Moscow dialect

{{Short description|Dialect of the Russian language}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Moscow dialect

| familycolor = indo-european

| altname = Moscow accent

| nativename = Московское произношение

| pronunciation = {{ipa|mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ}}

| region = Moscow

| speakers =

| date =

| ref =

| fam2 = Balto-Slavic

| fam3 = Slavic

| fam4 = East Slavic

| fam5 = Russian

| ancestor = Proto-Indo-European

| ancestor2 = Proto-Balto-Slavic

| ancestor3 = Proto-Slavic

| ancestor4 = Old East Slavic

| stand1 =

| script = Russian alphabet

| nation =

| isoexception = dialect

| linglist =

| lingua =

| ietf = ru-u-sd-rumow

| image =

| imagealt =

| imagecaption =

| map =

| mapcaption =

| coordinates =

}}

The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent ({{langx|ru|Московское произношение|Moskovskoye proiznosheniye}}, {{IPA|ru|mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ|IPA}}), sometimes Central Russian,{{cite book|title=Rough Guide Phrasebook: Russian|year=2012|publisher=Penguin|location=London|isbn=9781405390576|pages=16–17|edition=Updated}} 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,{{cite book|last=Sokolʹskiĭ|first=A. A.|title=A history of the Russian language|year=1966|publisher=Impr. Taravilla|page=106}}{{sfn|Matthews|2013|p=144|loc="Linguistically the period from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century inclusive saw the gradual emergence of Moscow Russian, a dialectal type which geography and history were to endow with both North and South Russian characteristics"}} the Moscow dialect is the basis of the Russian literary language.{{cite book |first=Григорий Осипович |last=Винокур |translator-first=Mary A. |translator-last=Forsyth |others=Edited by James Forsyth |title=The Russian language; a brief history |year=1971 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521079440 |page=[https://archive.org/details/russianlanguageb00vino/page/15 15] |url=https://archive.org/details/russianlanguageb00vino/page/15 }}

Overview

The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica wrote:{{EB1911|noprescript=1|noicon=1|wstitle=Russian Language |pages=913–914}}

{{blockquote|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 {{Transliteration|ru|o}} as {{Transliteration|ru|a}}, but in the {{Transliteration|ru|jo}} for accented {{Transliteration|ru|e}} before a hard consonant it is akin to the North and it has also kept the northern pronunciation of {{Transliteration|ru|g}} instead of the southern {{Transliteration|ru|h}}. So too unaccented {{Transliteration|ru|e}} sounds like {{Transliteration|ru|i}} or {{Transliteration|ru|ji}}. }}

History

In the 15th century, the Moscow dialect was similar to the northern Russian dialects in its phonological system, except that, unlike now, it was not characterized by the ts–ch merger peculiar to Novgorod Russian.{{sfn|Matthews|2013|p=144}} It shared the phonetic and grammatical features of Rostov-Suzdal and Vladimir Russian, which were part of the Vladimir-Volga subdialect of northern Russian.{{sfn|Matthews|2013|p=145}} The changes in the system of sounds in Russian during the Moscow period (15th to 17th centuries) primarily include the spread of akanye, as well as the preservation of certain pronunciations of 'e' before hard consonants in the 'ecclesiastical style', the complete merging of 'е' and 'ѣ', and the sporadic use of {{IPA|ru|ɣ|}} for {{IPA|ru|ɡ|}} in a small number of words.{{sfn|Matthews|2013|p=145}}

Examples

class="wikitable"

! Dialect

| понятно
Understood

| что
what

| ничего
nothing

| Explanation

Moscow and Central Russia

| {{IPA|ru|pɐˈnʲatnə

Ru-понятно.ogg}}

| {{IPA|ru|ʂto

Ru-что2.ogg}}

| {{IPA|ru|nʲɪtɕɪˈvo

Ru-ничего.ogg}}

| Unstressed {{IPA|/o/}} becomes {{IPA|ru|ɐ

} or {{IPA|ru|ə|}}.
{{angle bracket|ч}} is pronounced {{IPA|ru|ʂ|}}.
Intervocalic {{angle bracket|г}} is pronounced {{IPA|ru|v|}}.

|-

| The North

| ponjatno

| što

| ničevo

|

|-

| Old St. Petersburg

| panjatna

| čto

| ničego

|

|-

| The South

| panjatna

| što

| ničevo

|

|-

| colspan="5" style="text-align: center;" | Source:

|}

References

{{reflist}}

Sources

  • {{cite book |last1=Matthews |first1=William Kleesman |title=The Structure and Development of Russian |date=August 2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-61939-5 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/yW4oAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt0JKDj7WLAxWNWEEAHZR8BAAQ7_IDegQIChAC |language=en}}

Category:Russian dialects

Category:Culture in Moscow

Category:City colloquials