Russian dialects

Russian dialects are spoken variants of the Russian language.

Map of the Russian dialects of the primary formation (Northern is dark green, Central is light green, Southern is red)

Territory

All the Russian dialects are divided in two principal chronological and geographic groups:

1. The dialects of the territory of the primary formation, which consist of "Old" Russia of the 16th century (before the Eastern conquests by Ivan the Terrible) and roughly correlate with the modern Central and Northwestern Federal districts.
2. The dialects of the territory of the second formation, where Russians settled after the 16th century.

Classification

1. Northern Russian

• Pomor (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk)
• Ladoga-Tikhvin
• Transitional groups: Onega, Lacha, Belozersk-Bezhetsk
• Vologda
• Kostroma-Yaroslavl

2. Central Russian

• Western

• Groups with okanye (Gdov, Luga, Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Valday)
• Groups with akanye (Pskov, Velikiye Luki, Toropets, Rzhev, Torzhok)

• Eastern

• Groups with okanye (Tver, Klin, Sergiev Posad, Vladimir, Suzdal, Rostov, Ivanovo, Murom, Nizhny Novgorod)
• Groups with akanye (Moscow, Kasimov, Temnikov)

• Chukhloma enclave (with akanye)

3. Southern Russian

• Western (Bryansk, Smolensk, southern parts of Pskov and Tver)
• Transitional group A (Mosalsk, Kozelsk, Zhizdra, Karachev, Sevsk, Rylsk)
• Central (Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol)
• Transitional group B (Serpukhov, Kolomna, Kaluga, Tula, Elets, Stary Oskol)
• Eastern (Lipetsk, Tambov, Ryazan, Voronezh).

Isoglosses

Isogloss	North Russian	Standard Russian	South Russian
Unstressed /o/	[o]	[ɐ~ə]	[a~ɐ~ə~ɨ]
Unstressed /e/, /a/, /o/ after palatalized consonants	[ɪ], [e]	[ɪ]	[æ] (pre-stressed), [ɪ]
/a/	[ɡ]	[ɡ]	[ɣ]
/v/	[v]	[v]	[w~u̯]
/f/	[f]	[f]	[x~xv~xw]
Present 3 p. sg. & pl.	/t/	/t/	/tʲ/
Past sg. masc.	/v/[n 1]	/l/	/l/
Prothetic /v/?	no	no[n 2]	yes
Hardening of final soft labials	no	no	yes

Notes

1. In the dialect of Vologda
2. Except for восемь ('eight') and some other words

Vocabulary

Russian dialects usually preserve many archaic words and forms which dropped out of use or were replaced with Church Slavonic counterparts. In North Russian there are about 200 words of Uralic origin.

References

• Sussex, Roland; Cubberley, Paul (2006). "Dialects of Russian". The Slavic languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 521–526. ISBN 978-0-521-22315-7.