography. Thus the practice of the Russian Wikipedia (as well as many English Wikipedia articles on Russian people) of using the accent mark is akin to our common use of IPA to indicate pronunciation.

Is that all or is it also disputed that stress isn't governed by phonological rules? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Accent mark is not only "a feature of dictionaries". It is used in general texts: a) when it's needed to tell one word from another (the most widely known examples are words "бОльшая"/"большАя" and "зАмок"/"замОк" ); b) when it's needed to explain the pronouncation of uncommon words, particulary personal names, family names and place names; с) when it's needed to set a stress on one particular word in the sentence (in Russian, this may change the meaning dramatically).

Stress mark is a standard feature of Russian orphography.

Conserning "governed by": Russian language institute publishes special "stress dictionary" (орфоэпический словарь ударений). Also, there ARE rules in Russian grammar for stressing words, like "ё is always under the stress". Netrat (talk)

So you're saying that there are words where the standard spelling is with the acute accent? I've never heard that. It seems odd that this is the case yet to even put an acute accent on cyrillic letters, one needs to use a special character as opposed to them being already encoded as they are in Latin (e.g. á é, í).

While there are rules in Russian grammar for stressing of words, these are not phonological rules. As you should know yourself as a native speaker ё isn't always used and it is always evident to native speakers when an е is really an ё without the dots. The appearance of ё itself is governed by a preexisting phonological context that includes stress on the syllable. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This is from A Reference Grammar of Russian (2004).

"However, most writing does not indicate which vowel is stressed. In this respect, spelling does not give complete information about pronunciation." (p 17)

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"So you're saying that there are words where the standard spelling is with the acute accent?" - Huh? Where did you see that? I have said that there's a standard symbol for stress in Russian. So your "Stress in Russian is neither indicated orthographically" statement is simply wrong. It is true that stress sign in Russian is optional and used pretty rarely (only when it is truly needed, I've listed some of the cases above), but it is a part of standard Russian grammar. Intrestingly, stress accents are not uncommon in classic Russian prose and especially poetry.

"It seems odd that this is the case yet to even put an acute accent on cyrillic letters, one needs to use a special character as opposed to them being already encoded as they are in Latin" - there's nothing odd with this, as acute accent is an additional accent mark, so in Russian letters with acute accent are not separate leters.

"While there are rules in Russian grammar for stressing of words, these are not phonological rules" - well, Ok then, I would not mind if you insert "Stress in Russian is governed by some rules, but they are not phonological rules" in the article - if you believe this article needs more LOLz. I don't however think this gonna be interesting to anyone except of bunch of devoted linguists.

"As you should know yourself as a native speaker ё isn't always used" - this was caused by technical limitations of the era of pre-computer publishing. The practice of using е instead of ё is discourgaed today. However, this topic is still disputive to some extent.

"it is always evident to native speakers when an е is really an ё without the dots" - Totally wrong! The substitutions of ё with е caused a lot of issues and corrupted words. The most notorious examples are Leo Tolstoy's first name, the family name of his character Levin (or Lyovin), "planyor" word (which means glider) plus Planyornaya subway station and family names of then-newly-appointed Хрущёв and later Горбачёв.

Anyway, ё issues has very little to do with this, so let us not change the topic in the midst of the discussion. Netrat (talk) 21:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Saying that we shouldn't put something because it matters only to "a bunch of devoted linguists" is false and foolish; it basically amounts to "we shouldn't put it because I think it's boring." We'll just peg this as a failure in theory of mind on your part.

I meant that you were going into unnecessary details with this. Your original phrase was giving a false impression that there are no rules in Russian to regulate stressing. While these rules are not universal, they do exist. And you updated version, with terms like "verbal morphology", explains nothing to an average reader, who would not even undertand what "verbal morphology" means. According to guidelines, Wikipedia should be written in the way for an average reader (who is not a specialist) to understand it. So IMO it is more important to mention that there are some grammer rules, before going into such details. Netrat (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've undone your edit with a minor reword; the way you've changed it is even more wrong as it implies that the acute accent is common or required. It also leaves out the letter ё (which, according to our Russian alphabet article, is optional; our article ё says that speakers are able to tell by context which sound is represented) as a possible stress indicator. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Then your article ё is wrong. I have already listed examples when native speakers failed to tell which sound is represented. And telling that ё is used as stress indicator would be originl research. For most words with ё letter, acute accent is never used, but it is not becuase ё is a stress indicator, but because of the rule that "syllable with ё is always under the stress" knows very few exceptions. Such exception are compound words such as "трёхмерный" that actually have primary (трЁх-) and secondary (-мЕр-) stressing and few words of foreign origin. Netrat (talk) 09:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's actually not OR. If you can wait a week, I can probably cough up a source that explicitely says something to the effect of "ё is always stressed". — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If the current edition of "The rules of the Russian orphgraphy and punctuation" does not explicitly say that ё can be used as a stress indicator, it is an W:OR. If you can reference a book, it won't be W:OR, but would be a marginal opinion from a source that is not a primary one. Ё is used to indicate that another letter is used, so stressing is not the only thing that changes. Stressing is just a side-effect. According to this article, it is actually recommended to write an acute accent above stressed "е" so readers won't confuse it with "ё"! Netrat (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Be sure the source is from Russian academic science, not American or British. Netrat (talk) 14:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

What? Why would it need to be Russian? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't be so dramatic. You're probably getting it wrong anyway. It does not need to be in Russian, an authorized translation from Russian would be OK as well. The original source should be from Russian academic science - for information to be official. Foreign authors are more likely to represent their own viewpoint or interpret other language rules in relation to their own language. They are also more likely to make mistakes not noticed by readers. Note: textbooks by Russian authors originally written in foreign languages for education of foreign readers should be treated as less reliable than Russian-language regulations. Likewise, the book your referenced can and will be disputed. The only source that cannot be disputed is "The rules of the Russian orphgraphy and punctuation" as published by The Institute of Russian Language of Russian Academy of Sciences (Правила русской орфографии и пунктуации. Полный академический справочник. Под ред. В.В. Лопатина). This is the only official source. Netrat (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That aside, it is more important to explain how stress is indicated when it is needed, than to mention that normally it is not used. Netrat (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I know what you meant. You're presuming that non-Russian sources can't be authoritative on something as obvious as ё always being stressed. That's an unreasonable burden of proof. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Netrat, the information you've included in the lead section is nice, but it's misplaced. Remember, the lead should provide a basic overview. Perhaps you should put it at another part of the article or at Russian orthography. I'll let you move it where you think it's appropriate.

Also keep in mind the point of the sentence, which is to point out the inadequacy of the Russian writing system to indicate stress. Now, with that in mind, how is this for a rewrite:

Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically though, according to the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent (знак ударения) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress (such as to distinguish between otherwise idential words or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names).

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Russkiy vs. Rushkiy

I was curious as to how the pronunciation of the English word "Russia" came to include the 'sh' sound for its double S. As far as I can tell in my personal studies, attempting to learn this language, the double S simply sounds like an S, which coincides with the sound recording of the article's name, "Russkiy yazyk", complete with IPA to match. What is even stranger then is the derogatory term "Russki," spelt a million ways, that is often pronounced as "Rooshkee," combining the English 'Russia' and 'Russian' with the native term. Only once have I seen someone refer to the language as 'Rushkiy' as if this were a proper romanization but I am suspicious of its accuracy. Is it a matter of dialect, or is this just another case of peculiar transcriptions over the centuries running awry? I'm sure Chinese suffers from these problems far worse, especially when people pronounce the modern Pinyin as if it were regular English :P Any insight or clarification would be greatly appreciated. D Boland (talk) 04:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that, at an Earlier stage, the English word Russia was pronounced as RUSS-ya. The /s/ must have become palatalized by the glide. So this doesn't have anything to do with Russian pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:58, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Soviet Russian Kamrad (talk) 14:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Russia(Россия)Sounds like "Ros-see-ya" Russians(Русские) sounds like "Roos-key-yeah"

Including Mongolia

Why include Mongolia? Although during the communist period speaking it was really common, now it isnt --Chinneeb_{my talk} 06:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You think everyone in Mongolia is so anti-Russian, so they all forgot the language? Or Mongolia has moved to another continent further away from Russia? --Atitarev (talk) 06:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But this isn't a question of where there are people who know the language as a second language. I know the language, and I'm in Norway, I'm sure there are people all over the world who speak Russian. But the infobox should show where there are large groups of people who speak it as a mother tongue. Are there anyone who have Russian as their mother tongue in Mongolia?--Barend (talk) 07:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Why namely "mother" tongue? Russian specialists working in Mongolia never have any communicative problems with the people they deal with. And it is enough for the statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.37.29.126 (talk) 23:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Romania??????

Where in Tulcea is it official??? There are only 20.000 Lipovans in the entire Dobrogea (Tuclea + Constanta) :S. Romania should be excluded from the list.

That's 16.000 in Tulcea, only 6,4%! It's totally absurd to mention Romania, so please, delete Romania from the list. It's complete nonsense, there are more Russian speakers in Holland, why don't you put Holland on the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.171.95.220 (talk) 17:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Spoken in

I've cleaned up the "spoken in"-section of the infobox. It was getting ridiculous. Of course, there are probably people speaking Russian in every country in the world. But listing 50-60 countries in the infobox, in addition to specific cities in France, etc. etc., is the opposite of informative. What I have written in the infobox now is, as far as I can see, factually correct. If there is disagreement, please discuss it here, but adding individual countries, or even cities, with immigrant communities will only make the infobox messy.--Barend (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

по валу

What is the meaning of "выполнить план по валу". Google says it means "fulfil the plan in the gross", but this makes no sense in English. What is meant by "по валу"? 70.234.211.62 (talk) 14:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

= by bulk output. As I understand it - валовый товар = a commodity, bulk commodity

it does mean nothing. such slang phrase... nothing!! --ArthurArthur (talk) 16:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Russian Kamrad (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)вал probably means ВВП(Внутренний Валовой Продукт)

Вал - volume of work. For example, У меня большой вал по этим объектам. (I have a large volume of work in those objects). So, Выполнить план по валу - fulfil the plan according to volume of work.--Валерий Пасько (talk) 12:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Redirection

Searching 'pyccknn' («pусский») should not be redirected to the Russian language article. It doesn't even use the Cyrillic alphabet and it's not used by many people at all. Somebody please delete this redirection. 76.111.67.200 (talk) 04:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)