Dialects (and accents) of Russian

[panzeleche.livejournal.com]

Hello, once again, and thanks for the question regarding that previous piece of vocabulary. This community is awesome.

I have a question now about Russian as it is spoken around the world. Are there accents and/or dialects specific to Russian spoken in the Eastern Europe post-Soviet states (Ukraine, Belarus, etc.)?
What about Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.)? I can't seem to find much about that, but seeing that apparently 95% of Kazakhstan speaks Russian, I'd be interested in knowing if there are any differences.
I'm also interested in knowing about Russian in the east, such as in Sibera (I've heard that there are some native Siberian languages unrelated to Russian; does this perhaps influence how these people speak Russian?)
I've been informed that Russian throughtout Russia sounds more or less the same except for Okanye, Yakanye, and some other '-kanye's.
Basically, I'm interested in how Russian varies from country to country, or even from region to region. There is suprisingly little on this (or perhaps my Search-fu is weak).

A gazillion thanks to everyone who responds! :D

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Turmenistan and Tyrgystan do not exist, you probably meant Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.

[earth-blue.livejournal.com]

I guess "Tyrgystan" = Tajikistan

[panzeleche.livejournal.com]

Whoops.
That was silly of me; sorry.
I'll be sure to correct the original post.

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

I have not heard lots of Ukrainians who spoke with an obvious accent. I'm pretty sure they exist, but I don't have much to say about it.

Here is a sample of Armenian accent.



Pay attention, at about 2:00-4:00, the tenser he gets, the stronger his accent. :)

I know only one Lithuanian and he speaks clear, but very softly and totally intonationsless.

I know few people from Kazakhstan, they are all native Russian speakers and I cannot tell where they're from solely by speech.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

From my experience, very few urban Kazakhs actually know Kazakh, and even less can speak it fluently. Northern Kazakhstan was added to the republic rather arbitrarily in Soviet times, and the majority of its population are ethnic Russians, who speak West-Siberian dialect. Most ethnic Kazakhs from that area are heavily russified and do not differ from Russians linguistically.

[surkova.livejournal.com]

throughout the country, apart from, perhaps, Caucasian Republics (the souther a region the stronger accents could be — it works for any country), Russian sounds more or less the same. I bet you woundn't notice even okanye and akanye (not yakanye) ;)

[staring-frog.livejournal.com]

yakanye is different from akanye. Yakanye is when the words like "lyetyet'" are pronounced as "lyatet'"

[surkova.livejournal.com]

Being a native Russian speaker, I haven't heard yakanye in my life! :) Where is it a common practice of speaking?

[staring-frog.livejournal.com]

See the map down in the thread :)

[milka-why.livejournal.com]

When I moved to Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) in the eighties, I was extremely surprised to hear many educated people pronounce "объЯвление", "заЯвление", "запЯтая", "девЯносто" without any reduction. But when we were sent to the countryside to gather potatoes ("на картошку"), I undestood what real yakanye was. People there used to say "вядро", "бяжать" etc.

[surkova.livejournal.com]

wow! =) I was born in Chelyabinsk region, so I often say 'чё?' instead of 'что?' :) anyway, I think it's extremely clear even for non-natives. ;)

[milka-why.livejournal.com]

I also sometimes find myself saying "чё?" and feel ashamed:) I don't think it's dialectal in my speach, though I may be mistaken.

[surkova.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in your speech it's not dialectal ;) in mine it definitely is ;) By the way, after 6 years in Moscow region I often find myself pronouncing words with Moscow akanye =)

[dr-shinigami.livejournal.com]

I can also add the Ukranian version "шо?" to this.))

[staring-frog.livejournal.com]

Btw, a good example of "yakan'ye" from Great Russian Writer Gorchev
http://dimkin.livejournal.com/427904.html?mode=reply

He lives in a small village near Pskov, so there are plenty examles in his journal.

[furious-rabbit.livejournal.com]

Very often accent depends on education and personal culture level than geography. Thus for example a next door neighbour can speak russian worse than Ukrainian. By the was, West-Ukraine and East-Ukraine differs from each others like different countries.

Sometimes russians from different cities use different words for the same things. For example people in Saint-Petersburg use "парадная" and "подъезд" is used insted of this in Moscow.

I have visited Caucasia and Kola Peninsula and didn't notice any serious distinctions except several vowel sounds. But I've heard that in some god-forsaken villages Russian sounds really unusual.

[alon_68]

Are you interested in dialects or accents? They are two quite different things. There were lots of people in the USSR who were not native speakers of Russian, but had to use it in everyday life. Such are, for example, most of Georgians, Armenians, Lithuanians... Obviously, they speak Russian with some degree of accent and specific peculiarities. On the other hand, there are many people that switched from their genuine languages to Russian even in the family life, so that younger generations can be considered native speakers of Russian. Such are, e.g., many Ukrainians, Belorussians, Kazakhs, Moldovans. Besides that there are many ethnic Russians that live or used to live in those republics. They always used Russian but sometimes their speech bears some specific regional markers.

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

Not exactly you asked for, but still interesting:

[surkova.livejournal.com]

1914! After 1937 everything has changed, hasn't it?

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

Hawt.

[bambino-lives.livejournal.com]

Your reply made me laugh out loud.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Siberian accent is not exactly related to native Siberian languages unless it's a native speaking; Buryats of Altaiers or Tuvans definitely speak with heavy accent, but it does not directly affect the local Russians.
Note that in 21st century Siberia, the traces of local dialects (formed while back in the 17th century, Russian settlers from different regions of "core" Russia would bring their dialects to their new area of residence and then mix) disappear quickly, as the influence of TV speech (based on Moscow speech) eliminates former local differences.

As of former Soviet republics, the local Russian's speech is, to a certain extent, affected by local native tongues; less so in Baltic countries (where local Russians tend to speak "normative" Russian, not very influenced by the local's obvious accent when locals speak Russian,) more so in Caucasian countries -- you can almost always tell a Russian from Baku, Azerbaijan, or from Tbilisi, Georgia (however rare breed as they are nowadays,) from a Russian from "core" Russia.

The only really distinctive Russian dialect still in wide use is Southern; people from Eastern Ukraine (whose native language is, in absolute majority of cases, Russian) sound different even if then have no direct Ukrainian accent or use no Ukrainian words, but the thing is that most of them do have Ukrainian accent (singsong up-and-down intonation, soft "fricative" G sound etc.) and do use some Ukrainian words (шо instead of что, та instead of да etc.). Even in "core" Russia's Southern part, especially closer to Ukrainian border (Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov oblasts, Krasnodar krai,) many people do speak with distinctive Southern accent.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

How good is your Russian? You might try asking at ru_dialectology. They could point you to some sources for reading. I know there have been many books published in Russia on the subject of Russian dialects. A search of my library for Russian language + dialects came up with 219 books (http://search1.library.utoronto.ca/UTL/index?formName=search_form_advanced&N=4294956262+4294273988&Nu=p_work_normalized&Np=1&)
There is also the enormous Диалектологический атлас русского языкa and Кузнецов, П.С. Русская Диалектология. (there are a few editions)


For a general discussion of language contact, see Sankoff, Gillian. "Linguistic Outcomes of Language Contact." In: Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Peter Trudgill et al., eds. 2001. (I have a pdf of this paper, if you're interested I'll send it to you.)

[dr-shinigami.livejournal.com]

I can add only some examples from my experience...

Moscow & St. Petersburgh lexics differ a lot. For example, the edge of the pavement is called "поребрик" in St. Petersburgh and "бордюр" in Moscow region.

There are differently used consonants in the Ukranian accent. The most noticable is the difference in pronouncing the letter "Г". Russians pronounce it firmly, like "g" in "gang", and Ukrainan version is more like loud "h" in... erm... for example, "comprehend". You actually have to hear it to understand.))

And, as for your question about Siberian dialects... you know, people from Siberia, as written above in wolk_off comment, are strongly influenced by TV speech; nevertheless, Russians can notice the slight difference in speed of speech and in making accents in words. Add to this, that Siberians usually pronounce vowels a bit longer.

[alan-steel.livejournal.com]

"Are there accents and/or dialects specific to Russian spoken in the Eastern Europe post-Soviet states (Ukraine, Belarus, etc.)?"

There are, but its nothing compared to, say, regular English and yankee dialect. But beware, Ukraine and Belarus have their own languages though.

"What about Central Asia" - They speak Russian more or less well, cause most of them already forgot their native languages.

"I've heard that there are some native Siberian languages unrelated to Russian; does this perhaps influence how these people speak Russian?"

No, it does not.

"There is suprisingly little on this"

That is because it doesn't change much. It surprises me as well, considering there's a few dialects in Germany and France, where people live (relatively) close to each other and are supposed to talk the same language.