The Russian language
The Russian language (earlier also Large-scale Russian called; in the Russian: русский язык, [ˈru.sk ʲɪ j j ɪˈ zɨk], wiss. Transliteration russkij jazyk, debate?/i) is the Slavic language with most speakers and is valid as a Weltsprache. It forms together with the Ukrainian (earlier also than Small-Russian called), the Belorussian and the Russian's broad the group of the ostslawischen languages and is written with the Cyrillic alphabet and there are certain Russian manifestations. The Russian standard language is based on the Medium Russian dialects of the area around Moscow.
In Russian it is spoken currently (state in 2006) from about 163.8 million people as a mother tongue on whom about 130 millions live in Russia, other 26.4 millions in the CIS states – in succession states of the Soviet Union – and the Baltic states as well as from other about 7.4 million people in countries with strong Russian immigration (above all Germany and other European countries as well as the USA and Israel).
It is an officialese in Russia, Byelorussia (together with White Russian) and official language in Kazakhstan (with Kazakh as an officialese), Kirgisistan (with Kirghiz as an officialese) and the autonomous republic belonging to the Ukraine the Crimea (together with Ukrainian and Krimtatarisch). In some Oblasten of the Südostukraine it is the regional officialese and this status is politically argumentative. It is also one of the Amtssprachen in the separatistischen regions Transnistria (together with Ukrainian and Moldavian), Südossetien (together with Ossetisch) and Abkhazia (together with Abkhasian). There it is a mother tongue of a part of the population as well as language of a large part of the public life.
Besides there are Russian-speaking minorities in all CIS states and in the Baltic States as well as partly considerable figures of Russian-speaking emigrants in western industrial countries. In Germany where the biggest number of Russian native speakers lives beyond the former Soviet Union Russian with about three million speakers into German (and still before Turkish) is a most second-often spoken language (see population groups Russian-speaking moreover in Germany). In Israel the about one million Russian-speaking immigrants form about one sixth of the population and with it the third-biggest speaker's group after those of the Hebrew and Arabian. In the United States more than 700,000 Russian native speakers , on it live more than 200,000 in New York, and in Canada about 160,000 [4], however, there are in both countries many clearly bigger linguistic minorities.
The Russian language is also a widespread language for science, art and technology. If one adds the Zweitsprachler, one comes on about 240 million Russian speakers.
The Russian-speaking world
