Dialect of the Russian language spoken in Moscow
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
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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]
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References