1942
85-589: 1943 1944 The Moonsund landing operation ( Russian : Моонзундская десантная операция ; Estonian : Lääne-Eesti saarte kaitsmine ; Swedish : Moonsund Invasionen ), also known as the Moonzund landing operation , was an amphibious operation and offensive by the Red Army during World War II, taking place in late 1944. It was part of the Baltic offensive , and was designed to clear German forces of Army Group North from
170-649: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
255-510: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
340-464: A Soviet unit, who, believing them to be fellow Soviets, gave way. Flares fired gave the game away, and battle started. The Soviets, the 1st battalion of the 917th was quickly overwhelmed, but the Germans then ran into the anti-tank positions of the 307th. The battle degenerated into chaotic hand-to-hand combat in the darkness, with heavy losses on both sides, but the Germans broke through. Their actions kept
425-470: A captain, a chief motor operator and two other crew members on every galeas and two crew members on every motorboat. The initial German response was to withdraw the garrison on Muhu after weak initial resistance, destroying the causeway between Muhu and Saaremaa; they also withdrew the forces on Hiiumaa to Saaremaa, landing the 218th Infantry Division and 12th Luftwaffe Field Division as further reinforcement. The Soviet plan had originally envisaged clearing
510-527: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Battle of Tehumardi The Battle of Tehumardi ( Estonian : Tehumardi öölahing , Russian : Бой у Техумарди, German Schlacht von Tehumardi ) was a battle on October 8, 1944 related to the Moonsund Operation during World War II . Soviet soldiers fought German troops occupying Tehumardi . It
595-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
680-479: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
765-483: A lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian
850-572: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
935-607: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
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#17328485454241020-516: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
1105-530: A quick fighting withdrawal, and planned to make a stand on the easily defendable peninsula of Sõrve (Sworbe). Two infantry battalions from the German 67th Potsdam Grenadier Regiment from the 23rd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht) had occupied a defensive position on the Nasva river, just west of the city of Kuressaare (Arensburg). They were a part of Kampfgruppe Eulenburg, most of which already had taken up positions on
1190-527: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
1275-475: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
1360-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
1445-593: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
1530-485: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
1615-613: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
1700-563: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
1785-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
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#17328485454241870-634: Is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to
1955-729: Is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
2040-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
2125-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
2210-576: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
2295-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
2380-461: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
2465-966: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
2550-663: The Baltic Sea is shallow, making it unsuitable for major vessels. The Soviet Union established garrisons on the island after the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940. In September–October 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union , the islands were captured after German landings were launched from the Estonian west coast in Operation Beowulf . The Red Army units assigned to
2635-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
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2720-575: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
2805-625: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
2890-508: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
2975-465: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
3060-524: The German units back to successive defensive lines. The number of German combat losses reported in the Soviet literature is up to 7,000 killed and 700 prisoners of war. As the tide of war turned against the Germans, Hitler increasingly forbade German forces to retreat, even from areas of dubious military value. The Germans clung to the island long after the main front had passed, removing its strategic and tactical value. As winter soon would set in with full force,
3145-519: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
3230-578: 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 . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
3315-515: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
3400-467: The Nasva, Soviet units moved south to occupy positions astride the main road leading to the peninsula. These were elements of the 307th anti-tank Battalion from the Estonian 249th Rifle Division, about 370 men commanded by Major V. Miller. Later that evening, they were joined by the 1st battalion of the 917th regiment, approximately 300 men commanded by Major G. Karaulnov, advancing down a secondary road leading to
3485-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
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3570-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
3655-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
3740-458: The Soviet positions from 1941. To provide an observation platform in the flat terrain, the Soviets launched two tethered observation balloons. From there, they were able to direct artillery fire against German positions and supply columns. The Soviets tried launching renewed amphibious attacks behind the German lines, but these were repulsed, inflicting severe losses on the attackers. A few days before
3825-465: The Soviets occupied, however, and the 1st battalion moving along the waterline took no part in the fighting and suffered no losses. The majority of the Germans were able to break through to join the defence of the Sõrve peninsula, but almost 200 men had been lost. Captured German soldiers were shot, as happened consistently during the fighting on the island. Most of the vehicles were also left behind, including
3910-412: The Sõrve peninsula. The first and second battalions were commanded by Hauptmaenner (captains) H. Ulrichs and Klaus Ritter , respectively. Together, the reduced battalions mustered about 700–750 men. As they were unable to communicate with their parent unit and they felt increasingly isolated, towards midnight on the 8th the order was given to retreat to Sõrve. Meanwhile, bypassing the German position on
3995-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
4080-413: The archipelago not later than 5 October but bad weather and German resistance interfered with their advance. However, after securing Hiiumaa, Soviet forces eventually landed between Jaani and Keskvere in the north of Saaremaa on 5 October. The German forces retreated across the island with occasional rearguard actions. They planned to make a stand at the narrow, more easily defensible Sõrve Peninsula on
4165-534: The attack were the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps and 109th Rifle Corps . The troops were transported to the first beachhead at Kuivastu on Muhu Island using lend-lease landing craft, including amphibious DUKWs on 29 September 1944. Many of these troops were Estonians, most conscripted into the ranks of the advancing Red Army as was usual as the Soviets recaptured territories. While boosting the units' strength on paper, these untrained conscripts often had limited combat abilities. The Finnish detachment Arho took part in
4250-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
4335-562: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
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#17328485454244420-421: The end of the battle, the Germans received effective naval gunfire support from flotillas, including the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen . The Soviets also had naval support, and there were several minor clashes between the respective navies. After several weeks of fighting, the most powerful German formation, the 12th Luftwaffe Field Division was pulled back to Courland on 12 November, forcing
4505-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
4590-451: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
4675-617: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
4760-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
4845-703: The islands in East Baltic Sea , the West Estonian archipelago (Moonsund archipelago). The attacking forces were from the 8th Army of the Leningrad Front . The Estonian islands were occupied largely by units of the German 23rd Infantry Division , which had been split across the three islands and reinforced with a variety of artillery, coastal artillery, and assault engineer detachments. The islands of Saaremaa (Swedish and German: Ösel), Hiiumaa (Swedish and German: Dagö) and Muhu (Swedish and German: Moon) are
4930-478: The largest islands in the archipelago off the Northwest Estonian coast. They dominate the sea lanes to Helsinki , St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Tallinn (German: Reval) as well as the bay of Riga . They are almost completely flat, the highest point rising to about 68 metres above sea level. Most of the islands are covered in woods, marshes and fields also dominate the landscape. Much of the surrounding area of
5015-455: The light tank and a self-propelled FlaK gun. The Soviets also suffered about 200 men killed, with an unknown number of wounded. The killed included the commander, Major V. Miller. At least one tank and several guns were also knocked out. The action delayed the Soviet attack on the peninsula, giving the Germans more time to improve their defences. But the hard-pressed German forces could ill afford losses in equipment and manpower at this stage of
5100-516: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
5185-400: The operations, especially on 4 and 5 October, providing logistic support to the Soviet infantry units. The Allied controlling committee for Moscow's intermediate peace treaty between the Soviet Union and Finland had asked for 100 galeases and 100 motorboats with their Finnish crews, but Finland negotiated the number of vessels to half of what was asked, 50 galeases and 50 motorboats. There were
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#17328485454245270-476: The original force. Previous casualties had been evacuated earlier, along with Soviet prisoners and a large number of Estonian civilians not wanting to again be under Soviet rule. All remaining guns and vehicles were destroyed and left behind and 1,400 horses were shot, to prevent their use by the Soviets. The Soviet forces kept a large military presence on the island. Many of the old coastal artillery positions were rebuilt and modernized. The entire island of Saaremaa
5355-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
5440-455: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
5525-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
5610-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
5695-455: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
5780-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
5865-475: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
5950-466: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
6035-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
6120-547: The shallow waters in the archipelago would have frozen over as well, making it impossible for the weak forces to hold successfully. By 23 November, the German defences had become untenable, and the Army Group commander, Ferdinand Schörner , gave the order to evacuate. This was contrary to an explicit order by Adolf Hitler to fight for the island to the last man. Although Schörner got away with this, most other commanders would probably have been removed from their posts. Whether this
6205-504: The small village of Tehumardi , right before the bottleneck of the peninsula. Many of the soldiers in the Soviet units were forcibly conscripted Estonians. Due to lack of reconnaissance, the Soviets were unaware of the withdrawing German units, and the stage was set for a confused night battle when the forces met head-on. The Germans' fear of being stragglers soon proved correct, as the only road already had been cratered by other withdrawing German units. Bypassing this obstacle took some time,
6290-549: The southwestern side of Saaremaa. Several sharp engagements took place, most notably the Battle of Tehumardi , but by the 8th, all remaining German forces had been forced back to the peninsula. The rest of the island, including the city of Kuressaare (German: Arensburg), was now in Soviet hands, who now reinforced their attacking units with the 30th Guards Rifle Corps . The Soviet attacks failed to make progress. The Germans had constructed solid defensive positions, built upon remnants of
6375-675: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
6460-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
6545-770: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
6630-506: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
6715-440: The vehicles were slowly pulled across with the help of a recently captured US-made M3 Stuart light tank. Suspecting an enemy presence, the soldiers were ordered to keep as silent as possible, breaking through the enemy positions with a sudden attack. The two battalions split up, the 1st moving along the waterline, the 2nd moving along the main road in parallel, about 200 m distant. Soon the 2nd found themselves marching alongside
6800-417: Was because of his open Nazi sympathies or Hitler secretly realizing that he had done the right thing is unknown. By the early hours of the 24th, all of the surviving German troops had been shipped out to Ventspils (German: Windau) on the embattled Courland peninsula by a naval force under the command of Major-General Karl Henke . They numbered about 4,500 men including 700 wounded, representing around 25% of
6885-593: Was declared a restricted zone and much of the territory was off-limits to civilians, including most of the Sõrve Peninsula. There was also a new wave of deportations in the late 1940s. 58°30′N 23°00′E / 58.5°N 23°E / 58.5; 23 Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It
6970-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
7055-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
7140-418: Was one of the most brutal engagements during the fighting on the Estonian island of Saaremaa (Oesel) in 1944. The Soviet Moonsund Landing Operation on 29 September 1944 had quickly gained ground. The smaller island of Muhu (Moon) was given up with little organized resistance, as was Hiiumaa (Dago). On 5 October, the Soviets landed on Saaremaa. In a reversal of the fighting in 1941, the Germans conducted
7225-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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