Southern Russian is one of the main groups of

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

dialects.

Territory

* The territory of the ''primary formation'' (i.e. that consists of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is entirely 11 modern regions (''oblasts''):

Belgorod Belgorod ( rus, Белгород, p=ˈbʲeɫɡərət) is a city and the administrative center of Belgorod Oblast, Russia, located on the Seversky Donets River north of the border with Ukraine. Population: Demographics The population of B ...

Bryansk Bryansk ( rus, Брянск, p=brʲansk) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Desna (river), River Desna, southwest of Moscow. Population: Geography Urban la ...

, Kaluga,

Kursk Kursk ( rus, Курск, p=ˈkursk) is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German stru ...

Lipetsk Lipetsk ( rus, links=no, Липецк, p=ˈlʲipʲɪtsk), also romanized as Lipeck, is a city and the administrative center of Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Voronezh River in the Don basin, southeast of Moscow. Populat ...

, Oryol,

Ryazan Ryazan ( rus, Рязань, p=rʲɪˈzanʲ, a=ru-Ryazan.ogg) is the largest city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 Cens ...

Smolensk Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest ...

Tambov Tambov (, ; rus, Тамбов, p=tɐmˈbof) is a city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, central Russia, at the confluence of the Tsna and Studenets Rivers, about south-southeast of Moscow. Population: 280,161 ( 2010 Census); 29 ...

, Tula,

Voronezh Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on ...

; and some southern parts of 3 regions:

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, Pskov, and

Tver Tver ( rus, Тверь, p=tvʲerʲ) is a city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is northwest of Moscow. Population: Tver was formerly the capital of a powerful medieval state and a model provincial town in the Russian ...

* The territory of the ''second formation'' (i.e. where Russians settled after the 16th century) consists of most of the land of lower

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

and

Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...

, the

Northern Caucasus The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...

, as well as Southern

Ural Ural may refer to: *Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan * Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India *Ural Federal District, in Russia *Ural econ ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

, and

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

Phonology

* Unstressed undergoes different degrees of vowel reduction mainly to (strong

akanye Akanye or akanje ( be, аканне, russian: а́канье, ), literally "''a''-ing", is a sound change in Slavic languages in which the phonemes or are realized as more or less close to . It is a case of vowel reduction. The most familiar ...

), less often to , , . * Unstressed , , following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to (like in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced in such positions (e.g. несли is pronounced , not ) – this is called yakanye/яканье. * Fricative instead of the Standard and Northern . Soft is usually . * Semivowel in the place of the Standard and Northern and final . * where the Standard and Northern have . * Prosthetic before and stressed : ''во́кна, ву́лица'', Standard Russian ''окна, улица'' "windows, street". * Prosthetic before and : ''етот'', ''ентот'', Standard Russian ''этот'' "this". * In Pskov (southern) and

sub-groups only one

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

affricate exists. Merging of Standard Russian and into one consonant whether or .

Morphology

* Palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects): ''он ходить, они ходять'' "he goes, they go" * Occasional dropping of the 3rd person ending at all: ''он ходи, они ходя'' "he goes, they go" * Oblique case forms of personal pronouns ''мяне́, табе́, сабе́'' instead of Standard Russian ''мне, тебе, себе'' "me, you, -self".

Relation to other languages

Some of these features such as akanye/yakanye, a debuccalized or

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...

, a semivowel , and palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

(Eastern

Polesia Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and historical region that starts from the farthest edge of Central Europe and encompasses Eastern Europe, including East ...

n), indicating a linguistic continuum.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

* М.О. Garder, N.S. Petrova, А.B. Moroz, А.B. Panova, N.R. Dobrushina
Corpus of Spiridonova Buda dialect
2018. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, HSE. * A.V. Ter-Avanesova, F.A. Balabin, S.V. Dyachenko, A.V. Malysheva, V.A. Morozova
Corpus of the Malinino dialect
2019. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE. URL; Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. * A.V. Ter-Avanesova, S.V. Dyachenko, E.V. Kolesnikova, A.V. Malysheva, D.I. Ignatenko, A.B. Panova, N.R. Dobrushina
Corpus of Rogovatka dialect
2018. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE. Russian dialects {{Russia-stub