What’s the scope of the Russian language?
Russian is the largest native language in Europe and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. The East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe, belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely throughout the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. Most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, with over 258 million total speakers worldwide, Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by a number of native speakers and the eighth-most spoken language in the world by a total number of speakers. Russian was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. It is also used in an official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries like Israel and Mongolia. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English.