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The Russian Language
History
In the 6th century AD Slave people migrated towards the Balkans, setting up the basis for the development of the Russian language. At that time, there were three quite similar language groups which were written in the same way, according to a system known as Old Church Slavonic. The process of standardization of Russian was slow and gradual: the language originated from the Western branch of the Slavonic Language and it completed its evolution only with the spelling reform of 1918.Russian's prestige grew a lot in the 20th century, when the Soviets became a power of technology and were quite successful in politics. The following years represented the Golden Age of Russian language; in particular, after the division of URSS in 1991, Russia was the biggest Republic to have originated from the break. This geographical extension allowed Russian to become the official language in every area of the former URSS, even if at a local level it coexisted with other dialects. Nowadays, the number of Russian speakers all around the world is about 250 million. Of these, 180 million live in the territory of the former URSS.
Dialects
Russia's vast geographical extension has originated many dialects through the years. The "Northern Dialects" are the ones which have developed in the Northern area with respect to Moscow, while the "Southern Dialects" have spread in the South. The main difference between these dialects lies in pronunciation, as the unstressed /o/ is not pronounced in the Northern variation. This phenomenon is known as "okayne".The remaining dialects differ from Standard Russian especially as for pronunciation, grammar, intonation and vocabulary. For instance, some sub-dialects include archaic vocabulary which sounds obsolete to a speaker of standard Russian.
Grammar
Russian is undoubtely a fascinating language, but certainly you need calm and patience to learn it . First of all, you have to face Russian alphabet (Cyrillic), whose letters look more like symbols rather than characters. Cyrillic has 33 letters and two soundless characters (the hard and the soft sound). With all this complicate stuff, it's easy to see that it will take at least one month to start reading Russian (which is different from reading fluently)..But hold on! The alphabet it's only the starting point, as Russian hides many more unexpected secrets. The verb "to be" doesn't usually come in normal sentences, so to say "Mark is a boy" you should say something that in English would sound as "Mark boy". What is more, articles don't exist and nouns decline according to six different cases. But all of this is as easy as cake if compared with the verb "to go". This verb has six different forms which change depending on by which mean of transport you are performing the action. The action of "going" is expressed by a different verb if you go by bus, train, plane or if you walk and what is more, it also changes if you go in a single direction (uni- directional action) or if you go and return (multi-directional action).When you will be able to express the diffrence between going to work by bus or by car, two more months will have passed and your brain will have done a lot of excercise...a tiring work this Russian, isn't it?
Slang
After having bored you with grammar, it's time to relax with an introduciton to the colorful Russian slang.If you go to Russia, you will certainly drink vodka. If you are asked "How did you drink yesterday?", answer "Ostuhuitel'no" (literaly "excelent"), a nice expression to show your are fully-immereged into Russian lifestyle. So, suppose you are having a great time and a native-speaker asks you "Kak Dela?", which means "How are things with you?", answer "Pizdato" (Fantastic). And finally, a phrase which can be useful while shopping: it is possible that some dishonest seller tries to take advantage of the fact that you are a foreigner..if you say "Ty zalupnul!", a quite strong expression meaning "You cheater!", you will surely gain the respect he deserves you!.