Introduction

"Welcome to Russian at Emory", a video message by Juliette Apkarian

Russian belongs to the East Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. It is spoken by about 170 million people as a first language and used by at least an additional 100 million as a second language throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Closely related to Russian are the other East Slavic tongues, Ukrainian and Belarussian. After the 12 century Church Slavonic, a liturgical language, had much influence on the modern Slavic languages, particularly on the Russian literary language. In the late 18th and early 19th century, writings of the great Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin played a significant role in elevating Russian's status from a spoken vernacular to a literary language. Literary Russian is based on the dialect used in and around the city of Moscow.

Departments & Related Programs

Russian and East-Asian Languages and Cultures (REALC)
Russian and East European Studies (REES)
Emory Moscow Theater Art

Online Audio and Video

Online audio and video materials are available for Russian at this website. You must have an Emory ID and password to access the materials.

Emory Favorites

Russian Dictionary
Cyrillic Alphabet
History of Cyrillic Alphabet
Russian Media
Russnet.org
Moscow Metro
Brief Timeline of Russian History