Russian language

Russian (Русский язык; Russkiy yazyk) is a Slavic language spoken in Russia and the former Soviet republics. It is spoken by over 200 million people worldwide.

It is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Under most usages, Russian does not use the "to be" copula. Though a word "to be" does exist, it is used for more subtle contexts as in "Understanding existence has always been a problem for philosophers". Russian has no articles ("an" or "the") and the understanding of a noun as a determinant or indeterminate noun is based on location of the word in the sentence.

Every noun, adjective and verb is conjugated for 6 cases including: subjunctive, locative, genitive, instrumental, and for plural or singular. Because of this freedom, word order is not very important to the speaker, and he or she is able to use word order to make subtle distinctions in tone, in importance, or in relevance.

Examples:

• Здравствулте! -zdrastvwiche = formal, pleasure to meet you
• Привет (Privet)= Hello, Hi (between friends).

Как вас зовут? (Kak vas zavut - literally "how do they call you" = What's your name?

• Как поживаете? (kak pajoulsta) - How are you?

Меня зовут Иван. = My name is Ivan. (literally - they call me, Ivan)