Editing Russian language (section)

== Classification ==
Russian is an [[East Slavic language]] of the wider [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European family]]. It is a descendant of [[Old East Slavic]], a language used in [[Kievan Rus']], which was a loose conglomerate of [[East Slavs|East Slavic]] tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of [[spoken language]], its closest relatives are [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]], and [[Rusyn language|Rusyn]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Most similar languages to Russian |url=http://www.ezglot.com/most-similar-languages.php?l=rus |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525141518/http://www.ezglot.com/most-similar-languages.php?l=rus |archive-date=25 May 2017}}</ref> the other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as [[Surzhyk]] in eastern Ukraine and [[Trasianka]] in Belarus. An East Slavic [[Old Novgorod dialect]], although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] due to a common [[Church Slavonic]] influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian.{{sfn|Sussex|Cubberley|2006|pp=477–478, 480}}

Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, [[Latin]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], German, French, Italian, and English,<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Russian Language |first=Ellis Hovell |last=Minns |author-link=Ellis Minns|volume=23 |pages=912–914}}</ref> and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: [[Uralic languages|Uralic]], [[Turkic languages|Turkic]],<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Turkic Languages of Central Asia: Problems of Planned Culture Contact by Stefan Wurm |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=392–394 |jstor=610442 |last=Waterson |first=Natalie |year=1955 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00111954|issn=0041-977X}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/491-0102/491-0102-GOUSKOVA-0-0.PDF |title=Falling Sonoroty Onsets, Loanwords, and Syllable contact |access-date=4 May 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505092913/http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/491-0102/491-0102-GOUSKOVA-0-0.PDF |archive-date=5 May 2015}}</ref> [[Persian language|Persian]],<ref>{{cite web |author1=Aliyeh Kord Zafaranlu Kambuziya |author2=Eftekhar Sadat Hashemi |url=http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1317_hashemi_1.pdf|title=Russian Loanword Adoptation in Persian; Optimal Approach |website=roa.rutgers.edu |year=2010 |access-date=4 May 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505092721/http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1317_hashemi_1.pdf |archive-date=5 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Iraj Bashiri |url=https://www.academia.edu/10442551|title=Russian Loanwords in Persian and Tajiki Language |website=academia.edu |year=1990|access-date=4 May 2015|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160530193133/http://www.academia.edu/10442551/Russian_Loanwords_in_Persian_and_Tajiki_Languages |archive-date=30 May 2016}}</ref> [[Arabic]], and [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].<ref>Colin Baker, Sylvia Prys Jones [https://books.google.com/books?id=YgtSqB9oqDIC&dq=russian+loanwords+in+hebrew&pg=PA219 ''Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180320151848/https://books.google.com/books?id=YgtSqB9oqDIC&pg=PA219&dq=russian+loanwords+in+hebrew&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=Y75GVbmtKomuUe25gbAJ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw |date=20 March 2018}} pp 219 Multilingual Matters, 1998 {{ISBN|1-85359-362-1}}</ref>

According to the [[Defense Language Institute]] in [[Monterey, California]], Russian is classified as a [[DLI levels|level III language]] in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency.<ref>{{cite web|last=Thompson|first=Irene|title=Language Learning Difficulty|url=http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-difficulty|url-status=live|archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20140527094808/http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-difficulty|archive-date=27 May 2014|access-date=25 May 2014|website=mustgo}}</ref>