Russian

Russian ( , transliteration: , ) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities , four) living members of the East Slavic languages, the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian). It is also spoken by the countries of the Russophone. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards. Today Russian is widely used outside Russia. It is applied as a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge — 60–70% of all world information is published in English and Russian languages. Over a quarter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian. Russian is also a necessary accessory of world communications systems (broadcasts, air- and space communication, etc). Due to the status... full article at wikipedia