Languages

Russian

A Slavic language, the Cyrillic script, and a vast literature.

Russian is the most spoken of the Slavic languages and a working tongue of science, space, and diplomacy across a large swath of Eurasia. Learning it covers the Cyrillic alphabet, a case system that marks the role of each noun, and the aspect verb system that English has lost, opening one of the great novelistic and scientific literatures and a region whose politics and energy still move the world.