The Russian Language: 5 Crazy Facts in 60 Seconds

🇷🇺🤯 The Russian language has a fascinating history, from Old East Slavic to modern space! Here are five fascinating facts about Russian you need to know in just one minute.
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📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
"Russian Federation (orthographic projection) - only Crimea disputed.svg" by AndLikeThings (original) / Seryo93 (derivative) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
"Europe-Belarus (orthographic projection).svg" by Rob984 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
"Kazakhstan (orthographic projection).svg" by Turkish Flame is licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

[@liamanderson6424]

Neat. Would be based af being fluent in Russian. All the best for your language learning goals this year!

[@zhopka77]

I decided to learn Russian for fun in early 2017 and I never stopped. Now I'm married to a Russian and I speak the language fluently. I'm lazy and a bad student, so if I can do it, anyone can lol

[@generalkenobi6687]

Горжусь тѣмъ, что могу говорить на такомъ языке! Слава всѣмъ славянскимъ народамъ! Привѣтъ изъ Россіи!

[@himesh2006]

​@@zhopka77 This guy not just learned Russian but also married one. Absolute chad and inspiration.

[@bennigan88]

[I thought] it was Cyril and Methodius not Constantine and Methodius, and [that] they didn't invent the Cyrillic script, they created the Slavonic translation of the bible using a Glagolitic script, which was later converted to the new Cyrillic alphabet by the Bulgarians, and named in honor of the then deceased missionary. (edited)

[@kolvar]

Constantin took the name Cyril when he became a Monk (which Olly implies). But you are right, that they invented the Glagolithic alphabet, which became Cyrillic. They invented it in the 9th century, not in the tenth, as Olly says, while converting the Moravians (who more or less became the Czech, who do not use it). They both died before the year 900.

[@bennigan88]

@@kolvar Thanks for the detail!

[@nbabasketball1234]

yep i’m pretty sure they translated the bible to that language which basically created the written russian language

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Cyril was the canonised name for Constantine. You were right for everything else though. Yes, the created Glagolithic to translate Christian texts to Slavic. Yes, it was their Bulgarian students who invented Cyrillic.

[@victortodorov2218]

The cyrillic aphabet is actually not russian. It was made in Preslav, the second capital of the Bulgarian Empire, not exactly by the brothers Konstantine (Cyril) and Methodius (Methody) but by their students.

[@navneetshyam1335]

Will learn russian and never give up.

[@HeroManNick132]

Are you Indian?

[@navneetshyam1335]

@@HeroManNick132 yes! And you?

[@Alexey_Selivanov]

"The language with close ties to the Vikings" part made me choke for a moment. I don't know how a *language* can qualify as having "close ties to the Vikings" in the first place, but Russian isn't any different in that aspect from, say, Norman French. Surely, the founders of Kievan Rus were of Scandinavian descent, but linguistically they got Slavized pretty quickly. There's but a handful of loanwords and calques from Old Norse in Russian, and several personal names (Oleg, Olga, Igor, Gleb) - overall much less than in English (after all, the Norse were colonizing England in pretty large amounts, while in Eastern Europe they remained a relatively small group of traders and professional warriors).

[@talideon]

Yes, but it went both ways: culturally the Varangians also had a large cultural effect on the local Slavic populations. These things are never one sided.

[@Alexey_Selivanov]

@@talideon well, it would be wonderful if you could point something particular out. The main thing that defined the Rus being different from the surrounding Slavic, Baltic and Finnic tribes basically were the Norse traditional cults - and, indeed, we find a lot of hammer pendants in the burials which are otherwise full of Slavic or Turkic (e.g. armor pieces) artifacts. The typical Norse longhouses, for instance, are found only in the earliest layers of the Old Ladoga site (being then superceded by typical East European loghouses). If there was some noticeable influence, the surviving material culture doesn't reflect that, and the language reflects that only marginally (the words for "whip", "chest" and "hook" being some examples); it should be noted, however, that the exact path of most of these word is impossible to trace, and we know that Norsemen from Sweden and Denmark were present in the Novgorodian lands (as traders and hired swords) long after the Rus proper ceased to exist.

[@sebe2255]

Yeah you might as well say Russian is close to Dutch or Italian because there are loan words from both

[@Alexey_Selivanov]

@@sebe2255 the thing is the number of the loans from Dutch is larger by an order of magnitude (most sailing terminology in particular). :)

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

St St Cyril and Methodius did not invent Cyrillic. Their students, from the First Bulgarian Empire did. St St Cyril and Methodius invented Glagolithic, as an alphabet for Christian literature practices for Slavs. They attempted to Christianise greater Moravia, and were successful to a partial extent, but got kicked out, and their alphabet was changed. They were the welcomed by the second Great Slavic nation at the time, Bulgaria, which greeted them with open arms, and founded to schools in the Empire. It was in those schools, where their students - who were Bulgarian - created the Cyrillic alphabet, which was easier and more matching than Glagolithic.

[@sadhbh4652]

Russian is a beautiful language. I'm watching The Americans right now and it has a lot of Russian spoken. Could anyone recommend me any good Russian TV series, films, or books?

[@Langermar]

XIXth century is considered to be "the Golden age of the Russian literature". The most notable names are: Николай Гоголь, Лев Толстой, Фёдор Достоевский, Антон Чехов. Though, their language is a bit archaic sometimes, so I would've recomended to start from XXth century literature first: Михаил Булгаков, Аркадий и Борис Стругацкие, Валентин Пикуль. As for TV series and films... we don't have good TV series and the majority of modern films are also not great. But old films were actually pretty ok and some of them heavily impacted our culture. You may go to Kinopoisk (it's a Russian version of IMDb, basically), choose the СССР option as a country for the search and pick something from the top, depending on your taste.

[@styrofoam4637]

i’m russian and i’ve heard people say that a TV show called Kitchen (кухня). is good. i’ve watched it on youtube and it has english subtitles and lots of seasons. it’s a comedy show and is quite casual so it could be a good way to learn to speak like a native ahaha. also i would say it’s best to start with the alphabet :)

[@Chtigga]

Love your T-Shirt Olly! Brings nostalgic vibes to the 90's kid that I am.

[@tamagoame]

Super fascinating! I would love to see more about different languages :D

[@highchamp1]

Astronauts Where do they learn Russian? What methods do they use? Is there a Russian "Space" phrasebook?

[@APlusRussian]

These are the questions I had, too! Might be some program like foreign language for spies, where they learn it to fluency in no time 😎

[@claudiakarl7888]

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Germany you can take Russian courses at most community colleges. I took a course at my gymnasium while being a pupil.

[@APlusRussian]

@@claudiakarl7888 not in the US. College - yes, but not before. Plus, I'll bet those astronauts learn it a little better than elementary school level. You know, to avoid awkward situations with the cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 😅

[@highchamp1]

It always amazes me they don't have a phrase book or phrases prepared. Amazed (...almost every time) Oh for the middle 20th Century American days! 1 to 10 Blast off! Don't touch that! Get out! Help! etc...

[@CharleneCTX]

@@APlusRussian My husband studied Russian at a US university in the 1980s. I don't know how common it is now.

[@APlusRussian]

Wow, cool facts!! Had no idea about the space and Alaska usage (and I teach the language) 😅

[@subflexsubflex8878]

Alaska was Russian territory long lime ago

[@APlusRussian]

@@subflexsubflex8878 True story! Just didn't realize there were still folks there that actually retained the language 😉

[@roshansri1636]

@@APlusRussian space makes sense lool, Russia is one of the 3 space powers. So all American astronauts are taught Russian before they go to space

[@APlusRussian]

@@roshansri1636 I think the operative word here is "one of" 😉 It seems reasonable for the cosmonauts to learn English, not the other way around. But what do I know, I just teach Russian on KZbin 😅

[@roshansri1636]

@@APlusRussian I'm not going to lie, I've always wanted to learn Russian, but I'm genuinely scared of how hard it might be

[@fryloc359]

I knew there were Russian cosmonauts on the ISS, I didnt know our astronauts were bilingual.

[@thenaturalyogi5934]

I'm so excited to be starting Russian! I'm really conservative with my time in Russian as I still am enjoying Eu Portuguese a lot but I don't want to put this off any longer. So I've almost memorized the sounds of the alphabet and some basic phrases and I'm excited to understand Mr. Putin. :)

[@AlifLamMiim]

i’m a native speaker and the amount of intellectual words he uses which aren’t common in normal speech may make it a little difficult to understand lol

[@HeroManNick132]

This comment didn't age well.

[@MADcDEMON]

Это что, песня "Ти ж мене підманула" на фоне играет? :D

[@Shadefinder1]

You should do another more in depth video on Russian. What's challenging, what's easy ya know

[@sodirabbosov9528]

All of USSR countries know russian language. I am from Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 | Все страны которые были в СССР знают русский язык. Я из Узбекистана 🇺🇿

[@Ania_z_Krainy_Czarow]

Russian is still widely spoken in every single former Soviet republic such as Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia etc.

[@michaelminton5462]

Russian is my target language and i need one specific bit of advice. how do you deal with the lack of resources? for duolingo (which i do not use, this is just a good quantitative example) russian has 79 lessons as opposed to french, german, and spanish having 120+. the russian course in busuu is god awful. the russian course in memrise is bugged and has their video files mixed up in their lessons. my next idea was to try speakly which is finally available in the US. but what do some more experienced people out there recommend - specifically for Russian? i am still a beginner but probably know around 1000 russian words.

[@user-ky9qn4pg3w]

Up your vocab knowledge to about 2000-4000 with Anki and then jump into native content/movies. Those are abundant!!!

[@michaelkindman]

Yup, +1 for that guy above. This is the only real way. Это в принципе самый оптимальный способ изучения любого языка.

[@louesorg]

No... I don't think we need these small videos. It would be a lot better to have a longer version, imo.

[@APlusRussian]

These #shorts aren't a replacement for long-form content. They are just another way to engage with his audience and grow his channel.

[@storylearning]

I did indeed → kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZi8pHtnd8Z8r68

[@APlusRussian]

@@storylearning I remember this one! This vid, actually, might be how I found your channel

[@rembo96]

What does Old East Slavic has to do with Vikings?

[@LucasPuskaric]

Nice shirt!

[@bibekdas7449]

Cool

[@order_truth_involvement6135]

The Russians in Alaska never "colonized" the natives. They were peacefully converted to Orthodox Christianity.

[@talideon]

Eh, they did still colonise them. Colonisation is going into an area with or without existing settlers and saying "this is ours". You don't have to have a big bust up with the locals and try to wipe them out for it to be colonisation. Take Iceland: it was colonised by a mixture of Vikings and Gaelic... eh... prisoners. Nobody lives there, but that doesn't mean they didn't colonise it. Take the Volga Germans in Russia: that was a colony that they were _invited_ to set up. The only difference is that they became Russian subjects in doing so. Russians settled in Alaska in land that was already occupied. Whether they did it peacefully or not doesn't mean it wasn't colonisation.

[@robshy5521]

I bet aliens already speak Russian that’s a good motivation tip

[@indochinajames3372]

Hi mate.

[@rinatikxm]

Watched your video about why you need to learn Russian. It was so interesting that I even wanted to learn it, but then I remembered, that I speak Russian as a native... Suka blyať

[@gerginborisov]

The Cyrillic was not created by Cyril and Methodius.

[@jisoouchihaaa]

Sighs in Bulgarian

[@spanishpeaches2930]

The spread of Cyrillic was mainly due to a couple of guys ( Clement and Naum) who lived in Macedonia a thousand years back If you type in Cyrillic Ohrid you'll get some good history on the subject. I only know this as I've been to Ohrid, with my wife who is Macedonian. Lovely place. She can read Russian , but doesn't fully understand it. Lots of similar words to Macedonian/Bulgarian much like English/French.

[@victortodorov2218]

I am a Bulgarian speaking Bulgarian language. When I talk to "Macedonians" I understand absolutely everything. How then is "Macedonian" another language? It is a dialect. Sometimes I can't understand even what my grandma of the Nordwestern part of Bulgaria. Is she speaking Moesian language? - No, she just has a dialect

[@ponticpg1295]

@@victortodorov2218 shh dont tell them :)

[@HeroManNick132]

Vardar Macedonia at that time was a region of the First Bulgarian empire and after the fall of the First Bulgarian empire it became part of Serbia. And during the early - mid 1900s it became to be messy. The "Macedonian ethnicity" was regional but it became separate when Serbs took it again. The people were Bulgarians at that time. You can even tell it is basically a Serbified rural dialect of Bulgarian that was codified in 1944 to be a "separate" language. Sure there are some words closer to Serbian than Bulgarian but the grammar and the lexical similarity is more similar to Bulgarian.

[@benjiang9789]

Chinese is also used in space.

[@beaudanner]

Annexastan is sweating hard 😓😓😓

[@Awande_Mkhize]

Whats easier Ukrainian or Russian

[@user-ch7mn3km9w]

Almost every ukrainians knows the Russian language. So, if you want to choose between these two languages then study Russian. Both languages is hard to english native speakers.

[@Awande_Mkhize]

@@user-ch7mn3km9w thanks man I will try to learn russian then

[@HeroManNick132]

@@Awande_Mkhize I think to some extend Russian might be easier because Ukrainian has some sounds that are not in Russian and 1 extra case that Russian don't have. But tbh I find Ukrainian more beautiful than Russian. Russian as Bulgarian sounds exactly like Old Bulgarian except they try to act cool of making almost each vowel "soft" which is kinda cringe for my taste. Ukrainian has more variaty of soft and hard sounds than Russian but this is my opinion. Also somehow I adore shows in Ukrainian than Russian, even if I understand Russian much better than Ukrainian. But I think Ukrainian is more phonetic language than Russian. Russian has some rules to follow like if the O is not stressed it becomes an A sound. Or "го" in words as "сегодня, чего" is pronounced as "vo" instead of "go" And "чт" is like "шт" or when "e" and "и" are next to "ж, ш, ц" they become like "э, ы" And also "ч" in Russian is always "soft" like other Slavic that "ц" can be soften bur not "ч."

[@ArtogTV]

Russian language and other East Slavic are not in close ties with vikings. Only ties is that the Ruryk and his dynasty was ruling Rus. But today historians aren't really sure that he was Sweden Viking. He also could be a fino-ugric

[@srcarapan]

Is it true the Cyrillic alphabet comes from the Greek one?

[@talideon]

Partly. It's a fusion of the Glagolitic and Greek alphabets.

[@srcarapan]

@@talideon thank you ☺️

[@xboxgamerhr]

Yup, just like Latin

[@talideon]

@@xboxgamerhr Almost: the Latin alphabet is essentially the Euboean variant of the Greek alphabet, albeit having gone through the filter of Etruscan. For instance modern "C" is the Euboean gamma (Etruscan lacked voiced stops, so they dropped kappa and pi and used gamma instead, for the /k/ sound because it's easier to write). Latin later reborrowed some letters from Greek and invented "G". The Latin alphabet preserves some letters that fell out of use in the mainstream Greek alphabet, such as "F", which is the Greek digamma.

[@xboxgamerhr]

@@talideon same story for Cyrillic Cyrillic came partially from glagolitic which has no known predecessors.

[@dominicy5554]

first