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Russian

1.1 The Russian language

1.1.1 Russian then and now

The present study is a comprehensive description of all aspects (except word derivation) of modern standard Russian: its sounds, spelling, grammar, and syntax.

Russian has resulted from a long evolution that can be traced back to the first millennium of our era. From the fifth century on, speakers of Slavic established settlements over a vast area of Central and Eastern Europe, from the Danube in the south to the Elbe in the northwest. In the east, they moved north from the Dnepr valley to the Gulf of Finland and the Upper Volga, gradually displacing or assimilating the previous Baltic and Finnic inhabitants.1 Russian developed from the dialects of Slavic spoken in the north of this East Slavic territory. In the ninth century, the East Slavic area came under control of Scandinavian merchant-warriors. The Christianization of this land in 988 was followed by subjugation to “the Mongol yoke” from the thirteenth century into the fifteenth century. As the favored agent of the Golden Horde, the once small principality of Moscow brought ever more land under its control. By the end of the fifteenth century, when the Mongol yoke was definitively removed, Moscow had become the political and ecclesiastical center of the East Slavic lands, and the center of the Russian language area.

Russian is not only a spoken language, but a written language used for all cultural purposes. The modern form of Russian took shape over the course of the eighteenth century. The morphology and phonology is based on the dialect of Moscow. In its vocabulary, syntax, and rhetoric, Russian, while relying on native Slavic elements, has a long history of adapting and internalizing foreign -- Byzantine, French, and most recently English -- models.

Parenthetically, it could be noted that the modern word héccrbq ‘Russian’ is an adjective deriving from the noun Hécm ‘Rus’. According to a venerable etymology,

1 See Sedov 1982 on the complex archeological record of the East Slavic area.

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2A Reference Grammar of Russian

Hécm was a descriptive name for Scandinavians that is based on the Germanic etymon ‘to row’, the Scandinavians being above all oarsmen.2 In East Slavic lands, Hécm was used initially for the Scandinavian overlords and their principality of Kiev. Over time it was extended to all East Slavic lands. Muscovy appropriated the name for its political identity, culture, and language as it consolidated power.

Russian is the first language of approximately 150 million people. According to an estimate for 2002 the Russian Federation had a total population of 145 million people, among whom 81.5 percent, or 118 million, were ethnic Russians.3 In the mid-nineties, there were an additional 25 million Russians in the newly independent countries that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union (Novaia Rossiia 1994). Together that would make 143 million ethnic Russians. To that figure could be added a substantial though indeterminate percentage of the remaining 27 million members of other nationalities residing in the Russian Federation. According to recent statistics, the rate of population growth in the Russian Federation is negative (−0.33%), from which it would follow that the number of speakers of Russian will not increase in the foreseeable future.

1.1.2 Levels of language

Russian is a spoken language and a written language. In its written form Russian has long been highly codified: grammars, dictionaries, and manuals define standards for usage that are enforced in the educational system and through editorial practices in publication. Although the Russian tradition is quite clear about what usage counts as standard, it does acknowledge the existence of a range of varieties, or registers, from archaic to bookish to standard (normative) to colloquial (hfpujdjhyfz htxm) to substandard and uncultured (ghjcnjhtxbt). The grammar recorded here is the normative grammar of standard, written Russian, which is the culturally privileged, and also the most accessible, form of Russian. Occasionally, there are asides on usage in less-than-standard or oral language, but this study cannot treat colloquial Russian with the same attention as the works of E. A. Zemskaia and colleagues,4 which have documented the significant differences between spontaneous spoken Russian and formal, written Russian.

2Possible candidates are Roþer, Roþin, former names for Sweden’s Uppland region, and roþ s- ‘oar’, the genitive form used in compounding (Thomsen 1879:99--104, also Vasmer 1986--87:s.v. Hecm, de

Vries 1962: s.v. rj´ðr, Schenker 1995:57--60). A form of this etymon was adopted into West Finnic languages (Finnish ruotsi ‘Sweden’) and into Slavic, and then found its way into Greek ( ς ) and Arabic (rus¯) sources from the ninth and tenth centuries.

3 At: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rs.html#People.

4 Zemskaia 1973, 1978, 1983; Zemskaia and Shmelev 1984; see also Timroth 1986.