Russian

Russian is one of the three (or controversially four) living Eastern Slavic languages.

Location
Russian is spoken in Russia and the other post-Soviet states, North America, Israel as well as in Western Europe, above all Germany.

Speakers
The number of the primary speakers is estimated to be circa 162,000,000, of which according to the 2010 census approximately 137,000,000 live within the Russian federation. Besides them, there exists a relatively large number of the secondary speakers, which is estimated around 110,000,000.

Dialects
Russian can primarily be divided into North and South Russian dialects.

Classification

 * Indo-European
 * Balt-Slavic
 * Slavic
 * East Slavic

Links

 * 'Russian' in Ethnologue
 * 'Russian language' in Wikipedia
 * Nominalphrase im Russischen