Russian language

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Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russian people. Russian was the de facto (and de jure in its final years) official language of the former Soviet Union. It has remained an official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, has constitutional status as the language of inter-ethnic communication in Tajikistan, and is still used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel. Russian has over 210 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe, the most spoken Slavic language, and 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 eleventh-most spoken language by total number of speakers. Russian is one of two...

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