Moscow dialect

Moscow dialect
Moscow dialect
Moscow accent
Московское произношение
Pronunciation	mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ
Region	Moscow
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic East Slavic Russian Moscow dialect; ; ; ; ;
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old East Slavic ; ; ;
Writing system	Russian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
IETF	ru-u-sd-rumow

The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent (Russian: Московское произношение, romanized: Moskovskoye proiznosheniye, IPA: [mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ]), sometimes Central Russian,^[1] is the spoken Russian language variety used in Moscow – one of the two major pronunciation norms of the Russian language alongside the Saint Petersburg norm. Influenced by both Northern and Southern Russian dialects,^[2] the Moscow dialect is the basis of the Russian literary language.^[3]

Overview

The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica wrote:^[4]

Literary Russian as spoken by educated people throughout the empire is the Moscow dialect... The Moscow dialect really covers a very small area, not even the whole of the government of Moscow, but political causes have made it the language of the governing classes and hence of literature. It is a border dialect, having the southern pronunciation of unaccented o as a, but in the jo for accented e before a hard consonant it is akin to the North and it has also kept the northern pronunciation of g instead of the southern h. So too unaccented e sounds like i or ji.

Examples

Dialect	понятно Understood	что what	ничего nothing	Explanation
Moscow and Central Russia	[pɐˈnʲatnə] ^ⓘ	[ʂto] ^ⓘ	[nʲɪtɕɪˈvo] ^ⓘ	Unstressed /o/ becomes [ɐ] or [ə]. ⟨ч⟩ is pronounced [ʂ]. Intervocalic ⟨г⟩ is pronounced [v].
The North	ponjatno	što	ničevo
Old St. Petersburg	panjatna	čto	ničego
The South	panjatna	što	ničevo
Source: ^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b Rough Guide Phrasebook: Russian (Updated ed.). London: Penguin. 2012. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9781405390576.
^ Sokolʹskiĭ, A. A. (1966). A history of the Russian language. Impr. Taravilla. p. 106.
^ Винокур, Григорий Осипович (1971). The Russian language; a brief history. Translated by Forsyth, Mary A. Edited by James Forsyth. Cambridge University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780521079440.
^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Russian Language". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 913–914.

[Rough_Guide_Phrasebook-1] Rough Guide Phrasebook: Russian (Updated ed.). London: Penguin. 2012. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9781405390576.

[2] Sokolʹskiĭ, A. A. (1966). A history of the Russian language. Impr. Taravilla. p. 106.

[3] Винокур, Григорий Осипович (1971). The Russian language; a brief history. Translated by Forsyth, Mary A. Edited by James Forsyth. Cambridge University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780521079440.

[4] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Russian Language". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 913–914.

[1]