Russian

Indo-European family · Slavic branch · Eurasia

Russian is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

Only 1 language has more of the profile features coded than Russian.

On Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives, WALS codes Russian as “Case + number”, a value held by 8 of the 162 languages coded, German and Greek (Modern) among them.

Of its word-order pairings, the one Russian shares with the fewest languages is Order of Adjective and Noun: “Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN)”, the value of 373 of the 1,367 languages coded.

The least common value coded for Russian is “Question particle in second position in sentence” on Position of Polar Question Particles, held by 52 of the 884 languages coded.

The order Russian uses in 9 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Russian with Ukrainian or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Russian, rarest first.

Relativization on SubjectsRelative pronoun12 of 166
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress SystemsLexical: lexical stress, diacritic weight38 of 500
Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSyncretism in relevant NP-types21 of 261
Distributive NumeralsMarked by preceding word21 of 251
Plurality in Independent Personal PronounsPerson-number stem with a nominal plural affix22 of 261
Reciprocal ConstructionsMixed16 of 175
Number of Basic Colour CategoriesMore than 10 categories11 of 119

Inside the Indo-European family

Russian matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 110 of the 141 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (78%). Among the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, that rate ranks second from the top.

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Russian; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Ukrainian Indo-European38 of 41
Lithuanian Indo-European52 of 66
Serbian-Croatian Indo-European39 of 49
Polish Indo-European57 of 74
Greek (Modern) Indo-European99 of 134

Outside the Indo-European family, the best match is Finnish (Uralic), with 90 of 137 features alike.

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Russian for 141 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 130 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Russian shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 18

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word	54 of 500
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	High	69 of 564
Consonant Inventories	Moderately large	94 of 563
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
Rhythm Types	Absent: no rhythmic stress	98 of 323
Syllable Structure	Complex syllable structure	151 of 486
Fixed Stress Locations	No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress)	220 of 502
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
The Velar Nasal	No velar nasal	235 of 469
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Tone	No tones	307 of 527
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None	449 of 567
Uvular Consonants	No uvulars	470 of 567
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567
Front Rounded Vowels	None	525 of 562

Word structure 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	22 of 198
Reduplication	No productive reduplication	55 of 368
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology	Consistently dependent-marking	46 of 236
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P is dependent-marked	63 of 236
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	4-5 categories per word	52 of 145
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is never syncretic	81 of 198
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor is dependent-marked	98 of 236
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly suffixing	406 of 969
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Exclusively concatenative	125 of 165
Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	monoexponential TAM	127 of 160
Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	219 of 235

Nouns and pronouns 23

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Number of Genders	Three	26 of 257
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Mixed	33 of 322
Number of Cases	6-7 case categories	37 of 261
The Associative Plural	Associative plural absent	37 of 236
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	Gender distinctions in 3rd person singular only	61 of 378
Ordinal Numerals	First, second, three-th	61 of 321
Systems of Gender Assignment	Semantic and formal assignment	59 of 257
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction	49 of 207
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Definite Articles	Neither definite nor indefinite article	198 of 620
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	Sex-based gender system	84 of 257
Indefinite Articles	Neither indefinite nor definite	198 of 534
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	452 of 1,031
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated	74 of 168
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always obligatory	133 of 291
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	513 of 1,066
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Two-way contrast	126 of 234
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
Indefinite Pronouns	Interrogative-based indefinites	194 of 326
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Action Nominal Constructions	Ergative-Possessive	21 of 168
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Highly differentiated	77 of 138
Noun Phrase Conjunction	AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical	131 of 234
Adjectives without Nouns	Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking	73 of 124
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 17

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	Suppletion in both tense and aspect	24 of 193
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary	146 of 1,131
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	29 of 193
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for both possibility and necessity	36 of 207
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + normal negative	113 of 496
Epistemic Possibility	Verbal constructions	65 of 240
The Past Tense	Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction	94 of 222
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction	101 of 222
The Future Tense	No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	112 of 222
The Perfect	No perfect	114 of 222
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	292 of 548
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system	201 of 375
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial	264 of 902
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	468 of 1,249
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN)	542 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj)	227 of 481
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 25

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Obligatory pronouns in subject position	82 of 711
Comparative Constructions	Particle Comparative	22 of 167
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of only the A argument	73 of 378
Predicative Possession	Locational Possessive	48 of 240
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Nominative - accusative (standard)	46 of 190
Nominal and Locational Predication	Identical	117 of 386
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding	132 of 386
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Nominative - accusative (standard)	61 of 172
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym	114 of 297
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	Non-assignable (no asymmetry found)	114 of 297
Negative Morphemes	Negative particle	502 of 1,157
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is possible	175 of 386
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No zero realization of third person S forms	181 of 380
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Indirect-object construction	189 of 378
Applicative Constructions	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Other Roles of Applied Objects	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Purposive type but no sequential type	68 of 118
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Antipassive Constructions	No antipassive	146 of 194
Productivity of the Antipassive Construction	no antipassive	146 of 186
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Relativization on Obliques	Relative Pronoun Strategy	13 of 112
Purpose Clauses	Balanced/deranked	30 of 170
Reason Clauses	Balanced/deranked	37 of 169
'When' Clauses	Balanced/deranked	39 of 174
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
M-T Pronouns	M-T pronouns, paradigmatic	27 of 230
M in First Person Singular	m in first person singular	53 of 230
Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories	6 categories	29 of 119
Green and Blue	Green and blue	30 of 120
Hand and Arm	Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm'	228 of 617
Tea	Words derived from Sinitic cha	110 of 230
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196
M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	152 of 230
Red and Yellow	Red and yellow	98 of 120
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593

Other 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks	Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings	71 of 143