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Languages of Russia

  • Romanian languageIn 1521, a man wrote to a mayor to warn of a Turkish attack. His letter is the oldest surviving text in Romanian.
  • Finnish languageFinnish can pack a whole sentence into one word, istahtaisinkohankaan.
  • Armenian languageArmenian has no surviving relatives on its own branch of the Indo-European family. Scholars once mistook it for Iranian.
  • Kazakh languageKazakh has been written in three completely different alphabets within a single century.
  • Uzbek languageIn 1924, Soviet administrators renamed the literary language Chagatai as "Old Uzbek."
  • Russian languageRussian is one of only two languages spoken aboard the International Space Station.
  • Persian languageMarco Polo used Persian at Kublai Khan's court in China. It was the only non-European language he used there.
  • Uralic languagesA Hungarian Jesuit went to study Sami while watching the 1769 Venus transit. He published his conclusions in 1770.
  • YiddishThe oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish is a short rhyme tucked into a prayer book for the High Holy Days from the medieval city of Worms. It dates to 1272. The rhyme wishes a good day to whoever carries the book into the…
  • Languages of RussiaRussia has more than 100 minority languages, but only Russian is official nationwide.

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