Moscovian dialect
The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent (Russian: Московское произношение, tr. 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 the jo for accented o 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 I see |
что what |
ничего nothing |
Explanation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Moscow and Central Russia | [pɐˈnʲatnə] (listen) | [ʂto] (listen) | [nʲɪtɕɪˈvo] (listen) | 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
- 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.