The Russian language
and how it is written

Where Russian ranks

Russian is the 11th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers ^[1,2]. Here it is among its neighbours in the ranking, on one scale.

“How are you?” in Russian

The design of Cyrillic alphabet

An alphabet built on the Greek uncial letters of the 9th–10th centuries, with new letters for Slavic sounds such as ж, ш and ц^[4]. It is named after Saint Cyril, who with Methodius created the earlier Glagolitic alphabet for Slavic^[5]. Russian uses 33 letters^[4].

Alphabet. One letter for each consonant and vowel.

Kind

Alphabet

Direction

Left to right

Took shape

In the First Bulgarian Empire around the 10th century CE

Line of descent

Phoenician → Greek → Cyrillic

Traditional surface

Parchment and vellum

Own digits

No — uses the Western 0–9

Also writes

No other language among the 38 is written mainly in Cyrillic alphabet.

• A Greek skeleton, Slavic sounds

  Letters like Г, Д, Л, П and Ф keep their Greek shapes, while ж, ш and щ were added for sounds Greek did not have^[4].

• Peter the Great's redesign

  In 1708–1710 Peter the Great introduced a 'civil script' that made printed Cyrillic look closer to the roman type of Western Europe; the 1918 spelling reform later removed letters such as ѣ, і and ѳ^[3].

• Same letter, different italic

  Cyrillic italics can look unlike their upright forms, and some letters take different italic shapes in Serbian and Macedonian than in Russian, so fonts switch shapes by language^[6].

• False friends

  Some Cyrillic letters look Latin but sound different: В is v, Н is n, Р is r and С is s, so ресторан reads 'restoran'^[4].

Explore the letters

Russian's relatives among the 38

Russian belongs to the Indo-European family (Balto-Slavic). These are the other languages with 50 million or more speakers in the same family; the closest — in the same branch — come first.

• EnglishEnglishGermanic · 1.5B
• हिन्दीHindiIndo-Aryan · 611M
• españolSpanishRomance · 561M
• françaisFrenchRomance · 334M
• বাংলাBengaliIndo-Aryan · 274M
• portuguêsPortugueseRomance · 269M
• اُردُوUrduIndo-Aryan · 246M
• DeutschGermanGermanic · 133M
• मराठीMarathiIndo-Aryan · 99M
• پنجابیWestern PunjabiIndo-Aryan · 90M
• فارسیPersian (Iranian)Iranian · 82M
• italianoItalianRomance · 66M
• ગુજરાતીGujaratiIndo-Aryan · 62M
• भोजपुरीBhojpuriIndo-Aryan (Bihari) · 53M

Russian across the hub

The main page compares all 38 languages. Each link opens it on Russian.

• Preview it in the explorer →with all 38 side by side
• Hear it in the voice tour →“How are you?” in every language, spoken in turn
• Trace its script's family tree →from the first alphabets and Chinese oracle bones
• Compare its digits →ten ways to write 0–9
• See its share of speakers →an interactive breakdown by script, family and region

Sources

1. Ethnologue — What are the top 200 most spoken languages? (2026)
2. Wikipedia — List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures, retrieved October 2026)
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Russian language
4. Omniglot — Cyrillic alphabet
5. Omniglot — Glagolitic alphabet
6. The Unicode Standard 17.0, chapter 7: Europe-I (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic)
7. Omniglot — Useful phrases in Russian

Checked October 25, 2026. Speaker numbers are Ethnologue's 2026 estimates, which count each language separately (Arabic and Chinese varieties are listed one by one). Maps shade whole countries, not regions within them. Found an error? Tell us.