Russian dialects

[justjustin09.livejournal.com]

Hello! I am doing a small presentation on dialects in Russia, and was wondering if anyone here has any information about them; for example what regions are known for which dialects, what the dialects are called, how their pronunciation/vocabulary differs from standard Russian, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :):):)
Thank you!

Comments

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

The sad truth is this: there are not many dialects in modern Russia. Most of them currently reside in god-forsaken villages, where 100% population are seniors. There is nothing as dramatic as in Spain or Germany, and nothing even milder, like in USA, when there is no mistake if someone came from the South.

Yeah, professionals could hear some differences. Mild ones. Not always, only in certain cases.

But there are other ways to find out, who is from where! The vocabulary is different! Did you know Russian language has at least 13 ways to say very? And that they come from different places of the country?

If you can read Russian, here is a good source for your presentation: http://www.gramota.ru/book/village/ .

[retiredwizard.livejournal.com]

Russian is unique: there are no dialects in this language
No. Zero. Null

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

You're not right. There are some. But very, very faint. See link above.

[retiredwizard.livejournal.com]

oh, please :0)

It is impossible to determine from what part of country a person originated based on his/her accent or vocabulary.

For me, it means that such a thing as "dialects" does not exist

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Heh. If someone clearly says unstressed о (окает), can't you say he's from Novgorod? Or if someone speaks very, very, very fast, that he's not from the north of the country? As I said, this are faint differences. Or if someone clearly says я instead of е (якает)?

[retiredwizard.livejournal.com]

this is bullshit
dixi

[oryx_and_crake]

Please mind your language. If you have any arguments to support your point of view, publish them. If not, please abstain from the discussion. Thank you.

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Or if someone speaks Russian, but clearly uses Ukrainian g, could you not tell he's from South?

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, taht is one of the few things I hear, the "gh".

And moscovite say soft "zh" in the word "pozh'e" (Later). And when they say rain they say dosh', in petersburg it's pronounced dosht'.

Question:
I had one friend who, when L was between to consonants said a "w" instead, like the poles. Whas that an accent or was it just her?

[oryx_and_crake]

This must be a speech defect.

[oryx_and_crake]

Also, most muscovites don't say "дощ" any more. That was an old norm that seem to die out with so much TV and radio, and with people coming to Moscow from all over the country to settle down. I was born and bred in Moscow and I say "дошть".

[kunaifusu.livejournal.com]

It's really easy if you had actually heard how people talk in different parts of the country, e.g. everyone outside can tell that someone is from Moscow (I was always surprised as a kid people knew where I am from, when I grew up I learned how to hide it as well) because they hear this accent on TV all the time but people living in Moscow could tell different borough accents. It's also easy to tell people from St.Piterburg, south and north, urban and rural etc. all talk differently, it's really stupid to assume Russian is for some reason different than any other language in the world.

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

well it is different, be cause the differences, all thought they are there, they are unusually small. most laguages have bigger differences.

[kunaifusu.livejournal.com]

I would not say English spoken in USA has bigger differences between regional accents than Russian has across former USSR. It might be bigger for some other languages but this does not turn Russian into the unique accent-less language.

[gemelo.livejournal.com]

The were dialects 150-200 years ago - look at "Наречия великорусского языка" Даль or works by Maximovitch.
The point is Standart Russian is only language, spoken now by Russians, not "Great Russian" (великоруссский) as it used to be. and Great-Russian spoken language had distinct dialects - what remains of them, as far as I know, still can be found in areas like Kola peninsula, Archangelsk region etc.

[medvedkinskaja.livejournal.com]

I can usually tell if someone comes from Moscow. But it might be the attitude, as well as the dialect.

[ex-tritopor.livejournal.com]

Nonsence. North and South speaks quite different. Don't talk rot, please.

[retiredwizard.livejournal.com]

it is nothing, comparing to English or German.

[aristophan.livejournal.com]

but it's not dialects they speaks

[thespinningone.livejournal.com]

don't want to disappoint you but Russian is unlike English, Spanish, German, Irish etc. in this aspect: there're no dialects. only some minor alterations in pronuncation and some (few) local words, used in this or that region. all Russian-speakers understand each other perfectly.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

Well, accents do differ. For instance, in the South a lot of people tend to pronounce the [g] sound as [γ].

In the North some people (only elderly ones, I guess) don't make reduction and pronounce unstressed vowels as they are spelled. That it, they literally call a cow "korova" and not "karova".
There's a common joke about Moscow accent: those from other regions often say Muscovites pronounce the [a] sound in unstressed positions too strongly. Like, it's supposed to be like the English neutral sound in doctOR, evER etc. And we reportedly say not [Məsk'va] but [mAsk'va]:))

Some dialectal words include "виктория" for strawberry instead of "клубника" and "кочет" for a rooster instead of "петух".

Hope that's helpful...

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Кочет is ukrainism, no? Same as [].

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

This [γ] thing is the literary norm for Ukranian but a dialect form for Russian. And it is spread in the southern regions precisely because these are border regions and there're lots of contacts with Ukranian.

Can't help you with Кочет, though:)

[zverolov.livejournal.com]

In ukranian Кочет means rowlock.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

And I forgot to mention that in Russian, unlike Spanish, for example, dialectal forms are considered deviations from the language norm, and a person whose speech is obviously regional is looked down on since it's a sign of little education. Like, no chance to get a job on television or radio (if no humoristic effect is sought on purpose, that is) or any job that involves speaking in public.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

what does [γ] sound like?

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Say город. Notice that when you begin pronouncing г your tongue first touches the top of your mouth in the back and the throat is blocked. Then you open the throat and continue. Now, try saying город without having the throat completely blocked by the tongue. The tongue should probably be in some middle position back in the mouth. The result of pronouncing город will now be somewhat between город and хород. I think the key difference between the three consonant sounds can be described this way:
г - voiced (with sound from vocal cords), begins with throat obstructed by the tongue
γ - voiced, begins with throat NOT obstructed by the tongue
х - UNvoiced (without sound from vocal cords), begins with throat NOT obstructed by the tongue
and we can add к to the picture:
к - UNvoiced, begins with throat obstructed by the tongue

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

ok, thank you!

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

Spmething like Irish "gh", perhaps? Or voiced "h".

[dvanoltri.livejournal.com]

There is an opinion, that ukrainian and belorussian languages are malorussian and belorussian dialects of russian. According to russian wiki, russian itself can be devided into dialect zones, southern, northern and middle.(And it really can).

Wiki (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D1%8B_%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B0)

Little dialect differences can be found in different regions of Russia, but they are always mild. For example, between Moscow and Sankt-Peterburg there are some lexical dialectal differences: in Moscow home entrance is called подъезд, in SPb парадное, bread stick in Moscow батон, in SPb булка, border (of sidewalk) in Moscow бордюр, in SPb поребрик.

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

"The difference between a language and a dialect is the presence of standart and army." :D

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

hehe i think that if i ever told my mom that she spoke a dialect of russian, she would probably not speak to me for a week or more.

i don't know much about ukrainian, but belarusian language is an issue very fraught with politics.

[dvanoltri.livejournal.com]

Ukrainian language is also closely connected with politics. It seems to me that even more then belorussian.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

why do you think so?

http://www.belarus-misc.org/bel-ling2.htm#top

[dvanoltri.livejournal.com]

And some info from google-search(in russian unfortunately)

http://ruslang.karelia.ru/file.php/id/f7341-doc_file-original.file/text_8.doc - shortly about main differences of large dialect groups
http://195.98.73.251/method/works2004/vorobjevka_rn/ponomareva.ppt interesting vivid presentation about dialects
http://en101trainer.com/index.php?pid=803 short article about them

[katherinka.livejournal.com]

Something about dialect words. It was a sort of questioning on "Echo of Moscow"
http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/speakrus/42726/q.html

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

You mean there are people who say "включи́т"? This is horrible!

"Cве́рлит" doesn't set my teeth on edge but I prefer "сверли́т"

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I'd say:
(по)звОнит or (по)звонИт (I don't seem to have a preference here)
вклЮчит (включИт sounds bad to me)
свЕрлит (сверлИт sounds bad to me)
But like I said, being a native speaker doesn't necessarily mean speaking correctly. That's, btw, how one can spot a spy -- they might speak better than native speakers :)

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

True, except I have yet to meet a non-native speaker who had mastered the language so perfectly that the only mark of his origin were too correct Russian. It's not just pronunciation; there's also idiom. I'm not saying it's impossible; I just haven't encountered it.

English seems easier in this respect. Joseph Conrad did it.

[inept-fabricato.livejournal.com]

it is minor but still exists. my grand mother was from siberia and sometimes i didn't understand what she was talking about.

[adri-nwnderland.livejournal.com]

I think there are many different linguistic blends of Russian from former soviet republics. The uzbek russian is so fun, as is the russian they speak in Ukraine. I lived near Kyiv and most people speak 'russian' or think they do there, but it is very different than the Russian in Russia proper. I speak Surzhik, which is considered a dirty mix of Ukrainian and Russian. Russians think I sound like a villager, Ukrainians think I am not proud enough to try and speak real Ukrainian.
I mean, it's all very complicated if you take all the places where Russian is spoken by the diaspora or because of Russification practices during soviet times. Kazakhstan, Belarus as mentioned, Ukraine and so on... But compared to English for example, Russian is way more standardized for some reason. I read a lot about the Soviet standardization of language and maybe that has something to do with it. It's all very interesting really, I'd like to read your paper when you are finished.

[adri-nwnderland.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolect

I think there is some interesting research being done regarding sociolects as well, such as prisoners, isolated villages, etc.

[kunaifusu.livejournal.com]

Since people in Russia usually stay where they have been born every region has its own accent. Moscow's accent is the most known, St. Piterburg people can be always laughed at for their accent yet they insist on their "поребрик", "парадное", "круа" etc. It's also complicated by the fact that after USSR there has not been an authority to set forth the standard so the new words adopted in the last 20 years or so are really a mess, for instance half of the country says "суси" and another "суши" or "ньюсмэйкер" could mean 'a newsmaker' in one newspaper and 'someone who copies news from internet' in another.

[brotighan.livejournal.com]

Maybe not strictly concerning the point, but still:
when I was about 7-8 y.o., I was sent to a summer-camp located near Koktebel (Planerskoye back then), Ukraine. It was a camp designed for childen of professionals of the State Institute Of Fluid Dinamic Theory, which itself is located near Zhukovsky (Moscow region) and had a research station near Koktebel. My mother was a laborer of the station and we lived nearby, so I had a chance to get sent there, but most of the children were moscovites and Moscow suburbans.
When I spoke to them in my usual manner, almost nobody was able to catch what I was saying at the first try, so I needed to repeat the whole thing. It seemed to them I spoke very fast. I always understood their speech, but as for me it was unreasonably slow and prolate in vowels.
One more thing about interjections. When I get painfully hit by smth, I'm used to say "Ой!" or "Ай!". I was suprised to discover my fellows were saying "Уйя!". What did that mean? Since that I've never heard it.
But we pulled together well :)
When I got back home two months later, my mother flung her arms up: "What happened to ur language, dear?".

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deja_vue_/]

Hi, I can give you some information about dialects in Russia, if you need more, just ask, I have also the whole course of dialectology in Russian.
There are 3 dialect zones: northern, middle and southern, which include different dialects. Here are their names in Russian:
Севернорусское наречие: Ладого-тихвинские (запад), Архангельские (центр), Вологодско-Костромские (восток) говоры.
Среднерусское наречие: Новгородские, Псковские (запад), говоры центра, Владимирско-Поволжские (восток).
Южнорусское наречие: Смоленские (запад), Тульские, Курско-Орловские (центр), Рязанские (восток).
Vocalism:
These are the dialects with "оканье":
Northern dialects: "полное оканье" - they pronounce "o" like [o] and "a" like [a] in all positions.
Владимирско-Поволжские and Новгородские: reduction in the first pretonic syllable (for example [мълоко]).
The dialects with "аканье" (when they pronounce "o" and "a" like [a]):
all the rest.
Consonantism:
There are some differences with soft consonants for example, but the fundamental one is in pronunciation of "г":
Northern and Middle dialects: [г]
Southern: [γ] (fricative, like Russian [х] voiced)
One more difference: Southern-western dialects people pronounce [хв] instead of [ф].